But wait! There are plenty of advantages to keeping the trainer out throughout the year, and certainly for the next few months:

As I write this article, the sun is shining, early season races are starting, and it is all too tempting to pack away the training equipment for another year and step out on the bike.

But wait! There are plenty of advantages to keeping the trainer out throughout the year, and certainly for the next few months:

• It’s safe. You do not have to worry about other road users, gravel, potholes, or other riders with poor group riding skills putting you at risk of injury.
• It’s focused. You can train at the right intensities that you need, and not someone else’s pace.
• It’s clean. You don’t have to spend additional time cleaning off your bike from all the road muck after your ride.
• It’s comfortable. You can train at a comfortable temperature and not worry about rain showers, frosty roads, or windy weather.
• It’s easier to plan. You don’t have to decide where to go, just get on and ride.
• It’s more reliable. You will not get stranded a long way from home after mechanical failures, punctures, or fatigue.
• It’s quick. You don’t need to prepare food, drinks, spare clothing, repair equipment, lighting, or charge your phone and cycle computer.
• It’s more flexible. You have many more opportunities to train. This might be to fit sessions before or after work, or between family commitments on the weekend. There is no need to block out several consecutive hours for a long ride.
• It can be more fun. Really! You can catch up with a film, listen to your favorite tracks, or train with a friend (who may not be as fit as you).

Trainer Time and Your Goals

Unless you are already at the top of your class, you would probably still benefit from turbo trainer sessions during the season to balance your other activities, improve your power, and increase aerobic fitness. This will help you keep on track to reach your longer-term goals and work around the obstacles that can get in the way.

Life has a habit of putting unexpected things in the way if your training, and making us divert from the ideal plan. Indoor training provides a great way to step around these obstacles.

Indoor training can help you become a stronger rider in the long term by focusing on developing power, rather than the complicated details of next weekend’s ride.

Combining outdoor rides and races with complementary activities indoors as part of a long-term package will help you become a stronger rider and realize your full potential.

For example, if your weekend rides are long and have a large social element, this can be balanced with a more intense interval, hill climb, or resistance training on the trainer.

If your weekend rides are mostly races with a high degree of intense threshold work, these can be balanced by reduced intensity or recovery sessions indoors.

Trainer Strategies for Every Cyclist

No matter what kind of rider you consider yourself to be, there is a benefit to keeping the trainer handy throughout the year, including your main riding season.

The Endurance Rider

If you wish to improve your endurance, you can do more than just going out to ride. Using a burst of intervals at the beginning of a turbo session will fatigue the strong type 2 muscles, leaving the type 1 muscles to work the rest of the session.

The remainder of the session should be between 75-80% of your threshold power in order to ensure you are training your muscles to make use of aerobic metabolism of fat.

The Road Racer

Racing usually involves riding at a fast pace for the majority of the ride, and then increases speed towards the end, sometimes with a sprint finish. Alternatively, if you are part of a club or team race, then you may be involved in a lead-out for another rider who will sprint for the finish on behalf of the team.

The characteristics of this ride can be much more easily recreated for training by working at approximately 85% of your threshold for the majority of your session, and then including interval sets at the end to simulate the lead-outs or sprint finish.

The Team Time Trialist

This ride includes a series of intervals riding on the front before dropping back to let another member of the team work at the front. This can quite often go wrong by riding at too high an intensity on the front, and then not recovering sufficiently when drafting your teammates.

This can be simulated on the trainer, and used as part of your preparation to determine the correct race intensity. Creating an interval set lasting the expected duration of the event with periods under and over your threshold will replicate this type of ride, and adjusting the levels in practice will help you find the right intensity for race day, in addition to helping to mentally prepare.

For example, a two-up time trial pair could decide that they will each spend two minutes on the front before swapping places. If each rider has an expected threshold power of 250 watts, they could practice at 220 and 250 watt intervals. Training together indoors with a stopwatch would be a great way to make training more sociable, too.

The Fondo Aficionado

What cyclist has not longed to do L’Étape du Tour, or dreamt of riding in one of the storied Gran Fondos in Europe? Even if a long ride around your local countryside is more your flavor, a session of simulated hill climbs will help you prepare.

Hills always start gently, peak, and then level off. So why not create some simulated hill climbs? Set a low resistance on the turbo, increase speed with a higher gear or increase the load, and then decrease it. If you do more of these, try increasing the load for steeper hills or extending the duration for longer ones.

As you will have gathered from this article, I truly believe that maintaining an indoor training program during the summer months will help you become a stronger rider and help you achieve longer term goals. Being creative on how you use the turbo can reveal that it can be a fantastic tool to design specific sessions relevant to your rides and events.

The post Don’t Pack Away the Bike Trainer Yet appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In my own experience, many people could also benefit from some simple exercises to improve activation of the diaphragm, because when performing at a high intensity, the ability to supply oxygen and remove waste product via respiration will affect your performance no matter how much strength work you have done previously.

The diaphragm is a huge, dome-shaped muscle at the bottom of the rib cage. Although it is used 24/7, it goes largely unnoticed (unless you get hiccoughs). When the diaphragm contracts, in conjunction with the intercostal muscles, it lowers the pressure in the thoracic cavity. This enables air to enter the lungs.

When breathing out, the diaphragm relaxes along with the intercostal muscles, allowing air to leave. Air may be forced out faster by increasing abdominal pressure using the tranverse abdominis muscle.

The diaphragm also has an important role in stabilizing the core. It forms the top of the core ‘box,’ working with the internal and external obliques, quadratus lumborum, pelvic floor, and transverse abdominus.

The diaphragm has multiple origins from the inner surfaces of the seventh through twelfth ribs, medial parts of the L1 to L3 vertebral bodies, the anterior longitudinal ligament, posterior surface of the xiphoid process, and the arcuate ligament, connecting to the aorta, psoas, and QL to insert in the central tendon. To put it simply, a strong box needs a secure lid and hence the importance of the diaphragm in core stabilization.

In spite of the diaphragm’s importance in respiratory effectiveness and stabilization of the core, I would estimate that in my experience approximately half of the adult population does not recruit this muscle properly at the beginning.

