Ways to Improve your Cycling Performance
Ways to Improve your Cycling Performance
Want to improve your performance when cycling or have a specific goal you are working towards? Becoming a better, fitter, faster cyclist doesn’t need to be a form of self-torture – cycling is one of the most fun exercises out there. Set some goals and read our tips to become a better rider, while having fun.
- Training
- Consistency
- Recovery
- Nutrition
- Mindset
Training. The training aspect of you riding is an extremely important factor that drives an influential amount into your overall performance. Usually, your training load is calculated by the time you spend cycling, however it’s important to consider the intensity of your training. Time spent training at a higher intensity is more worthwhile than training for longer times at low intensities as you push your body more and help it to reach levels in may not have been able to do in the past. This will help to improve your stamina, muscles and overall performance. Be careful however not to overtrain as you are at risk of burning yourself out, even actually causing injury. It’s always good to approach a professional when putting together a training routine as everyone is different and you want to make sure you training is tailored directly to you and your needs.
Consistency. It’s hard to stay motivated at the best of times and if you’re working towards a goal of becoming a better rider, it’s vital to stay on top of your routine. If you stop stimulating your body, for example by training, it can halt your progress as it’s always harder to get back on track after a long break. Staying on your bike and maintaining a good routine with it will help you to maintain your fitness gains. If you struggle to find time, try to fit in smaller high intensity sessions throughout the week. If you’re a person that struggles with motivation, try reading our blog ‘Motivation to Cycle’ where we have listed various tips to keep you on track.
Recovery. When you are trying to improve your performance, you are likely to be pushing your body to adapt to the training you are putting it through. Once it has adapted you will find yourself overall fitter and find that you can achieve your goals better. However, this change in your body is only possible if you are taking the time out of your training to recover properly as if you keep stimulating the body without giving it the break it needs to recover, you won’t improve and are likely to get injured. Cycling is also a hobby, if you’re putting too much pressure on yourself to do better you could be at risk of losing the joy from riding.
Nutrition. If you find yourself getting tired on your rides or feeling as though you’re not performing as good as you can be lacking nutrition. It’s important for two reasons.
- It fuels your training so that you are able to cycle for longer and higher intensity workouts, enabling you enough of the right stimulus to drive the right adaptations into your body.
- It fuels your recovery – everything you put into your body fuels the physiological changes that increase through your fitness.
The correlation between your mindset and your performance is important when pushing yourself to achieve new targets in your cycling journey. If your motivation isn’t there you will find it extremely hard to meet your new challenges, even getting on the bike to ride will seem harder. Try setting goals with a partner as it’s always easy to get up when you have the responsibly with someone else.
We hope some of these tips have helped you out and we’d be interested to hear what training goals you have. Email us in and keep riding!
