From customized workouts to authoritative advice, Fitness Cycling provides the most effective workouts for achieving peak physical conditioning. As a cyclist and physician for one of the sport’s leading teams, author Shannon Sovndal provides a detailed approach to cycling that will help you increase strength, speed, stamina, and overall fitness.
Fitness Cycling features 56 workouts based on specific aspects of riding, such as base building, interval training, sprint and hill climbing, and time trialing. Each workout is color coded for intensity level, so you can create a targeted program based on your goal, current fitness level, and cycling experience.
With recommendations, advice, and professional insights on riding techniques, goal setting, training concepts, recovery, and preventing common cycling injuries, Fitness Cycling is the one training guide you’ll turn to again and again for a lifetime of cycling workouts.
Chapter 1 Setting Cycling Fitness Goals
Chapter 2 Understanding Training Concepts
Chapter 3 Measuring Cycling Fitness
Chapter 4 Understanding Training Workload and Zones
Chapter 5 Planning Your Program
Chapter 6 Base-Building Workouts
Chapter 7 Interval Workouts for Flat or Varied Terrain
Chapter 8 Hill Workouts
Chapter 9 Time Trial Workouts
Chapter 10 Sprint Workouts
Chapter 11 Stationary Bike Workouts
Chapter 12 Off-Season Workouts
Chapter 13 Equipping Yourself
Chapter 14 Refining Bike Fit and Riding Techniques
Chapter 15 Dealing With Common Cycling Problems
Shannon Sovndal, MD, FACEP, is the owner and founder of Thrive Health and Fitness Medicine (Thrive HFM), an elite team of physicians, exercise physiologists, and athletes who provide clients with the highest level of personalized health care, life management, and fitness training. He is the director of trauma special operations development at
Denver Health Medical Center and medical director at North Colorado Med Evac. He is a board-certified emergency medicine physician at Boulder Community Hospital.
From 2007 to 2013, Sovndal was a team physician for the Garmin-Slipstream professional cycling team. He worked as a physician at the General Clinical Research Center at the University of Colorado from 2004 to 2012. Before becoming a physician, Sovndal raced road bikes in the United States, winning the California/Nevada District Championship and many other road races and criteriums.
Sovndal is the author of Fitness Cycling (Human Kinetics, 2013). He has written numerous sport-related articles and lectured on exercise-related topics. He attended medical school at Columbia University in New York, completed his residency at Stanford University in California and now lives in Boulder, Colorado.
“The best training program is one that engages you with variety and ultimately ensures that you improve. Shannon shows you how to mix it up, have fun, and go faster with Fitness Cycling."
Connie Carpenter-- 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist
"Fitness Cycling is an excellent tool for learning the basics of cycling and for applying a variety of workouts and concepts toward attaining your cycling goals. Sovndal truly hits on the principles that matter."
Timmy Duggan-- Liquigas-Cannondale Pro Cycling Team
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Become fit by establishing training goals on the bike
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Goals
If you want to train more seriously, you need to have a plan. Every time you get on your bike, you are essentially training. The question is whether you're training effectively or just gaining some conditioning through random episodes of exercise. If you are brand new to the sport, you will see great gains in your riding fitness, skill, and comfort simply by getting out on rides. Your body will respond to the stress of riding and will adapt accordingly. But, you can achieve much more progression if you take the time to establish a plan of action.
Effective training is what this book is all about. Most of us have other commitments—family, work, friends, and so on. That's why cyclists need to make the most of the time they spend on the bike.
As a performance cyclist, you should always be striving to improve, and you should focus your attention on your cycling goals. If you want to hit the target, you first have to define that target.
What are your goals? Why are you riding your bike? Are you riding in order to stay healthy, to beat a friend up a local climb, or to complete your first century? Every person has a different goal, and that's the point. You own your goals and all the training that you complete—every pedal stroke, every climb, every Saturday you drag yourself out of bed and onto the road.
