Victoria’s Training Programme
Monday
In morning she will do a two and a half hour gym session. To make her cycling more efficient Victoria Pendleton will do a lot of core stability work. If you have a strong body and core you can leave the legs to just concentrate on power and not controlling the stability of the bike. To gain this strength she will do power clean and jerks, squats, bench presses and pull-ups. For the legs she will do Power cleans, leg curls and the main exercise being the squat to build up the most important muscles for the cyclist glutes and quads.
2-5pm At the track for 40 (10k) warm-up (65-7’km) then she sprints behind the motorbike doing 5 flying 100 meter sprints. They are six-and-a-half seconds each trying to get a high cadence (pedalling speed). This is all about explosive power and gaining the best cadence.
Tuesday
In the morning Victoria Pendleton will do 60-90 min’s cycling on the road keeping to a moderate 20 mph on the flat to get her aerobic exercise. If she was to go into the hills it would be too heavy and convert the muscle fibers away from where she needs them. If she is away from Manchester, where she lives and trains, and in an unfamiliar place she will check out a route by car first to check it out for suitability and obstacles, the last thing she needs is to come around a corner and have an accident in some pot holes and be stuck and injured.
2-5pm Warm-up then 3 sets of 4 standing starts plus ride flat out for half a lap after each start.
Wednesday
The morning is stent in the gym again doing free weights then in the afternoon its back on the roads for two hours.
Thursday
60-90 min’s cycling on the road doing a recovery session then its to the track for a very hard painfull day of acceleration training. Victoria will warm-up then x4 accelerations (300-500m) seated or standing like the last 2-3 laps of the keirin race. Its all about maximum effort accelerating away from her opponent from in front or behind from virtually any distance from the finishing line. These can range from 6 1/2 to 30 seconds each.
Friday
Gym time in the morning working on her glues and quads then in the afternoon she works on high candence and speed behind a motorbike (Derny) as in the Keirin. This includes three to five 250 meter laps at speed moving on to 500 meter laps at maximum speed (75km/h) and maximum effort, see video below. It’s this high candence that makes Victoria Pendleton so unique, her natural muscle fibres giving her a speed of movement through muscle contraction.
Below you will see a video of her doing this at 72km/h behind the Derny.
Victoria doing 72km/h behind the Derny
Saturday
Its a half day on a Saturday doing just two hours on the road. The rest of the weekend is resting not even going shopping as standing around will impact on her training. Victoria doesn’t do and running or cross training as this would make her prone to injury because of the high impact nature of it and althogh cyclists have powerful leg muscles they have week tendons.
Sunday rest day
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