Inside Adageo: Part 1

Adageo Energy Pro Cycling team director Josh Horowitz shares his team’s secrets for staying in top form.

TL: What is the team’s training schedule like right now?

JH: Everyone kind of has their own training program and they usually work with their own coaches. Most guys are training 25 to 35 hours a week on the bike and during the race season it’s 100% cycling. There’s no gym time really. In the off-season most of the guys spend some time in the weight room but not during the season.

TL: What makes up the bulk of your training?

JH: Lots and lots of riding. It’s long base miles during the off-season and it’s more about structured intensity and intervals during the season.

TL: What do you focus the most on in the gym?

JH: It’s 90% leg work when you’re in the gym. You’re not doing a lot of upper-body work because you don’t want to even gain a pound of upper-body mass because it’s just going to weight you down on the hills. The guys really stay away from anything that might bulk them up. I do three cycles of weight training during the off-season. The first I call ‘muscular adaptation’ and I do a lot of free weight exercises such as lunges and squats. The idea is to get the body ready for the heavier stuff to come while also strengthening some of the stabilizing muscles that don’t get worked on the bike. The next phase is ‘strength,’ which focuses on low reps, and lots of sets with a very heavy weight. For this I use the leg press and other machines because the weights are too heavy to do with free weights. The last phase is ‘power’ and I use a combination of free weights and machines. The idea with power is to turn the strength into real moving power by doing heavy weights but with lots of reps and lots of sets.

TL: And what about core work?

JH: I like to do plank exercises on the physio ball. That’s my little secret training method, and you can do it during the season. I don’t do it as often as I should, but that’s something you can definitely do during the race season.