Goals can be intimidating because they come with an inherent chance of failure. A goal that is easy to achieve and includes no chance of failure would be ineffective because it goes against the very premise of this book—getting the most out of your riding. The possibility of success or failure is the crux of a good goal. You need to struggle to improve, and the only way to truly struggle is to know that there is a risk of failure. It is the risk, the chance of failure, that drives you toward success.
To help ensure that you establish attainable goals, you should apply the Four Ps of goal setting: personalized, positive, perceivable, and possible.
Personalized means that the goals are your own. Only you can determine what is important, what will motivate you to keep your commitment, and what will give you a sense of accomplishment.
All your goals should be positive. Negative energy sucks! At Disneyland, they live by this philosophy. If you ask the workers when the park closes, they will respond, “The park stays open until 8 o'clock.” You should set a goal to accomplish a desired result rather than to avoid failure. Word your goals so that the outcome is positive.
You need to set goals that have a tangible outcome. Your goals must be perceivable to yourself or to others. This aspect of goal setting is all about accountability.
Finally, your goals need to be realistic but challenging. When you think about your goal, you should have a strong sense that the desired outcome is possible, but by no means assured. You need to believe even with the possibility of failure. This will help you suffer a little longer, struggle just a bit more, and get the most out of your training plan.
Don't think that goals are only for professionals or racers. EVERY RIDER NEEDS GOALS. Think of goals the same way you think of the rest of the training program. Training is all about progression, and goals should follow suit. They start with more obtainable outcomes. But with each accomplishment, the task becomes more difficult. Each goal builds on the last in a stepwise fashion (figure 1.1), until you find yourself faced with your ultimate accomplishment.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/3se_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/4art_Main.jpg
Be sure to write down your goals. For each time frame—short, medium, and long—fill in your primary and secondary goals (figure 1.1). Again, these goals can be anything. They should be whatever motivates you to train when you might feel like flicking on the TV instead. There is something about actually writing down your goals. This brings them outside your brain and into the real world—an accountable world.
Training is all about commitment, discipline, and perseverance. It is a slow grind, and sometimes you feel as though you're going backward instead of forward. But if you stick to your program, you WILL get better. Writing down your goals is the first barrier to overcome.
Goals will perpetually be included in your training program. Every time you reach a goal, you can have a little celebration, even if it is internal. Treat yourself to a double half-caf, mocha chai latte if that's your thing. As soon as you are finished basking in the glory of the accomplishment, write down a new set of goals. Stay on target!
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Using cycling to lose weight
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight.
Fitness Cycling.
Cycling for Weight Loss
Cycling is a fantastic way to lose weight. Regardless of what a trendy diet might try to tell you, an effective weight loss program includes two key aspects: (1) exercise and (2) eating right. For you to lose weight over time, the calories you take in or eat must be less than the calories you burn. It's a simple solution to what seems like a complex problem:
Weight Loss = Calories In < Calories Out
That might seem like work, and it is! Losing weight is tough. You'll need to follow the same principles that are applied to training. Be consistent and persistent. Changing your base weight is like turning a ship with a small rudder. It takes a little while for the ship to respond to a change of direction. The change will come; you just have to be patient.
Some cyclists make the mistake of only wanting to ride in the “fat burning zone.” The reality of weight loss is that you need to burn calories. The harder you ride, the faster you'll burn. This extrapolates beyond the workout as well. So if you only have a limited amount of time and want to get the most weight loss out of your workout, you should ride as fast as you can.
Going out on a ride is one of the best ways to burn calories. But burning calories is not all that cycling offers. It can help you lower blood pressure, build muscle, and improve cardiovascular health—all while rekindling the childhood thrill of zipping down the road with the wind blowing in your face.
Cycling offers a wide range of gradable training intensities, allowing you to find your perfect training tempo. You can train indoors and out. And cycling is easy on your muscles, joints, and tendons. It's a great way to get yourself back into shape if you've been out of the workout game for a while.