When we breathe, this dome-shaped muscle contracts allowing a reduced pressure in the upper body so that air may enter the lungs and provides tension across the top of the abdominal area. As we breathe in, we should see the stomach rise slightly as the dome contracts and compresses the abdominal space. As we breathe out, both the chest and the stomach fall. If you look at young children, this is what you usually see.

I often see exactly the opposite in adults. Their chest rises as the intercostal muscles contract. Yet, the stomach is drawn in by activation of the tranverse abdominis muscle and the diaphragm is not engaged. Whilst this might present a more pleasing profile in a mirror, it reduces the volume of oxygen available by only partially expanding the lungs. This also results in weaker core stabilization.

Over time, breathing in this way will cause the diaphragm to weaken through poor recruitment and performance will suffer. And when I say performance, I mean this both from a respiratory and functional perspective.

This video gives a 3D demostration of proper breathing and the action of the diaphragm:

Whilst a number of lung exercise devices are on the market, it is important to ensure that the diaphragm is recruited properly in the first place. Otherwise, the situation is exacerbated.

There are a also number of simple exercises, requiring no equipment, to assist and strengthen the diaphragm. Here is one for you to try:

1. Lie on the floor face up with knees slightly bent.
2. Place a small pillow under the head if that is more comfortable for you.
3. Place your hands lightly on your stomach.
4. Concentrate on breathing using the diaphragm, not using the chest, and feeling the stomach rise as the lungs fill from the bottom.
5. Let the stomach fall naturally when breathing out by relaxing the diaphragm.
6. Progress by placing a small weight on the stomach, such as a small book, on do it all again.
7. The next stage is to stand up and place your hands on your stomach again, feeling how you breathe. Surprisingly, you may find this step requires some concentration initially.
8. Finally, practice breathing correctly whilst on the bicycle.

You may find it interesting to observe how a young child breathes. Unhindered by the desire to hold the stomach firmly in, and keeping the diaphragm extended whilst looking in the mirror, they usually have got it right.

References

1. Gething A.D, Williams M, Davies B. Inspiratory resistive loading improves cycling capacity: a placebo controlled trial. Br J Sports Med. 2004 Dec;38(6):730-6.

2. Lee M. Romer and Michael I. Polkey, Exercise-induced respiratory muscle fatigue: implications for performance, Journal of Applied Physiology March 2008 vol. 104 no. 3 879-888

The post How to Activate Your Diaphragm to Improve Breathing and Performance appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

A Cyclist’s Guide to the Hamstrings

The hamstrings are easy enough to find. Put a hand on the back of your leg when you stand up, and you will feel your hamstrings engaging. In cycling, the hamstrings have two main actions: to flex the knee and to extend the hip.

There are three muscles in this group: the semimembranosus, the semitendinosus, and the biceps femoris. They all originate from the sitting bones, or the ischial tuberosity, at the base of the pelvis. The semimembranosus and semitendinosus both run down the inside back of your femur, and cross the knee joint to insert onto the tibia. The biceps femoris takes a slightly different route, crossing the posterior section of the femur to insert onto the outside back of the tibia.

As a cyclist, your hamstrings are used in critical portions of the entire pedal stroke: in the downward stroke as the hip and knee extends, and in the upward stroke as the knee and hip flexes. If you consider the rotation of a bike pedal, your knee starts to flex at around the four or five o’clock position as the foot starts to move back and up. You then need to engage the hamstrings so that you are not just lifting one leg with the other’s weight.

If you dabble in triathlon or run regularly, the hamstrings also help maintain an upward attitude of the trunk so your body does not fall forwards. That’s why you may feel your hamstrings strain on longer, more intense runs.

Lack of Range Can Wreak Havoc

If your hamstrings do not have sufficient working range, they will hold you back in your cycling efforts. Refer to the diagram below. The cyclist’s picture has been overlaid with the approximate positions of the pelvis, spine, femur, and tibia in orange. The position of the hamstrings are shown by the blue oval.

Want to go aero? Check your working range allows it first.

If the cyclist wishes to lower their upper body to adopt a more aerodynamic position on the bike, the hips should rotate to allow the hamstrings to lengthen and the body to adopt the desired position.

There are two outcomes if this hip rotation occurs.

1. If the hamstrings reach the full extent of their range before the cyclist has got into their desired position, then the final stages of the movement can only be completed by flexing the spine.
2. The amount of rotation of the pelvis possible will be limited by the available length of the hamstrings.

Both present an issue. Cycling over a long distance will fatigue the hamstrings and will shorten their maximum range, and while the spine is designed to flex, long periods held in excessive flexion can result in strain for the rider. What might have been an achievable position at the start of a ride can become extremely uncomfortable towards the end.

Also, if the hamstrings do not have a very good range in the first place, then as the foot moves towards the front of the pedal stroke, the hamstrings on that side will lengthen until they reach full range, and the only way to get the foot to move further forward in this case is to slide forward on the saddle or rotate the pelvis and lumbar spine. This is a further recipe for discomfort and strain, and can usually be observed from the back of the rider by significant twisting at the hip.

Maintain Your ROM and Feel the Benefits

To help you get into more aerodynamic positions but avoid this discomfort, you need to maintain an appropriate range of movement in your hamstrings. Stretching is first and foremost. I don’t like classic hamstring stretches that involve leaning forward. So many people do this incorrectly, by flexing their spine rather than their hamstrings. A better option is to lie on the floor and gently pull your foot towards your head using a gym towel or resistance band. Remember stretches should be gentle and sustained in order to maintain the length of the muscle you’re working.

Another maintenance technique is to gently work the hamstrings near the end of their active range with bodyweight squats and lightweight deadlifts. These exercises are great for improving overall strength in this area. Other exercises I would suggest are leg curls, cable hip extensions, and good mornings. If you also wish to develop hamstring power, jumps onto a low platform or running up a flight of steps are simple but highly effective drills.

Lastly, avoid long periods of sitting at a desk or driving a car. Engaging a sports massage specialist who can work more closely with you to provide individual therapy will also help.

It’s Not Just About Quads and Glutes

The take home message is that in order to stay comfortable or fast on your bike, you need to look after your hamstrings. It’s also worth having your bike fit checked to ensure that you are not being forced into leaning too far forwards and aggravating any hamstring issues further. An accurate assessment like this should help ensure that you are not leaning further forward than your flexibility allows. If you are, it can usually be remedied by changing a few components. The height and reach to the handlebars can be changed with a different stem and your seat can be moved further forwards to open up the hip angle.

