Performance Cycling

Performance Cycling

What if you could change your route to work AND get in great shape at the same time? Are you lucky enough to be in a position to cycle to your place of employment? It can be a total chore on some days to have to traverse the same route and encounter the exact same obstacles every time.

During winter months in particular, the ride to work can be the only chance a number of us get to be back in the saddle, and we should try to maximise the benefit of it, in terms of both enjoyment and training possibilities. Learn how to put variation and productivity into the every day journey simply by trying some different techniques and creating a well-balanced exercise program within the ride.

Unless you are really lucky, your ride to and from your work will include traffic, junctions and crossings etc, and may end up being stop/start, fast/slow. Rather than looking at these red signals as a disadvantage or a set back to be passed at maximum speed, think differently, take advantage of the stop/starts as an opportunity to acquire extra cycling skills, like sprint starts (on green, not amber!) or track stands.

A first-rate well-rounded cycling training programme must at all times include elements addressing the high speed sprints plus the stamina necessary for the more prolonged stretches.

Very simply, your body demands and employs a range of resources for these 2 types of endeavour, and the best all round cyclists have evolved their bodies to produce optimum efficiency across the board.

Have you tried cadence training? Instead of making those quick gear changes, try spinning the pedals round ten per cent faster than normal before you slip into your next gear. Stay in the saddle and build and retain your stability while simultaneously increasing the cadence. This is a superb method of improving pedalling technique and just about all elements of your cycling performance. It is no happy accident that the leading riders utilise cadence training to keep in front of the pack.

Did you perhaps have fun with the game 'run a street lamp, walk a street lamp' when you were younger? As kids, whenever we had a long walk to do, we would start out at the very 1st street light, and run as fast as we possibly could to the next, then walk to the one after that... and then run the next, etc. As it turns out, and we did not grasp this back then, this is the base of Fartlek exercise - alternating fast and slow elements, using and building up both the aerobic and anaerobic functions. However, with the Fartlek method, the sprints and the recovery sections should ideally vary in length. Try this on your bike.

Absolutely key to all of this is personal and road safety. We cannot encourage you to undertake any of the above without you being totally aware of your safety and the existence and possible behaviour of the surrounding road users. Our motorist friend will not know why you keep flashing past them several times, only for him to have to pass you again almost immediately afterwards as you hit the slower phase... it could even annoy him. And we know from experience that this generally does not take very much!

So, enjoy your commute to and from work, enhance the training aspects, and arrive at the new cycling season at a new cycling performance peak and armed with some great new training techniques.

There are two trends right now that can help accelerate your cycling training levels beyond your previous expectations. For most of us, the use of a cycling computer which can monitor your heart rate and match it to a known route can make the difference between improvement and peak performance. A GPS enabled Cycling Computer can be bought for a very reasonable price online. For those of us who aspire to semi-pro levels and upwards, Power Meter Training is at the cutting edge of peak performance cycling training. Starting prices for Power Meters are very reasonable, but can reach dizzying heights with some high end kit. You should be aware of the pros and cons of all types of power meter before investing your hard earned cash

Peter Flatman is a former fitness coach and now a keen cyclist. Check out the Author's collected bits and pieces of cycling news and comment [http://cycletalks.com/home] from across the web, including more training tips. Check out the top recommended Cycling Computer [http://www.garmin705edge.co.uk] here and take the guess work out of your cycling training programme.

Performance