TRANSITION, BASE WORK AND PREPARATION FOR YOUR MOST SUCCESSFUL CYCLING YEAR EVER!

Transition, base work and preparation for your most successful year ever by Scott Blanchard.

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.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Training tips for the upcoming race season

While it may seem that the upcoming racing season is light years away, it’s sure to arrive faster than you expected. If you don’t start preparing now, your first race will be here before you even dust off the indoor trainer!

So if you don’t want to get dropped on the first spring ride, start doing these five things today!

1. Rest and Recover

If you do one thing this winter to prepare for next season, it should be rest. Sit, lie down, take a cat nap, sleep all day, whatever you want.

Everyone focuses on their intervals, training rides, and/or strict diets, and then they forget about resting properly! You need to take some time away from the bike and away from the gym, and you should even take a break from thinking about cycling so your mind can get a rest, too.

There are a few reasons for this. First, the rest gives your muscles a chance to recuperate and rebuild themselves. Second, it allows some time for your body to recover from overuse injuries (being hunched over on a bike, spinning your legs at 90 rpm all summer long takes a toll.) Third, and possibly most important, is that some time away from the bike will let you come back with renewed excitement for riding!

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