Bear in mind as well that if you have chronically short hamstrings it can take some time to develop extra range there, so be patient. By building in the above exercises and stretches to your exercise routine, you’re setting yourself up for success this season. Because it’s not just about quads and glutes: hamstrings are key to better cycling.

Think you can skip the weights and still make power? Think again:

Get Strong to Ride Fast

The post Cycling Training: Work Those Hamstrings appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

FITT is an acronym for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type. These concepts form an effective framework to adopt when planning your training sessions this winter. I apply it to my cycling training but the principles hold for any type activity where you are looking to create or maintain peak performance.

• Frequency is the number of training sessions per span of time. For example, how often you will train per week.
• Intensity is the level of difficulty of the session. This might be an intense interval session in a class, or a less intense endurance ride.
• Time is the duration of the session. Most gym classes or turbo training sets tend to be about an hour long. A weekend morning ride with a club is usually two or more hours.
• Type is the actual training activity. This might include weight training, an interval-based indoor cycling class, a cycling endurance session, or session concentrating upon flexibility or recovery.

Frequency Requires Balance

Perhaps the most key of these concepts is frequency. Frequency is much more than how many times per week you decide to train. Too many training sessions per week will result in over-training and a decline in performance. Too few sessions per week will not provide enough stimulus to adapt and improve performance. The key to getting the best results from your training is to build your sessions around how long it takes to adapt after each one.

I have deliberately used the word ‘adapt’ here, rather than ‘recovery.’ Recovery might be what you do after an illness, or you may feel recovered after a few days’ rest following a training session. That is not adaptation. Adaptation is what happens when you provide a sufficient training stimulus to the body to cause it to get better at a particular activity. In this case, we are looking for an adaptation to improve cycling.

The time it takes your body to adapt can depend upon several factors such as your age, the intensity and duration of a training session, the type of training, your current level of fitness, exercise history, and lifestyle stresses. Everyone is different.

The Effects of Frequency on Adaptation

The chart below shows the change in your performance as a training stimulus is applied at A, then the adaptation occurs at B and C. At C, the adaptation (if sufficient stimulus has been applied) will result in an improved performance. At D, if no further training stimulus is applied, your performance will start decline, and if left too long will sink below where you started. A good place to apply the next training session will be at the sections labelled C and D, so that you can continually build upon the previous improvement.

Using this chart as an example, assume that you undertake an intense session on day zero. This might be a long session, or an intense session that requires a longer time for the adaptation to take place. In the chart above, adaptation starts to occur at B, two days later. A good place for further training would be on days three and four. Day five is too late, as some degradation will have occurred, and training at this point is likely to just maintain the status quo.

Now let’s say that the training stress is less severe, and adaptation starts to occur on day one. A good place for further similar training would be on days two and three. Day four would be too late to enhance performance.

In practice, this might result in a schedule that comprises an intense session on Sunday, followed by two less intense sessions on Wednesday and Friday, resulting in three sessions per week. Any more sessions than this might mean that adaptation has not occurred to build performance. Any fewer sessions than this might result in no improvement, but maintenance of the current position.

If your schedule only allows two sessions per week, these would need to be a little more intense or longer duration. To take advantage of the adaptation curve, these might be on Sunday and Thursday.

When Should You Go Again?

Your optimum time to re-train will also depends on your previous training. There are a few ways you can find out when your optimum time for adaptation might occur.

One very simple way is to use an existing feature within a sports training watch or app. Some devices have a feature that will calculate or estimate your approximate training load for a session, and your accumulated load for the week, and suggest a time when it would be appropriate to undertake further training. If used consistently for all your training sessions, you will have a systematic way of determining the frequency of your training.

Another way is to use your resting heart rate. This will tend to be higher as your body repairs and re-generates the tissues necessary for adaptation, and will return back to a lower level when adaptation has is complete. You only need a stopwatch and a log book to do this. To obtain best results, you should take your resting heart rate every day at the same time, so that you become familiar with the ranges of heart rate you would expect to find. Your values will be unique to you.

For example, over a period of measuring consistently for two or more months, you may be able to establish a guide that that if your heart rate is in the range 50-55, you can train again. If it is above 55, then only light training or no training should take place, and if below 50 then you may be undertrained.

Another way might be to estimate your training load from some metrics. An intense session of one hour could be given a score of one hundred, two hours a score of two hundred, and so on. A less intense session for an hour might be given a score of fifty. Then for every one hundred points, you allow one day to adapt.

This last strategy will not be as accurate as using your heart rate or a digital algorithm in a training device, but may be a useful place to start. The main thing is to listen to your body. If you are still aching from your previous session, it is unlikely that you will have adapted fully.

Looking to go it alone this winter? Here’s how to get started:

So You Want to Write Your Own Program

The post FITT: Plan and Adapt Your Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Let’s look at the effects that strength training has on the body and how this can influence your cycling.

Get Strong to Ride Fast

Strength training will help performance via two adaptations:

1. More muscle fibers
2. Improved muscular activation

Strength training will do this by overloading the muscles so they break down and reform. It also forces you to activate as many fibers as possible to move heavier loads than you might be able to achieve on the bike alone.

In order to make strength training relevant to cycling, you need to stress the same muscles you use on the bike. This means choosing exercises that will use movement patterns similar to cycling, so that a neurological adaptation can occur. Fortunately, we can do this with some common exercises. The primary exercises I recommend are back squats and lunges.

Back Squats

This is a complex movement, and it is important that you do it properly. If you are new to strength training and spend a lot of time sitting in the car or at a desk, you may find that your hamstrings are too tight to allow you to get very low. It is very important that you drive from the hips and the legs and not the lower back. Choose a moderate weight and work on gradually increasing the depth of your squat until your thighs are parallel to the floor. The moment you find that your hamstrings start to feel tight, stop at that depth. Over time, they will adapt and allow you to go slightly deeper. What you should wish to avoid is a rounded lumbar spine.

I always recommend using a proper squat rack for this exercise. Set up the safety stops or pins to help keep you safe, even if someone is spotting for you. There few things worse than seeing someone in the gym try a weight that is too heavy for them and collapsing to the floor.

