I stumbled upon an Anthony Robbins video that applies to all aspects of life and can be applied to cycling and training.

Watch the video below on how “Tiny Changes Could Mean Huge Results” in your cycling.

What small changes could you make that could lead to huge results in your life and cycling? Below is a list of 10 small changes that can lead to huge results:

1. Better eating habits and nutrition.
2. Off season weight control.
3. Proper sleep.
4. Rest and Recovery.
5. Getting a coach.
6. Better equipment like a set of new wheels.
7. Proper bike fit and positioning.
8. Training with a Power Tap Power Meter
9. Proper base training in the office season
10. Getting in the weight room to build strength.

Looking for an ideal place to train during the winter months? If so, you need to take a serious look at Tucson, Arizona.

Tucson, Arizona is the place to train during the winter months. Many top cyclist and triathletes come to Tucson, Arizona to train during their winter training preparation. An average winter day in Tucson is sunny and 65 to 75 degrees. The mornings can be a little chilly but nothing to stop you from getting out on the road.

Lance Armstrong used Tucson as his base training camp. He rented a cabin on the top of Mt. Lemon. He would spend his day riding the back roads of Tucson and then finish his ride off with a 30 mile climb to the top of Mt. Lemon which gains a total of about 5,000 feet in 26 to 28 miles.

Tucson has one of the best group rides in the country called the ‘Shoot Out’ according to Bicycling Magazine. The 60 mile loop cuts south from Tucson into desolate, mountainous desert toward Green Valley, Arizona almost to the Mexico boarder. During January, February and March the Shoot Out is loaded with professional cyclist from all over the world. The pack ranges from 100 to 175 fit riders. You can often see local pro riders like Phil Zajicek, Gord Fraser and Curtis Gunn gracing the peloton along with pro triathlete Jimmy Riccitello.

For a map and description of the Shoot Out click the link below: www.roadbikerides.com/ride/view/shootout_/77

The other notable ride and a must do is riding to the top of Mt Lemom.

For a map and description of the ride up Mt. Lemmon click the link below: www.roadbikerides.com/ride/view/mt_lemmon_/117

For the triathletes out there, Tucson has one of the best masters swimming programs in the country.  The program is called Tucson Ford Aquatics which is at the University of Arizona pool.

There are 3 daily workout times to choose from: 6 AM, 12 PM, and 6:30 PM. You can often see many top professional triathletes at the pool. The noon workout is the favorite time among the triathletes.

Triathletes like Peter Reid, Jimmy Riccitello, Hillary Biscay, Heather Gollnick, just to name a few, have utilized the Ford Aquatics program for their swim workouts.

For more information visit: http://homepage.mac.com/jimstites/FordAquatics/index.html

If Yogi Berra were a cyclist, here’s what he’d say: cycling is 90% mental, and the other half is physical. Yet with enough self-confidence, our minds tend to stay out of the way, and we have the freedom to perform to our potential. The mentally fit cyclist knows how to assess, maintain, and build self-confidence to improve fun and performance on the bike.

By Marvin Zauderer

The building blocks of the mentally fit cyclist’s five core skills, by describing how managing your will to succeed can play an important role in your mental fitness and cycling performance. This month, I explore Self-Confidence, perhaps the most important element of every athlete’s mental fitness.

For the article The Mind of a Mentally Fit Pro, I asked pro cyclist Steven Cozza of Slipstream-Chipotle H3O about mental skills that have been challenging for him. He didn’t miss a beat:

“Confidence. It’s a huge thing in cycling. I was even told by some people,‘consider a career change.’ You can improve so much by believing in yourself. You can say, ‘I should be at the front of the race, I should be top 5.’ You don’t have to be cocky, but if you’re not confident, you don’t stand a chance. You’ve got to believe in yourself.”

Confidence. Some of us seem born with it. Some of us are lucky enough to grow up among family, friends, and mentors who help develop it in us. But for many of us, at least in certain aspects of our lives, it’s an ongoing challenge.

As I noted in the article on Goal-Setting, much of what we’ve learned about self-confidence in sport builds on the work of psychologist Albert Bandura of Stanford University (home of the current national champion road cycling team — defending their title this week!). Bandura defined self-efficacy as your belief in your “capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.” Roughly translated: Your belief that you can achieve your goals.

