I hear quite a few cyclists, not just racers; say I wish I was faster in the hills or the flats. When its someone I know I ask what are you doing to reach this goal? The usual answer is I am riding more or contemplating purchasing lighter wheels or even a lighter bike. Yes a lighter bike will help some but the best investment you make is in you. You are the engine that powers the goal of going faster!

When I start making recommendations for strength training the first comment I get, before finishing usually, is I don’t want to get bigger. A coach once told me the more muscle mass you carry the more there is to hurt. Irrelevant but funny.

The other issue I run into is that many cyclists make assumptions about their performance on the bike. Some cyclists may have developed their VO2 Max, Lactate Threshold, Force Production and have recruited all the Fast Twitch muscle fibers they have or maybe not. This is the whole point; they have not tested to learn what their weakness is. They may find that actually instead of training a weakness they have been training a strength. So how does one truly find out what their weakness is? We test, then we test again and then we test some more. Fitness tests do not have to be expensive as a matter of fact there are tests to cover each and every thing I have mentioned above that can be done in the field or at home on your trainer.

Myth number 1 I get to hear over and over again about cyclists developing strength is that lifting weights is bad for a cyclist or that lifting weights is great for cyclist. In reality both are correct. There are different reasons for cyclists to lift weights for part of the season or even all season long. So which one is it for you? Depending on age, health, former injuries, the type of cyclist you are, you’re goals and what fitness tests have discovered about your current fitness is what will determine the kind of weight training program you should or should not undertake. Long sentence I know but I am trying to make a point. There is quite a bit that must be understood before jumping into a weight training program for any cyclist.

Myth number 2 I encounter is that stretching won’t make me faster. While the act of stretching itself will not make an impact on the development of pedal force it will do quite a bit for performance! Those who have read my articles and know me know I am huge proponent of stretching whenever I can. I also have been known to say “A flexible rider is a confident rider and a confident rider is a fast and safe rider.” Stretching first and foremost serves to functions to the cyclist: Flexibility and Recovery. Flexibility allows the cyclist to maintain a more relaxed position on the bike when others would grimace at the thought of riding in the drops into a headwind for an hour straight. Stretching for recovery allows the body to begin the healing process after a long hard ride or race. It also allows for muscle fibers to be elongated which I have been told allows for greater recruitment of slow twitch muscle fibers. I am not sure how much I believe this but I do know that once I stretch 10, 15, 30 minutes after a race or training ride I feel better, I sleep better and I perform better the next day.

Myth number 3 I hear from time to time is that such and such new DVD training program is exactly what I need to get stronger. Yes you will get stronger but you could also get injured or make yourself sick. Do not forget to consult with a Doctor before taking on any training program regardless of age or sex. While I do several of the things outlined in some of these DVDs I do not do them at the intensity, length or frequency described in their commercials. Don’t get me wrong there are some fantastic training DVDs for cyclists and non cyclists alike. Before you invest your hard earned money ask around and see who has tried them and see what results they have gotten.

I have left out quite a few other methods for developing strength such as, Meditation, Core Work, Yoga, and Pilates. While I do not have direct experience with Pilates I have been told it can be an alternative to Yoga. I have found that meditation will clear my head and allow me to focus better on the upcoming race goals and reduce race day jitters. I know meditation doesn’t make my muscles stronger but sometimes all that you have left is your mind to convince your body to work harder. Core work is something all cyclists need to invest time in. Core development will make for smoother and more powerful cyclist! I can’t begin to share enough on this subject. It has helped me immensely. The Yoga I have done from time-time along with Core and stretching has helped me to become more balanced and less twitchy in Criteriums when the pressure is on.

I think it’s pretty obvious by now that I have not prescribed any training program to anyone in the article. Instead I have described some training methodologies and potential means for getting stronger and faster. Sometimes it’s better to be able to ask a good question then to be given an uninformed answer. To this point seek out the help of professionals, teammates with experience or friends with experience in the above types of training. I have been lifting weights since I was 13 years old and yes I have injured myself more than once. I now work with a Strength Coach when planning my season or when I have questions about developing some new aspect of strength. I also have tried many other programs on core and flexibility training. It wasn’t until I started working with a Sports Medicine Doctor a couple of years ago that I was able to repair some imbalances and begin to truly reap the rewards of a core and flexibility program. I also have a teammate who has been a Yoga Practitioner for years and have hit him up several times on what makes for correct posture in many of the poses and found several times I was doing it wrong.

If you are confused further by the above I completely understand! It has taken me years to get as far as I have in my understanding of developing my fitness for racing and sometimes just so I can train harder. If you find yourself asking more and more questions and finding fewer and fewer questions or worse not meeting your goals it’s time to speak with a Cycling Coach.

First call is on me! TO learn more about what a cycling coach can do for you contact me Rob Grissom at (502) 509-7624 or Rob@PositivePerformance.com

Have a great week and ride some new roads.

