Professional Cycling

Bicycle racing can be an incredibly difficult and punishing sport. Keeping a positive frame of mind under the most demanding conditions will often be the only thing that keeps you going. For most of us, the committee of mental spectators between our ears is seldom any help when the going gets tough. Training you mind to support your body is not all that difficult if you take a proactive approach to solving the problem. Actually you already do many of the things needed to improve you mental strength. All you need to do is fill in the gaps and change your perspective a bit.

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Your ability to sustain long efforts can be attributed to all of the base miles that you put in at the beginning of the season. As you transition from the gym back to the bike the endurance training you do begins the process of building fitness, capacity and the energy systems needed for sub threshold work. Generally speaking, “endurance” can be defined as the “ability to maintain a specific power level, involving muscular contractions, for a given period of time”. There is aerobic endurance, threshold endurance and anaerobic endurance. The intensity of the work will define the limits of the efforts and limits you have at certain intensities define your endurance for that level of work.

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Many endurance riders find it very challenging to manage their weight once the competition season ends. Energy expenditure has dropped off and the need for calories to support several hours of moderate to high intensity work no longer exists. This is the time when many riders start putting on extra weight. The reasons are simple to understand and the solutions are basic.

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The alternative to riding in the rain or on a trainer is to, god forbid; do something other than ride your bike. No! I don’t mean watch cycling videos and eat popcorn.

There are many different endurance type sports that you can do to keep yourself fit while the weather is poor, including running, swimming, weight lifting, or in-line skating. If you live somewhere that is blessed with snow, or desecrated depending on your viewpoint, you might cross-country ski, snowshoe, or go mountaineering.

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Long endurance training rides are the backbone of your development and provide the best opportunity to train your body to digest food during exercise. On these rides you are concentrating mostly on endurance and aerobic development and using oxidative metabolism for almost all of your energy supply but you will use up a good amount of muscle glycogen along the way.

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Cycling is a sport that often requires training and competition in less than desirable conditions. Being well prepared and properly dressed for the weather is vital to your success and personal safety. Cold weather, combined with rain can make riding miserable and dangerous. The process of learning how to dress properly and take care of yourself in bad weather can be very unpleasant. Keeping in mind that every rider is different in their natural resistance to the elements here are a few guidelines and suggestions for riding in cold and wet conditions.

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Winning an event is the ultimate result but it often depends as much on the opposition as it does on you. Since there is nothing you can do about how your competitors ride the only approach left is to concentrate on yourself and the things you can control during your preparation.

People often under-perform because of a lack of thorough preparation. They have plenty of talent but will have peak fitness at the wrong time or be injured or tired and unable to deliver when the big day comes along. And it is often the case that even when they get it right physically they fall short because they did not prepared themselves mentally and physically to be the a “winner” but merely to ‘do my best’. This attitude can sometimes produce a good result but not very often. It often seems that at bigger events the top results will go the athletes who have prepared well and expect to win. This involves mental as well as physical preparation. Here are the 10 key areas to focus on in your preparation.

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Nutrition is a very complicated and mysterious science. Not so much because researchers and scientists lack understanding about food and what the body does with it. Actually we know more than ever about the relationship between food and human life with new and exciting discoveries being made every day. What makes nutrition, especially sport nutrition, so interesting is that every “body” responds uniquely to what is put into it.

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Carbohydrates are the high-octane fuel of choice for your body. With a yield of only 4 calories per gram carbohydrates are also a very precious source of energy for physical activity. The normal endurance athlete diet should obtain about 65% of total daily calories from the intake of carbohydrate. Your body is always working to keep glucose levels in the blood constant under all conditions. Under periods of great physical exertion this can be very challenging. Your understanding of where carbohydrates come from and how to use them the most effectively will make life on and off the bike much more enjoyable.

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The Ongoing Vitamin Debate

There is a lot of debate as to the health benefits of supplemental vitamins. To my knowledge, there is no hard scientific evidence that taking vitamins will improve your athletic performance, although there are people out there that will swear to the contrary. However, there is a lot of evidence that vitamin supplements, especially antioxidants, might be really good for your overall health. Since healthier athletes are able to train and compete with more consistency I will go out on a limb and say that taking vitamins, at safe prescribed levels, will help you stay healthy and get more benefit from your training. There is a long list of more important things you need to do to support your training but I will leave those for other discussions. Right now, we’re talking antioxidant vitamins.

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