Bandura identified four sources for self-efficacy:

1. Mastery experience: When you succeed, you’ll (tend to) believe you’ll succeed in the future.

2. Vicarious experience: You see someone doing something, and you think, “I can do that, too.”

3. Social persuasions: The encouragement (and discouragement) you receive.

4. Physiological factors: How you interpret the feelings and sensations you experience when attempting to achieve your goals.

According to Weinberg and Gould, researchers built on Bandura’s work (among others’) to identify nine sources of self-confidence specific to sport.

1. Mastery: Developing and improving skills in training and competition.

2. Demonstrating ability: Having success in competition.

3. Getting the breaks: Seeing things going your way.

4. Seeing others perform successfully.

5. Physical and mental preparation.

6. Social support: Encouragement from family and friends.

7. Belief/trust in your coach(es).

8. Body image: Feelings about body, strength, appearance, weight.

9. Environmental comfort: Feeling comfortable where you’re performing.

Let’s examine how you might get more from some or all of these sources by seeing how self-confidence fuels – and is fueled by – the 5 Core Skills.

Self-Confidence and The 5 Core Skills

First, let’s look at Goal-Setting. Supported by self-confidence, you’ll set appropriately challenging goals for yourself. If your goals are too easy, or worse, maniacal, you may erode your self-confidence.

You’ll certainly set outcome goals – winning this, completing that – over which you have some, but limited, control. You’ll also set process goals – preparing well for competition, overcoming your anxiety on descents, holding your form on steep climbs – over which you have much more control, and which help you add to your experiences of mastery and success. And in managing yourself to your goals, your experiences of follow-through will add to your self-confidence as well.

Next, the core skill of Concentration. If you’re self-confident, your mind will more likely be at ease. Then, you can more naturally draw on everything within you – physical, psychological, spiritual – when you’re riding, rather than having to fight your mind to do so. And that experience of tapping into your full potential, of being “in the zone” on a ride or in a race: that builds self-confidence. In contrast, if you’re distracted, you may be missing opportunities to build skills, have success, or just plain feel good on the bike. Check out the article on Concentration for tips on how to improve it. Yogi said, “I can’t think when I’m concentrating.” Ah, the pleasures of an uncluttered mind.

How about the core skill of Communication? When you’re self-confident, you’ll tend to speak up. You won’t be thrown off-center by conflict, or another person’s opinion, or their unskillful behavior. But still, relationships affect performance in sport at times. If you’re struggling at all with self-confidence, be sure you look within, but also assess whether the key people in your life – in or out of sport – are supporting or eroding your self-confidence. In particular, if you have a coach, ask yourself these four questions:

1. Does your coach really “get” you? Does s/he truly see your abilities, skills, strengths, weaknesses? If not, your coach’s expectations of you – and behavior toward you – may be misaligned with who you actually are.

2. How does your coach talk to you about your successes? Does your coach say they’re the result of things within your control or outside of your control, and what effect does that have on you? As the U.S. Olympic Committee points out, the self-confident athlete sees successes as having a significant “permanent, personal, and controllable” component, eg. “My training paid off” vs. “I was just lucky.” Which side is your coach on?

3. How does your coach talk to you about your setbacks? In a way that’s just plain wrong for you (eg. making harsh comments about your personality) or are you just taking it too hard? Does your coach see your setback as permanent (look for words like “never” or “always”), personal, and uncontrollable? Or does your coach see the setback as temporary, due at least in part to things beyond your control?

4. Does your coach truly believe in you? And is your behavior and performance confirming their expectations?

If you don’t like your answers to these questions, it may be time for a heart-to-heart with your coach. If you do like your answers, it may be time to tell your coach. (Or, at least deliver some chocolate!)

Now, on to the core skill of Effective Self-Talk. What kind of coach are you for yourself? Ask yourself the four questions above. (Alert readers may notice a Passover theme here.) Sufficient self-confidence tends to fuel self-talk that supports and adds to, rather than detracts from, your performance. A lack of self-confidence can fuel a view of yourself (not to mention others) that is negative, judgmental, and pessimistic. And that tends to erode self-confidence. The degree to which you encourage yourself, support yourself, visualize yourself succeeding, acknowledge your progress and successes, and just plain stop any negative self-talk: all of these – and more – are reflections of your relationship with yourself.