I’m just guessing you’re at Rob’s blog because you are a bicyclist.  I’m a good guesser, so I am also guessing that you are an adult with competing responsibilities and interests, and that finding time to train is hard as hell.

I hear you; I feel your pain.

My husband and I ride for endurance.  Neither of us are known for our speed, but we are still holding our “first hour” pace at hour five, when we have the time to train.

But there’s the rub.  Finding the time to train.

I have three teenagers at home – and yes, I want to donate them  to another family a lot of the time.  I own a business and work full time.  I write novels, and I have a rockin’ blog. And I happen to adore my husband and like to spend time with him as well.  Like you, I’ve got a lot going on.

I’m no expert on your life, so I can’t imagine how you manage to squeeze it all in.  I will tell you how we do it, in case our experience helps you at all. We deem training both urgent and important, and we eliminate all the non-urgent, non-important stuff from our lives to make room for it.  Sounds like hopeless babble, I know.    But it works.

Here’s how I make training fit.

1.    Schedule races.  Training becomes urgent and time-sensitive when you have a big race coming up.  Never let your calendar become empty.  If I don’t have a race, then, training always slips down the priority list.
2.    Make health and fitness a core family value.  If your kids and other family members never lose sight of the importance of wellness, and you do all that you can to promote theirs, how can they argue the importance of your training?  Go ahead, make a family mission and values statement.  We did.  It works.
3.    Eliminate the crap.  Most people don’t like to hear me say this, but I eliminated all TV except for football from my life.  I also don’t drink alcohol because it dehydrates me and makes it harder to get up early to fit everything in to my day.  I don’t take long lunches with friends.  Making these changes freed up a tremendous amount of time for me.  Find the non-urgent, non-important things in your life, and dump them.
4.    Learn to love your training stand/stationary.  I highly prefer long rides on the open road, taking in the scenery, and smelling the roses.  In the real world, I only have the opportunity to do that once a week on average.  The rest of the time, my beautiful pink Trek Pilot is up on the training stand in the living room.  That way I can ride when it is dark outside, I eliminate driving to and from (lovely) riding spots, and I can remain available to meet my kids’ needs, which brings us to #5.
5.    Multi-task, multi-task, multi-task.   My husband and I discovered that, with the right attitude, training can substitute for date time   We are together and we are doing something we enjoy.  And if the bike is up on the training stand, we can add a third category into our multi-tasking and look over kids’ homework, watch movies, or, in my case, throw a lap desk over the handlebars and write!

We still don’t train as much as we would like to, but we manage to get in enough training time to stay respectable in our distance riding.  Someday, some magical day, the “time” fairy may grant us some more hours for training, but, until  then, we treat training like a heart attack: it’s urgent, it’s important, and we have to force ourselves to take care of it RIGHT NOW.  Instead of calling for an ambulance, we elevate training into a priority position by eliminating the other crap, loving our training stands, and multi-tasking like pros.

See you on the road.

Pamelot

It’s that time of the year where the US start to warm up and the readers of The Coached Cyclist are interested in racing tactics. So with the two in mind I thought I would share my experiences with dealing with heat as a cyclist.

I have used several practical tactics for dealing with the stresses of training and racing in the heat. No magic or complicated sweat evaporation formulas. Just good old common sense approaches to managing heat load.

Let’s break the discussion down to three phases: Pre-Ride, In Ride and Post Ride.

• Pre-Ride heat preparations
  • Stay hydrated
    Drinking plenty of water is the key to doing well during a hot day of training or racing. I will drink the equivalent of 8-12 glasses of water during the work day prior to stepping outdoors for a ride. I also drink 2-3 cups of coffee on top of that and yes once in a while I will have a soft drink (Nasty Habit). To add to even more fluid consumption during the day remember that you may take in as much as 20% of you needed fluids through foods. If you feel hungry reach for the water before you reach for more food! Also make sure you weigh in before heading out, more on this in a bit.
  • Eat properly for the heat
    Do not be surprised if you eat a bunch of food just before you go out to do intervals or hammer in a group ride that you get sick. Meals throughout the day should be small and consumed every 2 hours. The closer you get to your training/race the less “heavy” he foods need to be. I will not eat up to 3 hours before training or racing. Eating 2 hours before training/racing is the absolute minimum amount of time that I know my stomach will empty before I begin a physically demanding effort. I will stick to denser carbs in the morning during a training week and migrate my way into proteins and simple carbs the sooner I get to my time to train. If I am preparing for a priority race I will follow a carb loading regimen the week of the race.
  • Stay Cool
    I know this sounds kind of silly but it’s important to understand that you need to take your rest before a hard effort seriously. If it’s hot outside you need to stay cool. When outside seek shade before the race or training when waiting on others. I will even minimize a warm up when the weather becomes hotter and more humid than usual.
  • Step out for a bit
    On a day I know it’s going to be blazing hot I might take 10-15 minutes and step outside during the work day to see what the weather is like. I like to believe that doing this telegraphs a message to my body – “Hey it’s hot out and you’re going to have to work through it.” Exposing yourself to the heat 5-10 minutes a day with an increase of 5 additional minutes every other day will help you acclimate to the heat. Riding in the winter when its cold also seems to help me better prepare for the hot summers.

