Why the Pros Go to Camp
By Chris Carmichael

Every winter, between the end of one season and the beginning of another, professional cycling teams gather for training camps. The Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team, for instance, always came together in Austin, Texas in December and again in Buellton, California in January for the express purpose of starting the season off right. The question many people ask, however, is how dedicated and thorough professionals benefit from training camps in the first place? What’s the difference between training in your hometown and traveling to train as a group?

With the numerous roster changes that occur at the end of every season, a training camp is a good opportunity for teammates to get to know each other before they have to travel and live together for the long months of the racing season. It also gives the staff a chance to refine their routines around race-day activities like cleaning bikes, packing vehicles, feeding riders, and supporting the team on the road. In many ways, a training camp is a dress rehearsal for the season; a chance to experiment with new methods and routines without disrupting a real race day.

For the riders, training camp is a busy week that includes meeting sponsors, talking to the media, posing for innumerable pictures, and of course plenty of hours on the bike. Many times, training camp is also a bit like Christmas morning—you get there with one bag and leave with four filled with your gear for the season.

But outside of working through logistics, public relations, and new equipment, the big benefit of training camp is that it offers riders the opportunity to focus on all aspects of performance in a short period of time. Though they are committed to training when they are at home, camp gives riders a solid block of back-to-back, high-quality rides. Since the rides are supported by team cars, they can ride non-stop for hours instead of having to stop for food or to refill bottles like they have to at home. And since they’re riding with a full contingent of strong peers instead of a few local training buddies, the pace of rides at camp tends to be higher than at home. Because of these factors, the workload of a week at camp is typically about 25% higher than riding a similar number of hours alone.

At a Discovery Channel training camp, rides ranged from generally social two-by-two endurance rides to all-out intervals and races to the top of local climbs. Over the years, teams have realized that to be competitive from the first race of the season, riders need some pre-season refresher rides that simulate race pace and riding in close quarters. A few years ago, after Vjatcheslav Ekimov missed more than half the 2004 season due to injuries, he arrived at the team’s Buellton camp with great fitness but rusty handling skills. He had been riding a trainer or by himself on the road for so many months that he needed a good week of riding shoulder-to-shoulder with his teammates to resharpen the edge that made him one of the best riders in the pro peloton.

Since all their riders are together in one place, many teams also use training camps to evaluate and adjust riders’ positions on their road and time trial bikes. This usually means bringing in bike fit specialists and a field trip to a wind tunnel or velodrome, if one is available. Many teams also bring in nutritionists to examine and adjust riders’ eating habits, especially around pre-, during-, and post-ride nutrition and hydration.

How does this affect your training?
For many years, pro-quality training camps were only available to elite racers. Now, everyday cyclists have access to all the same benefits. Interestingly, compared with the pros, the experience of going to a week- or weekend-long camp has an even greater impact on an amateur rider’s season. Think about it: when was the last time you spent three to seven days focused entirely on becoming a better cyclist? Probably never, right? Well, after hosting over a hundred camps, attended by more than a thousand athletes, what I consistently see is that the amount of interaction, feedback, instruction, and training an athlete experiences during the course of a few days at camp leads to greater long-term improvements in fitness, weight loss, and/or racing performance, than anything else you could do in the same amount of time.

When I was a pro cyclist, and later when I was coaching the US National Team, training camps were an integral part of optimizing performance, and the camps I’ve designed for the public have the same features and deliver the same results. I’m going to be at the CTS Spring Training Camps in Buellton, California, in February, and March, and I encourage anyone looking to have a great 2008 season to join me. And if California’s not your style, check out the full schedule; it’s the best thing you can do for your fitness and performance.

Last Updated: 9/21/2007