There may be people in your life who you would like to relate to you more skillfully. Sometimes the best way to influence that is to do the same for yourself. To paraphrase Gandhi: Be the coach you want to see in the world.

Next, the fifth core skill: Managing Emotions, particularly the athlete’s #1 nemesis: anxiety (and its siblings: stress, nerves, fear, tension, worry, and pressure). Self-confidence evokes positive emotions, which are often wonderfully effective counterweights to anxiety, and tend to make it easier to manage anxiety when it arises. And when you feel the sadness, frustration, or disappointment of setbacks? Self-confidence helps you handle and metabolize those feelings. On the other hand, lower self-confidence can open the door for more anxiety, and a sufficient amount of ongoing, debilitating anxiety can wear away self-confidence. Plus, if the afflictive emotions from setbacks are getting “stuck” in your system, that may erode self-confidence as well. Go back to the article on Managing Emotions, and perhaps the articles on Self-Awareness and Handling Pressure, for some ideas on how to improve your skills here.

Going Deeper, For Intrepid Self-Explorers

There’s one other source of self-confidence I’d like to mention, and it’s not for the faint of heart: self-worth.

I recently read Bill Strickland’s harrowing and ultimately redemptive new book, Ten Points. With deeply moving, edge-of-the-saddle writing, Bill explains how he used his cycling to help him overcome the shame created by an abusive childhood. An excerpt:

“I fought the thing inside me and rode when I could, as much as I could, as much as a responsible husband with a new daughter and what felt like an important job could manage. And when I couldn’t ride, I was terrified. I could feel something stirring in my chest, awakening from the sleep that cycling fatigued it into.”

He later names it:

“Simple shame, that was all. That was the unbearable thing that had destroyed who knows how many generations of my family, an emotion that for some reason the first abused ancestor of mine must have found unendurable unless it was transformed into a grand curse, something that could be boasted about, that could be a source of twisted pride, that could be passed along like a sick heirloom. My childhood was not a curse, nor a destiny, just something shameful that happened to me a long time ago.”

Whether in sport or in other aspects of our lives, many of us have had experiences of embarrassment, guilt, and shame. From being picked last for the schoolyard team over and over again, to the most heinous acts of abuse, these feelings have a way of a creating a stranglehold around self-worth, and as a result, self-confidence. For any of you who know this to be true, cycling offers a way through, and perhaps a way out, to freedom.

In all of your efforts to build self-confidence, I wish you success.

About Marvin:

Marvin Zauderer, in his sport psychology practice, works with athletes from all sports on the mental skills needed for success. He works in person, by phone, and through the Internet, and frequently speaks to teams and other groups. Marvin leads the Mental Training program at Whole Athlete, a performance center in Marin County, California that provides a comprehensive set of coaching, testing, fitting, and consulting services to amateur and professional athletes. He also works with businesses on resolving conflict in the workplace. He is a licensed psychotherapist, USA Cycling Level 2 coach, and Masters road racer for Synergy-Taleo Racing. He welcomes email at marvinz@pobox.com. His website is www.marvinz.com.

Permission to use by Marvin Zauderer http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5872

You see it in small towns and big cities all over the world, from teenagers to 70-year-old men, the twitchiness and sideways glances as the city-limit sprint draws near. Sprinting is one of the primary components of cycling, for racers and recreational riders alike, but it’s often neglected in training programs.

Even Lance had to work on sprinting. When he was a young rider, he had a strong finish–he won his first Tour de France stage in 1993, at age 21, in a sprint from a breakaway group. But when his post-cancer focus shifted to winning the yellow jersey, sprinting took a back seat to climbing and time-trial training, and by 2003 I was worried about his explosive power. During his preparation for the 2004 Tour de France, the sixth he would win, I reintroduced sprint workouts into his training program. There are two primary components to a powerful sprint–acceleration and top-end speed–and after working on both that winter, Lance sprinted to victories in three of the five stages he won in that year’s Tour de France.

