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Mountain Bike Race Starts Specific ÒstartÓ workouts must
be part of your training plan if you want to win short track
and cross country races. Mountain bike starts are always an
anaerobic effort for several minutes then a threshold effort
for most of the rest of the race. The key to ÒstartÓ practice
is training your legs to recover from an anaerobic effort
while continuing at threshold pace.
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Eleven Reasons to Give
Santa Why you need a Power Meter for Christmas
As the season
winds down, most athletes start thinking about how to get a
notch faster next year. Christmas lies at a time of year when
training volume is low and is the best time to introduce new
equipment into your life ø how convenient! By now you must
have heard the buzz about power meters and owners raving about
them. It is the best training tool you can invest in after
hiring a coach of course! If you have checked them out then
you know they are a big investment, so here is a list of
reasons to tell Santa why you need one
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Core
Strength for Off-Road athletes A strong core and upper
body is needed to drive your bike through technical terrain
without losing momentum. Ultra-endurance mountain bikers need
a huge reservoir of core and upper body strength just to
maintain control of the bike for 12-24 hours of off-road
pounding.
Read
more>> |
Training
for 100 Mile and 24 Hour Racing Ultra-endurance
off-road events are increasing in popularity and availability.
Here is a list of things to test and perfect in your
training in order to successfully step up to the distance.
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| Tactics
for Mountain Bike Racing What are tactics? “Anything
you can do to help yourself succeed” Edward Borysewicz.
There are cyclists who “win” during training
and cyclists who win during races. These are not always
the same athletes. On race day the strongest rider does
not always reach the finish line first. The “x” factor
here is race tactics. A brilliant race tactician can
finish a race in front of a stronger but less tactically
aware rider every time. Tactics can give you that extra
edge to finish on top. Read
more >> |
| Team
24 Hour Mountain Bike Racing 24-hour mountain bike
racing is competitive! To win, every team member must
ride as fast as they can on every lap. To do this you
must carefully care-take your body between laps in order
to start the next lap replenished and able put down a
fast time. For example at the 24-hours of Moab a rider
on a team of four looking to win, will have a rest period
of three to four hours between laps. Read
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| Learning
a Cyclo-cross Mount-Dismount Learning and practicing
fluid mounts and dismounts without stopping is an advanced
skill top triathletes and mountain bikers can learn to
improve their performances. It will reduce triathletes
transition times. For mountain bikers it is a paramount
skill needed in order to flow through a course with several
hike-a-bike sections. It is much faster to hop on your
bike from a run, than decelerating to a full stop, mounting
your bike and then accelerating back up to speed. Use
the following lesson to learn a cyclo-cross mount and
dismount. In the next race seamlessly flow from running
with your bike to riding without a change in speed and
momentum. Read
more >> |
| On-Bike
Strength Training During the Base 1 training phase,
most athletes work very hard in the gym, strength training
through the Maximum Strength (MS) period. Once this period
ends, leg strength is not automatically transferred to
the bike. It can be frustrating to see gym built strength
fail to transfer to the bike. There are two links that
need to be taken care of to ensure gym strength is transferred
into on-the-bike strength. Read
more >> |
| Illiotibial
Band Treatment for Cyclists 1. Ice the area four
times daily. 2. Take a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory
medication, with food, every eight hours. 3. Widen your
stance on the bike by moving you cleats as far to the
inside of the shoe sole as possible. Or, put a washer
on the pedal axle so the pedal doesn't thread as far
into the crank-arm. Limit washer thickness to 2 mm so
enough pedal screws in for safety. Some road riders install
a triple crank set to take advantage of the longer bottom
bracket axle. Read
more >> |
| Stability
Exercises for Cyclists The following exercises have
been specifically chosen to address the typical muscle
imbalances developed by cyclists. The biking position
causes certain structures to be elongated, while others
are kept in a contracted position. When a muscle is stretched
out for prolonged periods of time, (such as gluteus maximus
in cycling) it will become long and inefficient in portions
of its range. Other muscles, kept in a contracted position
will become shortened and overactive. This sort of imbalance
found between different muscles or even portions of one
muscle, can lead to injury and inefficiency. Read
more >> |
| Interval
Training the Scientific Way The three main variables
to consider when designing a training plan for yourself
are frequency—the number of times you ride per
week, duration—how long each ride lasts, and intensity—how
fast you go. Many athletes have work and family responsibilities
that largely dictate the frequency and duration components.
This is “volume”—how many miles or
hours you ride in a week. The hard part to figure out
is the intensity component. What intensity should you
ride to make the highest intensity workouts—intervals—contribute
to making you a faster cyclist? Read
more >> |
LW Coaching Heart Rate and Performance Testing Guidelines
There are two
reasons to conduct cycling performance field tests:
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To set a performance benchmark
After
future tests you can compare performance benchmark data to
check you are improving or see if you are not improving and
need to make changes to your training plan. Keeping tabs on
performance benchmarks gives a good reality check. Maximum
distance ridden in 30 minutes is the performance benchmark
used for this training plan.
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To set training zones to follow during workouts
Average
heart rate from the final 20 minutes of a 30 minute time trial
is used to estimate lactate threshold heart rate and set heart
rate training zones.
Read more >>
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