Lunges

This is also complex movement. As a unilateral or one-sided exercise, it has similarities to cycling where you pedal with alternating legs. Lunges start from standing with both feet together. Step forward into the lunge, lowering your body until the thigh is parallel to the floor. Push up and then step back to the start. Repeat with the other leg, and that makes one repetition.

Basic Strength Work for Cyclists

Here is a basic session to repeat three times per week. Perform this routine on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, taking rest days on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Each Sunday is reserved for a cycling ergometer test.

The strength movements are done in a circuit style, using four sets of 6-8 repetitions each.

1. Warm up
2. Barbell back squats
3. Incline dumbbell shoulder press
4. Dumbbell weighted alternating lunges
5. Lat pull downs
6. Cool down and stretch

Your warm up could include 10 minutes on a stationary bike, rower or mountain climber to get your heart rate to rise. These machines have movement patterns that are close to cycling, so the most relevant muscles will be prepared for the heavier work to come.

I have included shoulder exercises, since these support your upper body when you rest on the handlebars. Alternating the upper and lower body will give your lower body time to recover before the next set. The use of two dumbbells in the shoulder press will require you to use more stabilizing muscles than a single barbell, and will assist a more useful adaptation for when you are on the bike and dealing with moving and vibrating handlebars.

I suggest a slightly lower load in the first set than the remaining three sets, in order to allow the body to become familiar with the exercise. This also allows you to check that your planned load is not excessive. For example, if you plan to back squat 185lb, start your first set with 135lb before moving up in weight.

The right load will be when you start to feel failure on the last repetition. Ensure that you are staying in complete control of the movement. When you can complete eight or nine repetitions, increase the load in the last three sets.

Strength Works for Cycling

I usually start my winter training with four to six weeks of strength work, but this strategy is useful in any time of the year, or as circumstances may dictate. Last year, I undertook ten weeks of strength training using this type of program. I performed three sessions per week, and the only cycling I did was a weekly test on a calibrated ergometer for different distances. Here are the results:

Over ten weeks, my 10km average power rose from 267 to 294 watts. Over a 10-mile ergometer test course, my average power also rose from 262 to 287 watts. Considering that I did no additional cycling in this time, these results were very pleasing. This program provides a perfect entry to move onto a different phase of training on the bike, or preparing for competitions.

If you want to mix things up a bit, would like to tone up some muscles, or really cannot stand any more time on the trainer, do not be reluctant to try some strength training. It can really boost your cycling power.

Strong is never wrong:

Want to Race Endurance? Better Hit the Gym

The post Get Strong to Ride Fast appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Four to six weeks of gym training will help you increase leg strength and help develop more power on the bike. It can also help you recover lost and weakened movements that cycling does not help.

Stronger legs and glute muscles will translate to more watts on the bike. There are some fantastic exercises that will help you do this. If you are not used to gym resistance exercises, I do recommend that you start off with small weights and ask for the help of a trainer.

Strength Movements to Build a Stronger Motor

Squat 

This is a great exercise that mainly targets the back, glutes and quads. These are all muscle groups that are engaged in cycling. Resistance training will provide a high degree of overload that can be difficult to achieve on the bike by itself.

Obtain the help of a friend or trainer to ‘spot’ you with this exercise, as crumpling under a heavy weight is likely to injure you. An alternative, and a safer option if you are on your own, is the hack squat. This variant involves standing in front of the bar that is resting on the ground with the bar close to the back of your legs. Squat and grip the bar with a forward-facing grip and stand up so that in the final position the bar is resting on the back of your legs.

Lunge or Walking Lunge

This exercise mainly targets the glutes and quads. It is also a unilateral exercise (unlike the squat), and exercises alternate sides of the body. The one-sided nature of this exercise means that you will also be developing balance skills and exercising your oblique muscles in the core.

A good place to start with this is just using bodyweight. As you progress, you can add resistance by carrying weights or wearing a weight vest. Suitable weights would include dumbbells or kettlebells. A further progression can include speed and even hopping on the front leg.

Deadlift 

This is another great exercise for targeting the glute muscle groups and hamstrings. It also helps strengthen your core, back and shoulders. If you are using a barbell for this, stand behind the bar, flex your knees and hips to grasp the bar. Then using the legs and glutes, move to a standing position, keeping the bar close to your body. Aim to avoid rounding your back, and only lower to the point where you can start to feel your hamstrings reach full range (this is often around knee height). Alternative implements can include dumbbells and kettlebells.

A good progression for this exercise is a single-leg deadlift. This variation can either rest one leg behind the body on a step, or you can keep it free and extend it out backward as you bend forward from the hips to take your weight. The unilateral nature of this variation helps to develop balance skills and movement patterns.

To develop strength, I would aim for three or four sets of six to eight repetitions of each exercise. Do make sure that you are nicely warmed up prior to lifting, and that you cool down and do some gentle stretches afterwards.

Develop More Balanced Fitness

While cycling, you are literally exercising in a machine. This is a great activity to enjoy and enhance your fitness, but the constraints of the machine mean that some parts of your anatomy are developed more than others. In addition, the design of the bicycle means that some movements of your body are not developed or maintained. Gym exercises will help you recover those lost and weakened movement skills.

As a cyclist, you do not usually need to develop a large upper body. Most cyclists worry that upper body muscles are just additional weight to carry up every hill. However, if you are interested in aesthetics or do other sports, then a more comprehensive range of upper body excises would be appropriate.

Here are some compound exercises for the upper body that involve movements of many joints in many planes of movement.

Standing Single-Arm Row 

For this you need access to a cable pulley machine, some strong bands, or a suspension trainer. Stand with a split stance, one foot slightly back, facing the machine or mounting point of your bands or straps. Twist forward to grasp the handle and pull so that you end the movement twisted in the opposite direction.

Standing Single Arm Press 

This exercise is almost the exact opposite of the previous one. This time you face away from the machine or mounting point of your straps or bands in a split stance. This time grasp the handle (usually with the handle just above shoulder height) with your upper body twisted. Then push the handle away from you and twist as you do so.

These exercises target the upper body and core. You can tweak these exercises by varying the position of the cable machine handle or mounting point of the bands or suspension trainer. Since we not aiming for a large upper body here, I would suggest using medium weights that you can perform fifteen to twenty repetitions, and take care to move smoothly through your full range of motion.

