Whether you’re looking to start doing short rides on lazy Sunday mornings, or gearing up for a mega race in a few months time, or even just hoping to use your car less by biking to work, cycling can be as intense or easy an experience as you want. If you’re looking to improve your cycling performance, however, then there are a few basic things you can do that will improve your power, endurance and speed. Follow these 4 tips to realize excellent improvements, and watch as you not only ride better, but your health improves and your weight drops.
One of the best ways to improve performance is to improve intensity. Long, slow rides as a means of improvement are only going to work if you go hundreds of miles, and spend hours and hours doing so. That method is known as the ‘Miles Make Champions’ method, and while it works, it takes forever. So instead, ride hard. Do sprints or intervals, go faster, so that you burn more calories, get faster, leaner and stronger. Remember, your body adjusts to the level of activity your demand from it. If you go hard, your body will adapt.
Be smart about your workouts. Don’t go back to back with killer rides. After a mega race, or a workout that has you totally beat, also don’t sit on the couch and wait for the fatigue to disappear. Instead, go for a leisurely 30 minute spin around the neighborhood, allowing blood to flow into your muscles and wash away the toxins. By being active and moving even when you’re all burnt out, you can speed up your recovery time and be back in the saddle to prepare for your next big race.
Try out interval training. This doesn’t have to be a complex science filled with meticulously recorded times and results. At heart, all interval training involves is riding above your sustainable max for a short duration of time, and then riding slower than that for awhile, and repeating. By forcing your body to exercise above your normal max for even a short duration period of time you force it to adapt and respond in a manner that it never would if you just cruised along all day. The benefits of interval training are awesome, and all you need to do is the following: go all out for two minutes, and then go easy for two minutes. Do this for four or five repetitions, and you should be set.
Consistency is key. By training frequently, by hitting the road at least a couple of times a week, your body learns to continue to adapt and grow. If you train less than this, your body won’t respond to a progressive overload, and will rather see each training session as an isolated incident that it doesn’t need to react to. By being consistent, by training regularly and frequently, your body will adapt to that lifestyle, and you’ll be able to realize greater results than you otherwise would. What does that mean? Don’t take weeks off.
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