• In ride heat mitigation
  • Drink before you need to
    If its blazing hot and you have been on your bike for a while and you are thirsty you are in trouble. I drink every 2-5 minutes when training and racing. I have even heard of athletes who set timer’s on their watches to beep every 5 minutes to warn them they should be drinking. If you remember one thing from this article remember this Drink Before You Need To! If you are thirsty and its hot you have done something wrong and could face mild to severe heat illness before you can get you and your bike home.
  • Drink appropriately
    If I am going out for a ride or race that lasts less than an hour (Excluding Criteriums) I will only bring water along. When I bring water or my sports drink on a hot day I will ice down my drinks. Some athletes I know have also frozen there bottles in advance of riding. The only problem doing this is if it takes too long for the bottles to begin melting to meet the demands of drinking every few minutes. When I start ramping up mileage for training or just getting in a long ride at the end of the season I will take a Camel Back Hydration pack and cram it full of ice and top it off with water. I will also do the same with extra sports bottles and stuff them in my Jersey pockets. It’s a bit chilly at first but I have noticed that my fitness will carry me further during a long ride. It has been proven over and over again that keeping the body’s core temperature above normal levels will degrade performance over time and will lead to heat illnesses. While you’re watching the next stage of your favorite stage race do not be surprised to see the pros wearing cooling vests between warm ups and race starts.
  • Drink your meal
    When the temp soars I will not eat solid food on the bike. Just the thought of it makes my stomach turn. Instead I turn to gels or the new solid gels. What I am talking about are the new in ride nutrition items that are like gummies that have the same ingredients as a liquid gel. I have also been known from time to time to take a banana with me when it’s hot. I have also been known to increase the calories I take in by adding more to sports drink mix to my sports bottles. The key is to make your in ride nutrition easy to handle and easy to digest.
  • Train and race when and where it’s cooler
    Pick times of the day when the temps are much more civilized. Same goes for your races or cycling events. If you are out for a training ride and must ride in the heat plan routes that keep you in the shade of trees and near stores where you can stop and get a drink. If you find yourself out on new roads and running out of fluids check out a church. Many churches will have water taps that you can use to fill a bottle. Word of caution when doing this: If the church is older the water may not have been used in a while so its a wise move to let the water run for a minute or more before putting it in your bottle. If you do this at the same church on a regular basis make sure to donate a little money to the church at the end of the season or you may find they have removed the handle! When the weather has just gotten too hot to race in pack up your bike and head north to cooler weather. You might be surprised at how well you do in different surroundings. I know from past experience what I may think is a manageable temperature others maybe melting

• Post ride cooling down
  • Time to drink some more
    As soon as the ride is over you need to replenish carbs ASAP. It is widely agreed that the first 30 minutes after training and racing is the optimal window to start replenishing your glycogen stores. I know several athletes who swear by drinking Chocolate Milk after training and I am one of them. I must admit that once the weather hits 90F the last thing I want to drink is milk! I have been known to drink a Coke instead but only after races and extreme hammer fests with teammates.
  • Have you drunk enough
    Remember when I suggested that you weigh in before heading out to ride. Weigh in after your ride and compare your before and after weight. Unless you burned more than 3000 calories in your ride your weight loss can mostly be attributed to fluid loss. Do not think for a second that you can just gulp down 4 glasses of water to bring you fluid levels up. It took you X number of hours and minutes to lose it so it will take you X number of hours and minutes longer to replace it. if I was out for 3-4 hours I will fill a glass with water and take a sip every five minutes and continue to do so for up to the time I rode and even up to an additional hour to replace lost fluids.
  • Get cleaned up fast
    If you’re on a training ride or happen to have a team bus with a shower I strongly recommend you get a shower as soon as you get off the bike. Just remember that this should not be a hot shower as it will continue to raise your body’s core temperature and will cause you to sweat longer. Instead start off with a warm shower and decrease the temperature incrementally over 5-10 minutes. I will take focus the cold water on my legs to get the effect of taking an ice plunge. I just started to do this recently and have noticed that my recovery has really improved by doing so. I have also taken the same type of shower later in the day when it’s hot outside to allow my body to better regulate my body temp before going to bed. This has also helped with my restlessness with summer sleeping.

Well there you have it, “Tactics for dealing with heat in training and racing”. If you have other experiences or suggestions on dealing with heat that have helped you share them in the comments section. If you have questions about training, racing and event preparation give me Rob Grissom a call at Positive Performance Coaching (502) 509-7624.
Stay cool and stay smart when racing and training in the heat. Good luck.