The Offseason Opportunity

Late autumn and early winter are your opportunity to spend a few weeks developing strength with these exercises. Then you need not feel quite so guilty about taking the holiday period easy. A few weeks of work will produce the necessary adaptation, and put you in a great position to return to cycling in the new year.

More on the importance of cross training for cyclists:

Should Cyclists Run?

The post Cycling Holiday Guide: Deadlift More appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

A garage or spare room provides an excellent location to set up. If your resources are more limited, then maybe a hallway or room that is not used all the time might be a useful place to start. A reasonably weatherproof shed can also make a good home gym. If you live alone, you might have some more options on the use of space than if you have family members or flat mates. I have seen kitchens and a home office be repurposed as indoor gyms when not used for their usual functions. I have also known people that have shared the cost and agreed to meet and train together.

Now let’s get into what resources you might need.

Build Your Winter Cycling Pain Cave: Part 1 – The Equpiment

Turbo Trainer

The first thing you need is a turbo trainer. You do not have to buy a top of the range unit to obtain a good workout. However, it should provide some means of adjusting the resistance, and be:

• Easy to set up and pack away
• Quiet
• Stable on the floor
• Strong and have a secure mounting for your bike

I would avoid anything with a brake pad type of resistance unit, since these frequently have uneven resistance settings. Most magnetic resistance units are adjustable and quiet.

An indoor trainer tire is a worthwhile investment. The rubber is a slightly different composition to normal road tires, providing additional grip. They also have a smooth profile that reduces noise.

Heart Rate Monitor

A heart rate monitor strap and watch helps indicate the level of intensity you may be working at and reduces some of the guesswork in assessing how hard and how long you have been working. As a minimum I would look for one that can display your heart rate and a stop watch function on the same screen. This will enable you do interval sessions.

A Step

You may already have access to a step or stairs built into the fabric of your home. A single step provides a ready-made location for step ups, or as a place to provide some support for body weight exercises. Alternatively, you could use a commercial exercise step. Do make sure your step is strong and stable, and able to take the strain of repeated use without collapsing.

A Mat

In order to avoid damage to your furnishings I would highly recommend a mat. This can be placed under your cycle on a turbo trainer to catch perspiration that would otherwise drop onto the floor. It can also be used to cover your step or exercise area to avoid wear or damage. If you have a hard floor surface then it helps avoid some discomfort too.

A Plan and Diary

This is essential. Without a diary or a plan it is all too easy to leave things to another day or forget what you did last time. Your plan needs to be realistic to work around your other commitments. It is also good idea to have a regular schedule to work to, so that your sessions fit into a routine. It also needs to provide some goals to aim at. A good session plan will also keep you focused on what you are doing and what comes next.

Entertainment

Sometimes it can be mentally challenging to exercise on your own. Some of your favorite fast paced tracks might help provide some added mental energy. A regular supply of action films (or replays of the years major cycling events) can also help to provide interest in longer endurance sessions.

Build Your Winter Cycling Pain Cave: Part 2 – The Program

You don’t have to break the bank to set up a place to exercise in your home. Starting with the examples above, you could easily make up a varied and interesting training week. For example:

• One long endurance turbo session
• One short but intense turbo interval session
• Two body weight resistance sessions

Bodyweight resistance sessions can include a huge variety of suitable exercises including:

• Squats (two legged and one legged with the support of a step)
• Lunges
• Step ups and step downs
• Burpees and mountain climbers
• Push ups and pulls (using the suspension trainer)

You can also combine the turbo and bodyweight sessions into your own circuit. There are plenty more examples of body weight exercises that you can find here on Breaking Muscle.

Don’t want to work out at home? Go hit the weights:

Why Heavy Lifting Is the Best Winter Activity for Cyclists

The post Build a Pain Cave for Winter appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

If this seems to be happening to you a lot lately, it’s time to do something about it. Read on for the seven most likely reasons that other rider is faster than you.

1. He Has Better (Maintained) Kit

The kit itself is unlikely to make a big difference, but improper maintenance of it can. Choosing bike components carefully and maintaining them properly helps avoid unnecessary losses of power. The drive train is a good place to start. A worn chain or sprockets coated in thick grease could lose you valuable time in longer races.

From riding on your drops to practicing cornering drills, there’s a lot you can do to be more competitive.

What to Do About It:

Ensure your drive train is well maintained, and check your chain regularly to see if it is worn. Use a good quality thin lubricant for your chain and clean the chain frequently to remove road grit. Ensure your gears are well adjusted and cables run smoothly.

2. He Has Less Air Resistance

Hills aside, air resistance is the biggest challenge you’re going to face when cycling. It could simply be that your opponent is managing his air resistance more effectively with key positional or clothing adjustments.

What to Do About It:

To maximise your air resistance, you need to be comfortable riding on the lower part of the dropped handlebars or “drops”. Don’t just ride on the hoods of their brakes because it’s more comfortable. If you find riding in a lower position uncomfortable, incorporate mobility work such as foam rolling in between sessions. This will loosen up your glutes and hamstrings in no time. You can also try wearing fitted clothing to avoid the drag of loose material and avoiding clothes with open zips and pockets. Mudguards may be good for commutes in poor weather, but if you want to go faster you need to remove them.

3. He Weighs Less

Any unnecessary weight will slow you down on the hills. A 90kg rider will require 50% more energy to climb the same hill as a 60kg rider, and unfortunately, any additional weight you’re carrying will not help you pick up speed downhill. Galileo’s famous experiment showed us that two objects of differing mass fall to the ground at precisely the same time. So all other things being equal, when freewheeling downhill a 60kg rider and a 90kg rider will descend from it at the same speed.

What to Do About It:

Train consistently and be mindful of your food consumption. Track your intake and make adjustments to your nutritional habits if needed. Avoid situations where you may be tempted to overeat and choose long, moderately paced rides to optimise fat loss where you can.

4. He Can Pedal Better

Most of us learn to ride a bike at a young age. Unfortunately, once we’ve learned how to stop falling off of it, we usually put our pedalling skill development to the side. But pedalling is a skill that can be honed and drilled to great success. A rider who knows the ins-and-outs of pedalling will outperform one who doesn’t every time.

Sprint for 30 seconds after stops and hills to maintain a decent average speed.