Cycling's weight loss benefits include the following:
- Use of large muscle groups to burn calories
- Easily varied intensities
- Low-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise
- Aerobic, resistance, and isometric exercises all in one workout
- Fresh air, beautiful scenery, and socializing with riding partners
- Effective exercise for all ages
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Use training zones to achieve your best workout
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity.
Fitness Cycling.
Training Zones
Training zones are used to quantify and track intensity. Remember that workload is the product of volume (duration and frequency) and intensity. The volume component of your workload is easily tracked; all you need is a watch and a calendar. Intensity, however, is a whole different ball game. This is the toughest part of your training to get right.
As mentioned previously, every time you train you should have a goal for the workout. To reach that goal, you'll need to be aware of how hard you're riding (i.e., your intensity).
The purpose of a good training program is to work different aspects of your physiology. You'll be training your aerobic and anaerobic systems, your strength, and your mental fortitude. Some workouts may be for base training, building up the vascular machinery that will allow you to go hard later on. Other workouts may focus on training your maximal speed, allowing you to blow past a friend as you race for a city limit sign.
Each training zone represents a different level of effort, ranging from easy to hard. An overwhelming amount of information is available on training zones. Different coaches and books use different nomenclature, and this can make it confusing. This book is designed to give you a solid foundation in the world of training; the goal is to simplify things so that you'll have a good understanding that's adaptable to whatever terminology you encounter along the way.
Let's break intensity down into its simplest components. At the most basic level, you have to ask yourself a simple question before you head out on a training ride: “Is this workout easy or hard?” Is your bike rolling down the street with little effort, or are you about ready to blow a gasket?
Easy or hard. It's that simple. To focus on particular components of your physiology and to keep your workouts interesting, I further divide “easy” and “hard” into three different levels of workout intensity (figure 4.1). That gives you a total of six separate training zones (table 4.1).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39art_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/094/39se_Main.jpg
Zone 1: Active Recovery
This is the easiest zone. It is intended to help you recover from difficult training rides. For example, you may train in this zone if you feel thrashed because you did multiple, high-end intervals the day before. An easy spin—while outside breathing the fresh air—can help you loosen and relieve tired muscles. The focus is to help your legs rejuvenate, and even though the training in this zone is easy, it's an important part of your overall training program.
Zone 2: Endurance
Functionally, endurance work encompasses everything below your LT. The primary difference between recovery and endurance is the duration. On endurance rides, you will generally go longer and farther than a simple recovery ride. In the endurance zone, you should focus on laying the groundwork of your physiology so that you have a strong platform for your future training. All the blood vessels, capillaries, cells, and mitochondria need to be present before, as they say in the movie This is Spinal Tap, you “put it up to 11.” Like any structure, your body is only as strong as its foundation, and that's what this training zone is all about. Early in the season, you'll spend a lot of time in this zone, but throughout the entire program, you should continually revisit your base conditioning.
Zone 3: Tempo
A ride in the tempo zone is very much like an endurance ride, but with slightly more serious speed. You may stop to smell the roses on an endurance ride, but on a tempo ride, you need to be a little more focused and disciplined. This ride mimics a long effort, but it is done at an easier pace than when you're in a race or trying to obtain a personal goal performance. Focus on a rhythmic pattern, ticking away at the pedals and eating through the miles as you build up a solid physiologic foundation.
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold
In this zone, you really hone in on trying to increase your LT. This is all about training your body to tolerate higher and higher intensities for longer periods of time. The less lactic acid you produce, the better you'll go on the road. You want your threshold percentage to be as high as possible. The purpose of this zone is to make your body efficient at using the available energy supply and enhancing the removal of cellular waste from exercise. It is a difficult training zone because it involves a hard effort that often lasts for an extended period of time. But once you start completing training cycles in this zone, you'll note the increased performance on the road. Fitness is a good feeling!
