Every situation is different, but there are a few rules you can abide by to determine whether you should quit your cycling workout or put your head down and suffer through it. How Often Are You Training? If you’re following a low-volume plan… Harden up. You’re training just a few times a week and if you…
“Why does that guy have a beard and long hair? That’s gotta make him less aero…” In episode 53 of the Ask a Cycling Coach podcast, we sat down with Clif Bar Team Rider Pete Morris and received the question above. For all you long-haired bearded riders out there, let’s get to the bottom of…
Answer: Divide the amount of kJs by 4.184 then divide by .25. Calories burned cycling are dependent on your Gross Metabolic Efficiency, but for most people, it’s between 20-25%. That means for every Calorie you burn produces around 1.045 kilojoules. For practical reasons, most cyclists approximate 1 kJ is equal to 1 Calorie. In…
Sometimes working out late at night is the only option, but evening workouts have the potential to negatively affect your training. This begs the question: are cycling workouts done just before bedtime even worth doing? It’s a struggle many cyclists are familiar with: finding time to train during daylight hours can be tough. Jobs, family…
The human body naturally adjusts to different elevations. Although you may not notice, on the cellular level it’s constantly adjusting to support your external environment. Cyclists have learned to use this knowledge to their advantage through what’s known as altitude training. Altitude training helps to adjust the amount of oxygen your body is exposed to…
Alcohol is intimately related to cycling and racing in general. Post-ride trail brews, podium champagne and “recovery beers” are all a regular part of our cycling vernacular and culture, but if you’re trying to take your training seriously, should they be? The effects of alcohol on performance can be narrowed down to two things: how…
For many cyclists, their warmup routines before a race look a lot like riding around at a moderate pace for 10-20 minutes, depending on how long their event is. This is changing. In place of loose, unspecific pre-race workouts are structured workouts that riders are opting to do on the trainer — you may have…
The goal of every cyclist is to optimize their power-to-weight ratio (w/kg). More power with less weight is going to make you faster —but how do you know if you are losing the right type of weight? Today’s post explores three methods cyclists can employ to measure their weight loss with precision. Overview Fat does…
Burnout is a common problem with serious cyclists, but recognizing burnout and differentiating it from common fatigue is necessary if your goal is to get faster. Here’s our guide to burnout — how to recognize it and what to do about it. What Is Burnout? Training hard makes you faster, but only when it’s structured appropriately. Every time…
Although not every race is won by a solo breakaway, multiple breakaways or breakaway attempts always form the outcome of a race. To make sure you’re at the pointy end of the race in the final kilometer, you need to have a specific type of fitness that allows you more than one shot at a…