What to Do About It:

Get familiar with your pedal stroke and spend time improving it. For an optimal pedal stroke, your foot has to apply force at just the right moment at the top of the pedal stroke before reversing direction. Most cyclists just do not apply this force soon enough. The glutes and quads need to be activated as soon as possible in the one to three o’clock position of the pedals for maximal power. This is far preferable to pulling the pedal back through the six o’clock position with the comparatively weaker hamstrings at the bottom of the stroke.

Train an effective movement pattern to improve your timing and muscle recruitment by doing regular pedal drills. Nicholas Romanov mentions several good pedalling drills in his book, and I’ve also given some good drill examples on here in the past.

5. He Can Corner Faster

Whilst you should always corner safely and assess the road conditions appropriately, learning to corner smoothly and quickly will save you time. Needless cycles of braking and speeding up again reduce your overall speed.

What to Do About It:

Practice your cornering in a safe environment. Learn to assess corners and anticipate the speed required well in advance. Take a smooth, curved line through the corner that has a large, safe radius. Push the outside pedal down and lean the bike into the corner, keeping your eyes focused on the exit of the bend. Combine your next ride with cornering drills or set up some cones on disused land for cornering practice.

6. He Speeds Up After Stops and Hills

It’s inevitable that you’ll need to stop and slow from time to time due to traffic conditions or from easing off at the top of a hill, but this will cost you valuable seconds and minutes overall if you make a habit of it. Keep the effort high to stay ahead of the other guy.

“If you’re serious about the sport you need to train for three or four times a week on a consistent basis, mindfully working on your weaknesses and reinforcing your strengths.”

What to Do About It:

Do a quick sprint for thirty seconds to get back up to speed after traffic stops and hills. Once you’re back on pace, settle into your normal rhythm again. Practice this every time you are out on your bike. Every time you crest the top of a hill, keep applying effort for ten to twenty seconds, and only ease off for recovery when you start descending the hill. As well as saving you time, this can be a great interval workout.

7. He Trains More Consistently

Just mindlessly riding your bike won’t cut it to get the competitive edge in races. If you’re serious about the sport, you need to train for three or four times a week on a consistent basis, mindfully working on your weaknesses and reinforcing your strengths.

What to Do About It:

Assess your current performance and identify any skills you could improve. Write them down and incorporate the relevant corrective strategies into your training plan. Training drills can seem repetitive but they need to be done in order to hone your ability, so fit them in wherever you can. Do pedalling drills in your turbo sessions, or practice corners on your club rides. Incorporate them regularly and with discipline in order to improve.

Remember Why You Started

Whilst it may feel frustrating to be left at the bottom of the hill by your competitors, it’s important to remember why you started cycling in the first place. Few of us are paid professionals, who are able to train full time with the support of sponsors. There’s also little we can do to reduce our own skeleton size if our anthropometrics let us down in the face of our fellow riders.

Only train towards what is feasible and desirable for you. What is most important is that you smash your own goals and can be satisfied with achieving them.

More Like This:

• How to Handle the Hill: A Physics Lesson for Cyclists
• Are Your Hamstrings Holding Your Cycling Back?
• 2 Simple Exercises to Add Power to Your Pedal Stroke
• New on Breaking Muscle UK

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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Race organisers always include some cheeky climbs at this time of year. If you want to survive the hillier sportives, you need to learn how to produce power effectively on them. We’re going to start with a bit of high school physics to illustrate how energy is produced on the road bike.

Standing in the saddle is one way to move faster up the hill, but it has its limits.

The Physics of Cycling

To climb a hill (or go anywhere) on your bike, you need to convert stored muscular glycolytic energy into pushing the pedals into motion. In a pedal stroke, your bodyweight pushes the pedal from the top position to the bottom position. In doing so, the potential energy is released and translated into movement of the bike via the crank, chain and wheels. This is potential energy, and it’s the same energy as when an object falls to the ground by gravity.

High school physics demonstrates that the energy released in cycling is indicated by the mass of the rider plus a gravitational constant (let’s say 10) plus the change in the height of the pedal. Using this equation, a 75kg rider using a crank length of 175mm will produce approximately 262 kilojoules of energy per pedal stroke. If the same cyclist pedals with a cadence of 60 RPM – one revolution per second – they will produce a total power output of 525 watts.

That’s in theory. In reality, the result may vary. The rider has to support some of their weight on the handlebars, so only some of their bodyweight is being used to push the pedals down. There’s also a loss of energy in the cranks, chain, and wheels along the way. The rider can, however, optimise their power output by standing on the pedals, as is frequently seen when a rider is sprinting or climbing a hill. The chart below shows the power output from just such a rider trying for more speed in the last stages of an event by periodically standing off the saddle.

Standing up in the saddle produces power when you need it the most.

The peaks in power start at four hundred watts, and rise to five hundred watts at the finish. The effectiveness of this standing technique is clear.

The Other Variable

Standing in the saddle is one way to move on up the hill, but it has its limits. You can’t push down on the pedals with more than your bodyweight, after all. Gaining more bodyweight would facilitate more power production – but then you would have to shift more of that weight up the hill, meaning no gains overall.

Keeping the physics in mind, there is one other variable you can manipulate to produce more power in the saddle: upping your pedal stroke to release the potential energy faster. Your muscles can be strong, but if they cannot fire at the right speed for an extended period of time, you will not be able to realise any extra power. In order to tap into this potential, you need to train your muscles, but more importantly, you need to teach your central nervous system that it is safe to pedal at a faster rate.

The Role of the CNS

The central nervous system (CNS) requires specific training to allow changes to the neuromuscular connections that govern the rate at which your muscles fire. If you want to train your muscles to move fast, you have to convince your CNS that it is safe to do so. Sensors in the muscles, joints and tendon junctions constantly relay feedback to the CNS about the body’s activity so it can control the rate and force of movement. If the feedback indicates movement is straying outside the body’s expected ranges, the CNS inhibits the activity.

Want a higher pedal stroke? You’ll need to run it by your CNS first.

So no matter how hard you push in your head, the pedals won’t turn over any faster. Which means lagging on those hills come race season.

How Do I Train my CNS?

You can train your CNS by including higher speed pedalling drills in your bike sessions like the one below. This can be done on an outdoor or indoor trainer.

