by Bob Seebohar, MS, RD, CSSD, CSCS

Being in the saddle for more than 4 hours can definitely present some nutritional challenges. There are a few “old school” nutrition practices cyclists still adhere to, but I want to focus mostly on emerging evidence that suggests a more efficient way of fueling the body for longer training and competitions.

by Danny Suter, USA Cycling Level 1 coach and founder Boulder Performance Network, LLC

If any of the following apply to you, read on.

1. You like going long. Centuries, tours, ultra-distance road, ultra-distance mountain bike, or just crazy long rides with your pals.
   
   
2. You are fit because you have been training smart with your Power Tap and the information on the CycleOps website.
   
   
3. You want to improve your performance in these long distance endeavors.
   
   

When asked to write an article for the August post on Transitioning into the offseason I quickly thought of two groups of cyclists: those that hate fall and winter because it spells the end of the year and those that love it because it means the beginning. If you live to ride and ride to live, there is a solution: cyclocross.

Cyclocross is the fastest growing cycling sport in the US. It is a lung-busting, acid-pumping sport held in a frat party environment. It is the middle ground between road and mountain biking, so it is a great solution for just about everyone.

Here are the three reasons why I recommend you consider getting ready for the cyclocross season.

by Angie Sturtevant

The mountain bike and road season may be nearing an end on your race schedule, but the cyclocross season is about to begin. While all of your training and racing adaptation has turned you into a fine-tuned cycling machine, you’ve likely already hit your peak and are in a training rut. You are probably experiencing both physical and mental fatigue from the season’s spankings and are in the limbo-plateau land to fitness and performance gains. Since the first cyclocross race is only 6 weeks away, the trick is to understand how to get your motivation back and peak for it.

At the end of this year's Tour de France, CycleOps gave away a PowerTap System to one lucky recipient who participated in the 21 Days of Joule-y Sweepstakes. Many cyclists posted their rides to Facebook and Twitter, but only one cyclist could win, and that was Tim Harris. Read on to learn more about him.

by Jason Hilimire, FasCat Coaching

As most mountain bikers know, the majority of trails out there are fairly technical. Full of rocks, roots, trees, ruts, corners, jumps and bumps. How are you supposed to get an effective workout in when all those technical objects get in the way? It’s pretty darn hard to lay down an interval effort when you have so many other things to focus on. You have to start/stop pedaling to clear a rock, bunny hop that log, brake for the upcoming corner. In this article, I’ll explore how to use your CycleOps PowerTap combined with the new Joule cycling computer to effectively train at your desired intensity on your favorite trails.

by Jessi Stensland, Professional Triathlete and Movement Specialist

Spending time in the saddle, consistently, on varying terrain that challenges your fitness and skill level, will certainly improve your mountain biking performance. So where does off-the-bike, functional training come into play for mountain bike performance?

By Andy Applegate, CTS Pro Coach

Criteriums are a staple of racing in the United States. Almost every road racer, whether they like it or not, will end up competing in at least one criterium during the season. They may be stand alone events or part of a multi-day stage race or omnium. What defines the power output requirements of a typical crit? What kind of specific workout would be advantageous to include in training to prepare for these demands? Let’s have a look.

contributed by 2PEAK

Nutrition in Training and Racing

Endurance sport is energy sport. The heroes who rode the Tour de France a hundred years ago knew then that they couldn’t do it without replenishment, and that it was better to eat before you got hungry. Whoever ignores this rule soon gets to know the “Hammer Man”: From one moment to the next, you get so weak that the race is run. The wine and baguettes which they ate in those days are for sure not the optimum basis for competition. Neither are popcorn or bagels. 2PEAK shows you what optimum nutrition in training and competition looks like. Nutrition is an important basic component of performance-orientated training and is (inter) dependent on your physical training. It is food that delivers energy and the recovery elements needed by the body.

By Marci Titus Hall, Level 1 USA Cycling Coach

Competitive cyclist typically have one thing very much in common, they are hard working and highly motivated people. They want to work hard, play hard, train hard, and race hard. These are great and important attributes for success in life as well as cycling. But as a coach I have watched these same attributes limit performance gains in small ways until they result in a plateau or worse a loss in hard earned fitness or an inability to complete a goal event. The issue is usually not a lack of hard training but a lack of the recovery necessary to absorb the hard training and turn it into fitness gains. Even the best laid out training plan can be butchered into an over-trainers delight without careful execution.

First of all let’s cover a very important training principle:

Training Overload + Recovery = Adaptation

Training overload plus recovery equals adaptation. In order for adaptaion to occur, both elements of the equation are necessary: training overload AND recovery. Let's take a look at several recovery methods that can help improve your performance.

