Ok, July 2020 is here! No races, no cycling events to train or participate in, and limited group rides. You worked hard this winter in anticipation to be a better cyclist and reach a higher level of personal fitness and performance. By mid-March, everything changed, including your training routine, focus, and goals.
The good news is you can still gain incredible fitness, reach your peak performance, and achieve personal satisfaction during these challenging times.
Here are five steps to increase your cycling fitness in 90 Days!
1. SET A GOAL. If you want to improve your cycling fitness, this first step is the most critical because it fuels what you do and the quality of your training. We all need goals that challenge and motivate us to train hard to achieve something we want. The question is, what cycling achievement do you want to reach in the next 90 days? There are no limits to your personal goals! Maybe the goal is to ride the longest one day distance in your life? Or to get the best results on your favorite local strava sections? Enter a race or big event on a virtual cycling platform? There are thousands of riders every day, competing all over the world indoors! Whatever your goal is, please write it down and commit to reaching it in the next 90 days!
2. BE CONSISTENT. No matter if your goals are big or small, you should ride consistency each week. Your total miles per week may vary depending on your goal, but your training routine should remain constant. You should ride a minimum of 4 to 5 days and 5 to 8+ hours a week. Significant gains are the product of training continuously over time.
3. TRAIN WITH A PURPOSE. Determine the purpose of your ride each day. Successful training rides include high-intensity intervals, easy recovery, and long-endurance cycling. A coach can help design and monitor a training program that provides specific workouts to reach your particular cycling goals. The coach will perform fitness tests to accurately determine the training intensity and recovery zones that are best for YOU. Training is just riding your bike with a purpose towards a goal.
4. INCLUDE HIGH INTENSITY AND PROPER RECOVERY. You should have at least one or two days of high-intensity training per week to build your VO2 max, promote muscular strength and endurance. The more experienced rider, the more high-intensity training you can tolerate. I encourage 1-2 rest days each week to promote recovery and adaptation. Your intensity workouts should be hard efforts, and your recovery days need to be light spin or off the bike. Training is an art of balancing stressful exercise and proper recovery. Too much fatigue, and you may lose fitness!
5. MONITOR YOUR PROGRESS AND CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESS. There is a variety of training and fitness metrics to help you monitor your workouts, fitness, and progression. Determine what measurements are most important to your training, be it FTP, weekly TSS, training zones, heart rate, to name a few. A coach can help you determine what data is most important for you to focus on during training. Like they say, "if you can measure it, you can improve it" MOST OF ALL ENJOY THE JOURNEY AND JOY OF REACHING YOUR GOAL!
Best of luck to you all!
*If you are looking for coaching, feel free to contact me for a no-cost training consultation. I am passionate about helping people reach their cycling goals. Call - 952-240-0399 or email: mike@CFLCoaching.com