• Start with a light load and pedal at a higher cadence than you normally would, for example 100 RPM.
• Hold this RPM for one minute.
• Rest and repeat ten times.
• In subsequent sessions, extend the duration by half a minute and half the number of repetitions.

You can also include some high speed pedalling into your training warm ups. This can be as simple as 30 seconds above 100 RPM every two minutes for five sets. If you have access to stationary cycles in your local gym, try performing the rest intervals at level five, then switch up to level twenty for a 20 second sprint at 100 to 120 RPM.

High speed pedalling drills are simple and highly effective.

Don’t Waste Time Grinding High Gears

There’s one thing to look out for when trying to get faster on the hill. Check your seat is not too high, as this will encourage more sitting and less weight on the pedals. High pressure in the saddle area can also cause discomfort and soreness over an extended period of time.¹

The concept that higher performance in cycling is facilitated by effective manipulation of gravity has been widely noted². If you look at footage of elite riders on the tour circuit, you will see that they have both a very fluid pedal stroke and are out of the seat for extended times when climbing hills. These riders teach us that learning to pedal quickly at height when ascending hills is considerably more efficient than grinding away in higher gears. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than watching someone struggle up a hill on their bike. Don’t let it be you this season.

More Like This:

• Big Power Does Not Require Big Gears
• Small Saddle Adjustments for Cyclists Make a Big Difference
• Shorten Your Crank Length to Crank Up Your Cycling
• New on Breaking Muscle

References:

1. Adam Topham, Time-Trialling. Fly Through the Pain Barrier: Achieve Your True Potential in the Race of Truth!, (Marabu, 2009)

2. Nicholas Romanov, Pose Method of Triathlon Techniques (Pose Tech Press, 2008)

The post How to Handle the Hill: A Physics Lesson for Cyclists appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I know what you are thinking – why not just cycle more? There are some specific aspects of running to consider.

A Case for Running

During a run, you shift your weight from one foot and leg to the other. Although this is not exactly the same motion as cycling, some of the similarities in movement will transfer across into cycling. Running is therefore a functional exercise for cyclists. One might argue that since the mechanical structure of the cycle restricts movement, running offers more in the way of everyday fitness and movement than cycling does.

Running is a good cardiovascular activity. It improves blood volume and strengthens the diaphragm and heart muscles. Both of these benefits will assist your ability to perform when cycling.

• Running helps develop balance skills and proprioception in the feet, ankles, knees, and hips, leading to quicker reaction times as your body has to continually adjust position. Proprioception and balance are important everyday skills that will also assist your cycling.
• Running requires you to actively unweight or lift the foot off the ground, using the hip flexors and hamstrings to take the next step. While cycling, it can be easy to develop a lazy leg, where one foot pushes the other up on the opposite pedal. This will mean that some of your energy is lost by lifting a heavy leg rather than propelling you along. Running will help activate the muscles required to unweight the rising leg. This leads to a more effective pedaling style.
• Running on trails requires you to lift your bodyweight quickly and use your legs as you travel over uneven ground. The landing and subsequent rapid extension of your legs will help them become more powerful.
• Running is an impact activity and cycling is not. Impact activities are good for developing bone density, which tends to decrease as you get older. I’ll return to this a little later.
• Running does not require much space. If you go out on your bike, you can cover quite a distance in the space of an hour, but you have to have access to a number of lengthy routes to follow. Running is done at a much slower pace. You can do an hour of activity just in your neighborhood, and you can also make use of paths that are not accessible to cyclists.
• Running can be a good postural activity. You may spend a significant amount of time seated at a desk all day. If you follow that with sitting on a bike, and your recreation consists of sitting at the table eating and then sitting again, you are likely to develop a sitting type of posture. Running demands that you stand and move while upright, which can help correct your postural habits.
• Running can be done anywhere and doesn’t require a bicycle or much gear. Several of my cycling associates travel in their daily work and often find themselves away from home overnight. Running gear does not take up much room in your bags, so you can do some useful training even while you are away.

When to Run

The demands of running are slightly different from cycling. The additional impact load may cause soreness in your legs at first. With any activity that is new or that you have not engaged in for a while, take things easy to start. Gradually build up duration and intensity. If you don’t run regularly, don’t be surprised if your hamstrings and calves ache after just thirty minutes of easy running.

“One might argue that since the mechanical structure of the cycle restricts movement, running offers more in the way of everyday fitness and movement than cycling does.”

Slotting a run in before an endurance ride works best for me. My legs will be sore after the run, but the low intensity endurance ride helps them recover. I don’t expect to break any records in my endurance ride, which should be performed at a medium intensity (no higher than eighty percent of your maximum). The non-impact nature of the reciprocating cycling movement will take your calves, quads, glutes, and hamstring muscles through a wide range of motion and increase blood flow to assist repair and recovery.

A weekly schedule could look like either of the following examples:

As winter starts to draw in, you could include a running period within your training program before moving back to cycling power or weight training sessions. The following chart shows an outline structure for winter training. The larger blocks show the main emphasis for each month. The smaller blocks indicate reduced levels of each activity in the other months.

What about Bone Density?

Returning to bone density, a study in 2003 compared bone density of cyclists in two different age groups with non-athletes of the same ages.¹ The study found that the master cyclists who had been cycling for a number of years (and had not performed significant levels of weight bearing exercises) had low bone density. Chris Boardman is quoted as saying, “Cycling is good for strengthening muscles, but it does very little for bones.”²

Running Has a Place

As a masters athlete myself, I think the results of the study referenced above are important for overall fitness. Even if I were an out-and-out cyclist, I would run to avoid the degradation of proprioceptive skills and the risk of developing osteoporosis with advancing age.

More on running:

• The Runner’s Guide to Loving Gravity
• Flat Running Is Better Than Uphill Running
• 9 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started Running
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

References

1. J.F. Nichols, J.E. Palmer and S.S. Levy, Low bone mineral density in highly trained male master cyclists. Osteoporos Int. 2003 Aug;14(8):644-9. Epub 2003, Jul 11.

2.Chris Boardman quoted from Daily Mail article, 15 November 2009. Accessed Oct 14, 2015.

The post Should Cyclists Run? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The Importance of Vitamins

Vitamins fall into two categories: fat-soluble and water-soluble. The fat-soluble vitamins can be stored in body fats and carried over from day to day so that they can be deployed as required. Unlike the fat-soluble vitamins, water-soluble vitamins cannot be stored, so you require a steady feed of these to support bodily functions.

