Congratulations! You are through the first week of our 2week journey to achieve a higher VO2 max. If you haven’t yet started on the VO2 Max Booster Program, let’s summarize what happened on the first seven days: Day 1: VO2 Max Test – We started with a 5min all-out test to determine your power output
VO2 Max Booster Program – Summary of Week 1 Read More »
Now we are ready for the 3rd day of the VO2 Max Booster Program. If this is the first time you read about the VO2 Max Booster Program, please check out why you should train intensively for 14 days to make remarkable improvements to your VO2 Max. Day 3 – Reduce Volume, Increase Quality One
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I keep teaching you that VO2 max is the key to success in road cycling. Your maximal aerobic power has such a significant influence on your race performance that every serious cyclist should include VO2 max intervals in their training plan. If these previous posts about the benefits of VO2 max training still haven’t convinced
How To Increase Your VO2 max In 14 days Read More »
When you start your cycling career, central adaptations increase your performance rapidly in the first three months. After one year of training you will discover that it takes more time to gain improvements. Now you will have to think more about how to train to keep improving. At this time improvements are often due to peripheral adaptations.
When you have trained seriously for a couple of years, you will experience that more training is needed before you get significant improvements. At this time you get the feeling of a training vacuum. You train more than you have ever done before, but your form does not change at all.
This is a critical moment in every serious riders´ career. The common outcome is that you sooner or later realize that you are not making further progress with the current program. You take the consequences and start making things different. This could be quitting, switching coach, switching club, different training methods, more training, less training, new bike, new wheels, eating nutritional supplements or getting so desperate that you take drugs. But often you will not realize that the problem is a training vacuum, because you have optimized cycling performance through proper training, eating and resting. Instead you victimize your coach, club or material because your performance has reached a plateau.
In the final part of your career cycling efficiency, tactics and experiences play a bigger role. You will use your knowledge about race tactics to eliminate eventually stronger opponents. You can win races without being the strongest rider, but making the correct moves at the correct moments, because of your gut feeling.
Improvements through a cycling career Read More »
I often hear that cyclists skip strength training because they are afraid they will gain additional body weight. In this series I will try to explain how cyclists can strength train without gaining extra body weight.
1. Why additional body weight should be avoided
Larger muscle cells (that will say larger square diameter) can generate more power. That is the most commonly known way to increase power, though it is not desirable for cyclists. The problem is that a large muscle mass is heavy to carry and there is a dilution of mitochondrias. Additional body weight will slow you down when you climb or accelerate your bike. Notice that I include accelerations, because many riders forget that their body weight also matters when they accelerate their bike out of a corner. Enthusiasts riding with power meters may have introduced you to the term ”˜power to weight ratio’. That refers to how many watts you can push compared to your body weight. That ratio has a huge impact when you climb (or accelerate”¦)
Strength Training Without Additional Body Mass – 1 Read More »