But don’t think of sprint training as useful only at the finish line. It’s also critical for bridging gaps, initiating breakaways, attacking on short climbs and accelerating out of turns during criteriums. It can also save your hide: In my 30-plus years on a bike, a quick sprint has saved me from being caught by dogs and hit by drivers running red lights at least as many times as it helped me win races. Here are two simple workouts you can use to power up your sprint.

Start Like a Rocket

A quick and powerful acceleration snaps rivals off your rear wheel. When you master this initial part of the sprint, you can instantly open a one- to two-bike-length gap to the pack behind you, which is quite a head start.

The key is Speed Accelerations, or sets of three 15-second sprints at different resistance levels, which will help you develop the agility, power and technique necessary to ramp up your speed on any terrain. You’ll be able to accelerate from a slow speed on a climb, from high speed on a descent and at the finish line–all in the same day. Beginners should do two sets, intermediates (Cat 3s and Masters) should do three, and advanced riders should be able to complete four. Allow three to five minutes of easy recovery spinning between each sprint, and 10 minutes of recovery between sets.

Sprint 1: Shift your gears to the small chainring and 16-17 cog. Roll at 10-12 mph with your hands in the drops. Jump out of the saddle and sprint. You’ll spin out the gear quickly. Then, sit down and focus on keeping your cadence high to the finish.

Sprint 2: Same as Sprint 1, but in the big chainring and 16-17 cog.

Sprint 3: Same as Sprint 1, but in the big chainring and 14-15 cog.

Leave Them Fighting for Second

A sprint can be won with an excellent jump, but it can just as easily be lost with inadequate top-end speed. To prevent someone from passing you in the final 20 meters, focus on High Speed Sprints.

Because real-world sprints often start from speeds well above your normal 15-18 mph cruising pace, you need to start High Speed Sprints from higher speeds as well. Find a hill that levels off onto flat ground in a safe area. Ride downhill so you’re going 25-30 mph about 100 meters from the bottom. With your hands in the drops, jump out of the saddle and start sprinting. Continue for 10-12 seconds after you reach flat ground. Even though it will get harder because you don’t have gravity’s help, try to keep your speed and cadence from dropping. Recover with five minutes of easy riding and repeat. Beginners should start with one set of four, intermediates should build up to two sets of four, and advanced riders should be able to do three sets of four.

These workouts are easy to incorporate into regular endurance rides, and are fun to add to rides with a friend or two. Sneak them in just twice a week, and soon you’ll notice that when the hammer drops, you’re half a wheel faster–or more. And that can make all the difference.

In the book The Lance Armstrong Performance Program: Seven Weeks to the Perfect Ride by Lance Armstrong and Chris Carmichael there is a whole chapter dedicated to sprinting.

Chris Carmichael coached Lance Armstrong to seven Tour de France victories and founded Carmichael Training Systems (www.trainright.com).

Scott Blanchard is a Category Mens 1 cyclist and owns and runs Pyramid Coaching in Tucson, AZ. Pictured  below is Scott Blanchard who also helps manage Eclipse Racing Team.

Transition-There needs to be clear separation between racing seasons. The goal of this phase is to allow all systems of the body to recover and rejuvenate from a long season of training and racing.  An additional benefit of this phase is mental revitalization, which will enable the athlete to approach the New Year refreshed and enthusiastic. Most athletes are reluctant to let go of fitness even temporarily. This is detrimental to long term gain and nobody can maintain peak fitness for years without interruption. In fact, training at high intensities for long periods of time can and will result in detraining of the aerobic system, inability to recovery from workouts, inability to go hard, injury, illness, and an overall lack of motivation. 

The solution is allowing for periodization in your training. Periodization sounds like a complex concept but it is simply a process of organizing the year into different phases or cycles (macro,meso,micro) which will stress the various energy production systems and allow for systematic recovery and resulting peak fitness. The western insistence on not using periodizing training and continued “harder is better” approach has caused many, if not most US athletes to never realize their full potential. How many one-speed wonders do you know? 