The B series vitamins and vitamin C are water-soluble and should therefore be a regular part of your daily food intake. They are sometimes called essential vitamins for this reason.

“Unlike the fat-soluble vitamins, water-soluble vitamins cannot be stored, so you require a steady feed of these to support bodily functions.”

The B vitamins support a large number of chemical reactions within the body associated with the production of red blood cells and the release of energy from food. Healthy red blood cells are required for peak performance and to support your training load. Without the B vitamins, all those carbohydrates and fats that you have been eating will not be effectively converted into energy.

Vitamin C is also an important essential vitamin. Although it is usually known for its role in supporting the immune system, it also plays an important part in collagen production. Collagen is used to produce and repair connective tissue. If you have been training a significant amount, it is possible that you have put some strain on connective tissues, so vitamin C should form part of your recovery strategy.

Vitamins in Action

Here is a table summarizing the benefits and typical recommended amounts of the water-soluble B vitamins, and vitamin C that you need every day:

Let’s look into the vitamin B9 in more detail. This vitamin in found in large quantities in folate-rich vegetables. One example of this is spinach. This has 0.194mg of vitamin B9 per hundred grams, which is just about the total recommended daily amount for an adult. A cupful of leaves is about 40 grams.

Citrus fruits are a common source of vitamin C. A medium orange has about 70mg of vitamin C which should be sufficient for your daily needs. It is also found in green vegetables such as broccoli, sprouts, and cabbage. For example, half a cup of broccoli has about 50mg, which is close to the recommended daily amount.

While there is little evidence to support the notion that supplementation of B vitamins will improve performance (unless you have a medical condition), a deficit in B vitamins or in vitamin C caused by imbalances in your nutrition may have an adverse effect. This may be the case if you are restricting food intake as part of a weight management program.

This was found to be true in a study at Oregon State University in 2006. Researchers found athletes who had a history of low B vitamin intake either by inattention to nutritional needs or food restriction would have poorer performance. Their review also stated that exercise may increase the requirements for vitamins B2 and B6. Excess supplementation did not appear to offer performance benefits. Large quantities could in some cases be detrimental.

Don’t Skip Your Greens

The safest route for top performance and quality training is to ensure you have a nutrition strategy that guarantees sufficient regular intake of these essential vitamins through food every day. If you have a medical condition, you should seek additional advice.

 “A deficit in B vitamins or in vitamin C caused by imbalances in your nutrition may have an adverse effect.”

While there seems to be little evidence that excess supplementation will lead to any improvement, you should ensure you are not in any deficit by eating a good mix of green vegetables. Meeting at least the minimum recommended amount every day will help you stay in peak condition for competition and training.

More on cycling and nutrition:

• Multivitamins Improve Nutrition and Prevent Disease
• Premium Nutrition to Cycle Even Faster
• The Importance of Micronutrients in a Cyclist’s Diet
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. National Institute of Health Factsheets. Accessed 22 September 2015.

2. United States Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database. Accessed 22 September 2015.

3. European Institute of Fitness, Master Trainer Course Manual. International School of Personal Training.

4. National Health Service, Vitamins and Minerals. Accessed 22 September 2015.

5. Williams, MH., “Dietary Supplements and Sports Performance: Introduction and Vitamins,” Journal of the IntlSociety of Sports Nutrition, 2004; 1(2): 1–6.

6. Woolf, K., and Manore, MM., “B-vitamins play an important role in athletic performance,” Intl Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2006, 16, 453-484.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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I will show you a very simple way of creating an interval-based turbo session that will simulate your favorite (or least favorite) race course.

The body adapts to the demand placed upon it. On this basis, the changes of intensity and durations within your course should be reflected in the nature of your turbo session. The closer the match, the more useful your workout session will be, whether you are rehearsing for a race or just trying to improve your time around the local circuit.

Step One: Mapping

I’m going to use the example of a plot from my cycle computer of my local mountain bike course. You can use a road course for this or just a plot of a course provided by an event organizer. The main thing is to have information about the changes in altitude. Many GPS cycle computers and fitness watches can provide this information. If you don’t have access to those, a map will do just as well.

“The body adapts to the demand placed upon it. On this basis, the changes of intensity and durations within your course should be reflected in the nature of your turbo session.”

Here is the plot from my local course. The grey line is the altitude and the red line is my heart rate. As you might expect, my heart rate goes up when I climb and reduces on the downhill section. That is, apart from when I paused to admire the view or to let someone pass.

Step Two: Analysis

The next step is to work through this plot (or map) and break it down into three broad categories. These are uphill, reasonably flat, and downhill. You don’t have to be too fussy about this. Then put these into a table such as a spreadsheet. Here is part of mine. I have not been too specific about the data, ignoring the tiny changes in altitude and only using the general trends.

Step Three: Add Load and Duration

You must then work out the duration of each section and map these to the corresponding level of difficulty on your turbo. You may have a resistance controller on your turbo in which case you can use different settings for up, flat, and down. Alternatively, you could keep the resistance setting the same and change gears such as a higher gear for up phases.

“You may need to experiment with your individual turbo settings and adjust these as you get stronger doing the interval session.”

You could go as far as setting power levels for the different sections if you have access to a power meter. Here is part of my table with the additional numbers to indicate load and durations.

The Final Product

We have taken a plot from a course of interest and turned that into a workout to represents the changes of intensity and duration of riding the real course. This is what it looks like:

The higher loads represent the uphill sections, via intervals of varying durations, and the lower loads represent downhill sections where you can recover. The middle loads represent flatter sections or sections with only slight gradients and tend to be longer durations, so these need to be set at an intensity that you can sustain for longer times. You may need to experiment with your individual turbo settings and adjust these as you get stronger doing the interval session.

In addition, if you recorded a video while riding the course you could make an interesting indoor training workout (perhaps when the weather is poor) by replaying the video as you work through the turbo session.

Enjoy working through this process, and let me know if you have any questions.

More Like This:

• How to Get Your Best Time Trial Performance Yet
• Cycling: 4 Ways to Test Your Progress
• Adjust Your Crank Length for Stronger Cycling
• New On Breaking Muscle Today

Photo 1 courtesy of Shutterstock.

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