TOOLBOX: Over the last 15 years, I have seen and made many mistakes that have muted performance on the bike. And after all this messing around and learning (a lot!), here are the top 5 mistakes that keep most of us from having the stellar seasons we know we’re capable of, but seem to keep eluding us.
***Warning: none of these are “mind blowing”, and perhaps that’s why they’re so often overlooked or ignored. ***
riding hard
Mistake #1 Driving Too Hard When You Should Drive Slowly
“Let’s take an easy trip this weekend” almost never ends up being easy. And yet, much of our driving that we do on our own is also not done in an easy enough pace (you know, times like the recovery between intervals on a training ride).
I get it, no one likes to be passed by those we normally run into on our lap days, and it can seem really silly to pass others on the bike trail during a lap, only to have them keep passing us during our recovery periods. . …But if you really want to be fast, you’ll have to become a master of slow driving.
How to do it: Use your breath as a guide! When it comes to endurance or recovery time, you should be able to easily inhale and exhale through your nose alone.
Can’t breathe through your nose due to nasal congestion or sinus problems? You can use the “talk test” (you should be able to speak in full, fluent sentences) or use your power meter to “check” to make sure you’re in the right ballpark. (Yes, your power really needs to be WHAT under!).
Don’t skip strength training
Mistake #2 Skipping strength training
Yep. I understand. This one is easy to do as we ALL want to ride. But strength training needs to be done consistently, otherwise you’ll lose the very qualities you’re after: increased strength and power on the bike, higher bone density, less soreness on the bike, better posture, etc.
Strength training shouldn’t leave you sore, tired, or drained to the point that your ride quality suffers. Aim for 1-2 days a week of strength training, with a focus on quality, and keep the duration to 60 minutes or less. If you want to know the details, pick up my book. “Strength training for cycling performance”, which will give you the exact recipe you’ll want to follow to stay fast and strong, in and out of season. But a good rule of thumb is one warm up set at an RPE of 5 and one or two work sets at an RPE of 7, with great technique of course!
Oh, and one more thing: if your “maintenance” period is longer than 2 weeks, you are losing fitness and strength. Do not fall into the exaggeration. Keep up your strength training, but avoid making mistakes #3 and #5.
What does your body say?
Mistake #3 Listen to your body
This one is a lot harder than we give it credit for, and you should know! Many moons ago I forced myself to properly overtrain because “I just had to keep going.”
Endurance athletes tend to be some of the worst when it comes to listening to our bodies, as we think more is more is more. But this, as current science is showing, is far from true.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
On ride days and strength days, you should listen to what your body is telling you. Yes, we all arrive at some of our workouts feeling tired, but more often than not, if you’ve been constantly on top of your stress management, sleep, and nutrition, a proper warm-up will keep you pumped and ready to engage in a session. of quality training.
But what if during the warm-up you feel worse or do not change your state? Have the strength to call it a day, and go home and REST. It is a long season. Nothing good is going to come from striving for below-average training in March, April, and May.
This brings us to mistake #4.
not set in stone
Mistake #4 Taking your training plan as written in stone
While the Sumerians may have (well, not everything) written in stone, your training plan (thankfully) is not. You need to have self-awareness so you can know which days you can push yourself through the toughest training sessions and when you’ll need to make it an easier ride. If you’re working with a coach, it’s all about communicating clearly and making adjustments, mostly small and subtle. And other times, like with one of the riders in my Big Gear Blueprint program last week, you’re taking a hard look at whether the current track is serving you or holding you back. Often, it’s as easy as changing training workouts within a given week, and other times, it’s understanding what the true minimums you need from each ride are.
With strength training, it’s simply about getting the important stuff done, consistently, with high quality, not “going heavy.”
aero is not everything
Mistake #5 Thinking “Cycling Specific” and “AERO IS BETTER!” all the time
What a load of nonsense, and exactly what the vast majority of us do NOT need!
Many of us already spend 7+ hours on our bikes and many more hours sitting with our heads forward looking at a screen. The LAST thing we need is to push those negative body positions even further.
As for “aerodynamics is everything”, yes! Absolutely! If you are competing for a national championship or a world championship. Otherwise, “Aero, in small doses you can manage, with a focus on improving your body’s ability to deal with the negative effects of that extreme positioning” is a much better mantra. (And a bit of a bite)
Instead, think about OVERALL fitness.
What does my body need to counter all that forward bending so I can be GENERALLY in good shape? So, don’t miss out on all the crazy fads and exercises. Keep it simple, easy to execute, and be consistent.
Should there be a strong focus on enabling you to perform better on the bike? Bet your panties! But that comes through focusing on YOU and YOUR BODY working as designed, and then spending smaller doses of time on the bike (along with dialed-in bike fit), to help you put that strength + fitness to use.
Conclution
Absolutely none of the above is “sexy” or considered “high performance” by magazines and social media influencers, and sadly, not many coaches either!
We get lost and confused with all the technology and flashy new fashions that come along, leading us to jump from one new “thing” to the next and end the season disappointed; feel that there is still more that we COULD do, but that we could never take advantage of.
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