If you don’t allow for adequate recovery it will be forced on you and quite possibly, at a point in time that compromises your entire season. During this phase it is important to allow for recovery of cartilage, ligaments, tendons, muscles, skeleton, the cardio vascular/respiratory system and the mind. You must have something to build on if you wish progress and improve. As with any foundation the broader the base the higher the peak.

The basic premise behind making gains in virtually any training scenario is that the body adapts to stress during periods of rest. This is one of the miracles of the human organism. We are adaptable due to our innately programmed survival response.  Humans on a cellular level are designed to survive. When we incur an injury or illness, our immune system kicks in to heal us. When we are subjected to a workload, as long as we have access to adequate nutrition and sleep, we will become stronger. If this were not the case, the stresses that humans have undergone leading up to the post-industrial era would have been devastating. 

The transition phase is characterized by a substantial reduction in volume, intensity, and frequency of exercise. I often will incorporate complete abstinence from training at the beginning of the phase. The choice to give someone complete time off depends on many physiological and psychological factors. Cross training and a return to resistance training is appropriate during this period. I often will encourage the athlete to give themselves permission to miss a workout(s) during this period if they wish to. 

It is important that by the end of the transition period the athlete has had rest and a gradual build in training to allow them to move into the base phase effectively and safely.                                                         

Base Phase- The most important goal of the Base Phase is to train the aerobic system and secondly to develop strength (sport specific and weight room). It is the foundation from which all subsequent fitness will be derived.

The Base Phase is characterized by progressively increasing volume performed mostly in the lower end of the aerobic zones. It is important that during this time you incorporate drills to help develop leg speed (neurological adaptations), efficient muscle recruitment (one leg drills), strength and muscle tension loads (hills and big gear work), and proper technique.

In addition it is necessary to address the aerobic energy production system. The fuel source for aerobic energy production is fat stores. It is important to note that human beings, for all practical purposes, have an almost unlimited supply of fat reserves to be used as a fuel source. It therefore is of primary importance to train an athlete to be able to exercise at higher and higher intensities while still maintaining a state of oxidative (aerobic) metabolism. This is the process of developing aerobic efficiency. All things being equal: it is the athlete who has developed greater aerobic efficiency who has the best chance of winning the race. This is a fact because the longer an individual can stay aerobic, the longer they can abstain from going anaerobic (gross lactate accumulation), and the longer they can exercise because they are making withdrawals from the most abundant fuel source, fat stores.

It is important to remember that when you exercise anaerobically you have initiated a completely different energy production system. The byproduct of anaerobic metabolism is lactate (specifically-gross accumulation of lactate). Lactate or lactic acid should be viewed as poison for the endurance endeavor. It is definitely one of the greatest performance inhibitors. For example, have you ever had a gap form in a race that you just could not bridge. Even if the gap was only a few feet, the most probable cause for the inability to bridge a gap is lactate accumulation. Most all of us have felt that dreaded burning, dead leg, I can’t roll this gear out any more feeling. Now imagine if a gap formed and you were very much aerobic. You would have no difficulty bridging the gap if you were aerobically fresh. So you see, it just makes physiological sense to develop your aerobic foundation before doing anaerobic work.

For multi-sport athletes in general, anaerobic work should be used sparingly and only after proper aerobic work and the subsequent adaptations have occurred. In road cycling and certain running applications anaerobic development is far more critical. The adaptations that result from doing aerobic base work are an increase in the size and quantity of your mitochondria (energy production component of your cells), proliferation of your capillary beds (aids in efficient blood and consequently oxygen transfer to working muscles), development of fat burning enzymes (aids endurance), musculo-skeletal development, sport specific and muscle strength gains and strengthening of immune system to name a few.

Lay down those miles and create a situation where you now have opportunity to develop great fitness. While aerobic development does not guarantee high-level fitness it does provide you the necessary means. The more foundation you can lay the higher the achievable peak. The greater the base you develop the greater the resistance to injury, illness, and over training. You literally have something to fall back on. Your fitness is supported or “backed up” by your base so to speak. The more base work you do the more intensity you can handle. The more intensity you can handle the stronger you can become. It’s all a matter of having the ability to recover from, and adapt to, stress. 

Scott Blanchard

Pyramid Coaching Intl. LLC

scott [at] pyramidcoaching dot com

www.pyramidcoaching.com