Do you find yourself at the beginning of a race or in the race cursing yourself for racing again? Why are you doing this? Feeling edgy? Everyone is to an extent when they first start racing. What has helped me immensely is to race more. I know it sounds silly but once you put your body into the red zone week after week the feeling of dread dissipates with every passing race.

If you can’t find a race every week or can’t cover the cost of racing every week then start looking for some training races. Training races are cheap or free and are usually Criterium based. If you don’t have a weekly training race near you then participate in the fastest group ride you can find. If you can’t find a fast group ride then find people faster than you to ride with.

What it boils down to is that you cannot improve race performance unless you repeatedly put higher intensity training into practice.

Thinking about taking something to ride faster or make you stronger?

Here are links to all of the articles in this series:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Do you find yourself wondering about all the ads in the back of cycling magazines and ads on your favorite web sites about boosting energy, endurance, strength and oxygen levels? I know I have. These advertisements are of course are suspect as far as I am concerned. Why? The Food and Drug Administration does not, I repeat does not regulate the supplement industry like they do the drug industry. Instead dietary supplements are covered under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).

What does this mean for consumers/athletes? The FDA covers how they regulate supplements in this comment from their web site: “Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), the dietary supplement manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that a dietary supplement is safe before it is marketed. FDA is responsible for taking action against any unsafe dietary supplement product after it reaches the market. Generally, manufacturers do not need to register their products with FDA nor get FDA approval before producing or selling dietary supplements. Manufacturers must make sure that product label information is truthful and not misleading.”

So lets read between the lines regarding the above statement from the FDA. What the FDA is saying is that they will only help the consumer after something has gone wrong! The FDA takes years to ensure that the prescription drugs we take here in the USA have been through years of testing before released to consumers. Case in point the very popular weight loss product that had to be pulled from the shelves due to health problems in their customers attributed to there product.

In the coming weeks I will be answering some of the typical questions about supplements for cycling.  I like to cover these types of research articles by covering the Who, what, when, why, where and how questions that we all have about decisions. This being said below you will see the questions I am going to unravel.

What is supplementation?

What are the risks associated with supplements?

Why supplement?

When to supplement?

Who should supplement?

How are supplements viewed by the drug agencies?

What supplements to take?

Here are links to all of the articles in this series:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Do you find that you fit your bike well but your hands are tired or sore at the end of a ride? You may not be switching your hand position often enough. Doing this will release tension in your hands, arms, neck, and shoulders. All of the things that cyclists need to do to develop: speed, force and power require efficiency. If you are tensed up because you have maintained the same position or white knuckling it in a race you are not being efficent.

Change up your hand position every few minutes and keep your elbows bent.