1. Take a Recovery Ride

It is fairly easy to get excited about hard training; riding hard is why we become competitive in the first place, but the downfall is when we want every training ride to be hard and to give us that wrung out feeling of accomplishing something big. So the first focus of recovery is a comprehensive well balanced training plan incorporating recovery rides. Recovery rides are the obvious active recovery necessary to give your legs a break from hard riding and to stimulate blood flow, i.e. venous return from the lower legs to the heart, and to bring nutrients to recovering muscles as well as reducing edema (swelling brought on by lack of blood flow or venous return). Riding too hard on this day will add to muscle fatigue instead of reducing it. This ride should be limited to 55% of your functional threshold power or 68% of your functional threshold heart rate.

2. Have a Good Training Plan – and Stick to It!

Staying true to your comprehensive training plan is another important method of ensuring recovery and therefore performance gains from your training. A good training plan should specify intervals and/or intensity of each ride planning a variety of hard, moderate, and easy intensity. However, it is easy to inadvertently turn a moderate ride into semi hard ride, an easy ride into moderate ride, and before you know it the scheduled hard ride ends up being moderate because you lack the physical and or mental capacity to push yourself to your full extent. Now you have completed a semi-hard ride, a few moderate rides and no recovery rides. If you repeat this pattern for long, your training can quickly turn into all moderate rides that may feel hard due to lack of recovery, but aren’t giving you the stimulus that you need for performance enhancement. Using a training plan and a power meter can help you maintain control of your training intensity to get the most out of your time on the bike and keep your performance improving rather than stalling out.

3. Maximize Rest Days

Those simple but highly effective on-the-bike methods of recovery should not to be discounted and can allow for optimal return for your appropriate training efforts. There are, of course, many more off-the-bike methods of ensuring recovery like a good old rest day. As a coach I intend for rest days to be a full day off the bike and ideally a day that could be considered restful. In other words this isn’t the best day to help your best friend move into a third floor walk up or to be in the weight room maxing out your lifts. If you aren’t able to rest on your rest day, plan around it so that you aren’t adding to training fatigue.

4. Get Enough Sleep and Follow a Healthy Diet

Sleep and nutrition – I am linking these because we know how important they are for general health as well as fitness, but I have seen even the most competitive racers completely discount one or both during a hard training week or the days or week before a goal event. You probably realize that a couple nights of lost sleep will have an impact on your training ability; as well a couple of skipped meals or snacks can leave you physically depleted especially during a hard training week. But consider the smaller scale of losing a couple hours of sleep during that high stress week or a not refueling adequately after your hard ride, and you are already heading toward the domino effect of depletion that can limit your ability to recover. During those times of extra physical and mental stress you actually need more sleep and more calories, certainly not less. Plan ahead and try to stick to your sleeping schedule, add a nap if possible, and plan to get adequate nutrition to compensate for the extra training or extra stress involved during hard training or the week of a goal event so you don’t undo your training efforts.

5. Try Water Therapy

Water therapy including ice baths, cold water immersion and contrast baths are quickly becoming popular recovery methods for runners, collegiate sports teams, and of course cyclists. A study from the July 2008 International Journal of Sports Medicine found that cyclists using a cold water immersion or contrast bath had improved recovery from both training with short maximal efforts as well as between multi day stage races. Cold water immersion consists of 10-15 minutes in 60°F water while contrast bath requires alternating 1 minute in a cold bath with 2 minutes in a hot bath of 100°F, 3 or more times. Even tepid water baths of around 86°F are now found to be effective for improving blood flow and aiding in recovery from sore muscles by enhancing the removal of metabolic byproducts. Try one of these recovery methods after your next hard training ride, race, or even rest day and you could be enhancing your ability to recover and therefore able train or race harder.

6. Enjoy a Massage

Massage is not just a luxury. This is a surprisingly hard concept for many athletes to wrap their head and perhaps their hard earned dollar around. However, massage of almost any type can enhance muscle recovery, increase circulation, reduce swelling and edema, rid metabolic byproducts, improve range of motion, as well as reducing the stress hormone cortisol. I recommend weekly massages whenever possible, but if that isn’t feasible, save it for recovery from hard training bouts or when you feel like your riding is getting stale. Don’t forget about using self massage on your legs and glutes via a foam or muscle roller. Gentle rolling toward the heart can aid in circulation, but be careful not to roll too hard; excess pressure can damage muscles and cause soreness. Also avoid deep tissues massage right before a race or event for the same reason.

7. Reduce Non-Training Stress

Lastly and perhaps the hardest recovery modality to accomplish is reducing non-training stress. High levels of stress keep the mind and body on edge, lower immunity, and limit your body’s ability to adapt to anything let alone training. Reduce non-training stress and you will have a better ability to handle the physical stress of training and racing.

Knowing how to manage your body’s ability to recover is the key to getting the most out of an effective training program. Consider adding some or all of these recovery modalities to complete your training program and watch your performance improve.

Marci Titus Hall has been coaching cyclists full time for nearly a decade and has worked her way to becoming a Level 1 USA Cycling Coach in addition to being a long time strength and conditioning coach via the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Marci completed her undergrad degree in Exercise and Sports Science at Oregon State University and did her graduate work in Exercise Physiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently living in Groton, Massachusetts working as a coach.