Zone 5: Super Threshold
This is pure suffering. You will be counting the seconds (that seem like minutes) when doing intervals in zone 5. This intensity has you working above your LT. Your body is making the products of anaerobic metabolism faster than they can be cleared. You'll feel the burn building up right away. Zone 5 trains your maximal capacity and helps lift your V?O2max. This intensity hurts, but the good news is that zone 5 intervals aren't nearly as long as zone 4; therefore, you can keep your mind focused on finishing the interval.
Zone 6: Maximal
This is maximal effort. You'll be working in zone 6 when you sprint for the line or a hilltop finish. By definition, this intensity can only be maintained for short bursts. This is top-end output. Zone 6 training not only helps increase your performance ceiling, but it also helps you become “comfortable” at your high end. That might seem impossible, but you want to ensure that you don't go all spastic or lose form when you are sprinting for the line. Neuro-coordination goes out the window when you become very fatigued, and training in zone 5 and zone 6 will improve your ability to continue pedaling efficiently right when you need it most.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.
Exercises to improve bike-handling skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action.
Fitness Cycling.
Bike-Handling Skills
Riding on the road means that you always have to be alert and ready to take evasive action. The better your bike-handling skills, the more likely you'll come out unscathed. As with anything, practice makes perfect. It's better to work on handling skills before you need them, rather than wait for an emergency. Being calm and confident on the bike may get you out of a bad situation. Even if you ride alone, you can't always predict what's around the next corner or what the car just ahead of you will do. If you ride in packs, you'll need to be even more comfortable on the bike because of the proximity of other riders.
Following are a few exercises that may come in handy. Find a quiet area without cars or obstacles so you can focus your attention on the exercise rather than on obstacles. Whatever type of bike you're riding (road, mountain, cross, hybrid, or touring), all of these exercises are applicable and valuable.
- Wheelies—Many of us mastered the wheelie as a kid on our BMX bikes. Feeling comfortable popping the front wheel can save you if you're about to roll over an obstacle. Settle yourself on the pedals, and when comfortable, yank up on the handlebar. Start small and slowly build up. Robbie McEwen is a professional road racer famous for coming over the finish line riding a wheelie on his racing bike.
- Bunny hops—I've been saved many times by the bunny hop, and that's not hyperbole. This is an excellent skill to master. You should practice a bunny hop until you have no problem clearing a curb or pothole. While rolling, pull up with both feet and hands at the same time. Both of the wheels should come off the ground at the same time.
- Tight circles—Find a parking space or other marker in the pavement. While riding at slow speed, work on making as tight a circle as possible without falling over. Don't forget to do this drill in both directions. The purpose is to give you a good feel for your bike while also enhancing your balance. This exercise will help you feel comfortable in tight spaces and in packs.
- Rapid braking—Accelerate to a sprint and then coast. Rapidly apply your brakes to stop as quickly as possible without skidding. Remember that the majority of your stopping power comes from your front brake. The tricky part is that if you overapply the front brake, you can flip or “endo.” This drill will help you get a feel for how quickly you can stop. It will also help you learn the proper technique for rapidly decelerating without losing control.
- Track stands—You've likely seen a bike rider doing this at a traffic stop. Make sure you've mastered popping out of your pedals before attempting this exercise. You want to feel confident that you can abort if you start to fall over. Like the other drills, this hones your sense of balance and connection to the bike. Hold your hands on the brakes, turn your wheel to one side, and stand on the pedals. You may have to rock back and forth just a bit to maintain your balance.
- Cornering—Pick a smooth, sweeping corner without obstacles or debris. Come into the corner, slow at first and then more quickly. Feel your bike lean over. Get comfortable driving through the corner. Remember that you can't pedal through the corner because your pedal may clip the ground. Focus on driving the ball of your outside foot through the bottom of the pedal with the foot in the 6 o'clock position on the crank. You'll get a feel for how much grip you have coming into a corner. Remember, try not to brake while sweeping through the corner. Traction is in limited supply. If you brake, you'll be using up some of your grip to slow the bike and some to keep the tire from slipping out. It's better to use your traction for keeping the tire on the pavement.
Read more in Fitness Cycling by Shannon Sovndal.