Coaching Archives - Page 27 of 33

Be More Efficient

It's cold, there's a bitter wind blowing and last night's snow has left the roads both damp and layered with salt. Patches of ice lurk on the sides of the road, waiting to claim the unwary bi-wheeled traveler.

Most people refer to this as “winter” but I (and the rest of the cycling community) tend to refer to it as the “off season” or “indoor training season.” While there are times when we're able to get outside in the fresh, chilled air most of our training this time of year is spent on the trainer or rollers. As boring as that may be, there are benefits to indoor work: ability to precisely control interval duration, intensity and frequency, ability to control the environment around us, and perhaps one of the most important things, ability to increase our efficiency. Because the bottom line is: the more efficient you are, the faster and stronger you are for longer.

How do you get more efficient? You follow the tips below:

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Tags: Coaching, training|

Coaching Tool: Ubersense

Ubersense is a tool which I have recently become acquainted with that has to potential to change the way coaching and fitting consults are performed. To put it simply, Ubersense is a magnificent app which utilizes your iPhone's (or Android's) video capture function to record a sports activity. Yourself (or your coach) can then view the video, analyze it in slow motion, mark up the video with angular measurements, record commentary over it, etc etc. This makes it extremely easy to perform consultations from a distance or work out mechanical issues in fitting environments or coaching environments.

Not only an app, Ubersense has a web presence and social media presence; users can share their video files with coaches and their friends, making it simple to see what others are doing and how training or activities may increase their skills. You can visit Ubersense on the web and download the app. We'll take a look at the functionality of Ubersense below, and you can follow along on the app.

More after the jump:

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Tags: Coaching, reviews, training|

Beginner’s Guide to Training With Power (part 3)
Beginner’s Guide to Training With Power (part 3)

Coaching discussion, Power training and discussion, Training discussion

Beginner’s Guide to Training With Power (part 3)

In part 3 of my “Beginners Guide to Training With Power” we'll look at building a few performance profiles. There are two key metrics that will determine where you focus your training time. Before you read on, I suggest you read the previous articles to refresh your memory as to what we're talking about:

Beginner's Guide to Training with Power: Part 1

Beginner's Guide to Training with Power: Part 2

Once you've refreshed your memory, we'll focus on two topics that will heavily govern your training and racing strategy. These are your power and fatigue resistance profiles.

I'll describe each of them after the break and tell you how they can guide your training.

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Tags: Coaching, power, training|

Being Honest With Yourself

Here in the northeast, we've been blessed with about 10 days of "good" weather; "good" being in quotes because good winter weather is essentially anything that isn't snow, ice or hail and temperatures above 38 degrees (the point at which I prefer to sit on the trainer in front of the TV.) While the sun hasn't shone often and the roads aren't often dry, warmer temperatures create the itch to imbibe fresh air and feel the road slip by under 23mm tires.

Since motivation is high on these rare gems of days, it's only right that we get out, rain or shine. And let's be honest, when it's 45 degrees and you've HTFUed (Hardened The F*** Up, for the uninitiated, or see rule 5) you're not going to do a 10 mile round trip to the coffee shop and then call it a day. No, you'll seek out climbs, descents and (if you're anything like the classics lover that I am) dirt and gravel roads. Basically, the gnarlier and more "Belgian" the route (and the weather) the harder you'll push yourself.

There's only one problem with that line of thinking….

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Tags: Coaching, group riding, Motivation, training|

New Year, BETTER You (Podcast #6)

Perhaps you've seen the oft-repeated “New Year, New You” headline on the cover of Bicycling Magazine. It's so predictable that even Peloton Magazine said “you'll never see this on our cover.”

While you may not be able to completely transform yourself into a new person, you can always improve on what you've got, and that's what today's podcast focuses on; taking your successes from last year and building on them. What do you want to be? Stronger? Faster? Leaner? A better hill climber? All of the above?

While nobody is going to become a “new you” unless you're suddenly reincarnated as a ProTour rider, we can certainly make you a “better you.” Learn which facets of your body and fitness are trainable, which you're just going to have to live with, how to turn your weaknesses into strengths and how to maximize your strengths.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (21.4MB)

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Tags: Coaching, physiology, podcast, training|