Steel City Endurance Racing

I recently attended a coaching webinar by Hunter Allen, the guy who literally “wrote the book” on training with Power. He also coaches several olympic athletes and a handful of tour riders. We talked about taking a mid summer break from racing/training & biking if it is appropriate.

How do you know if you should take a break?   If any of the following apply to you, consider taking 2 weeks off the bike and doing cross training activities instead:

• -You are inexplicably fatigued
• You dread getting on your bike
• Your legs feel dead all the time
• You are stagnant in showing any improvement on the bike
• You are getting sick easily, or healing slowly from minor  scratches or injuries

If any of the above apply….get off the bike!  Don’t just take a week off of racing, but take a week or two totally off the bike.  Don’t worry about  losing fitness during that time…if you are hating working out, stagnant in  your progress or just feel bad all the time, then you are far better off stepping back for a bit.

This doesn’t mean not working out at all.  Consider these options:
-running, hashing, kayaking, swimming, tennis, basketball, yoga, martial arts, weight lifting…and the list goes on…

We talked a few weeks ago about bone mass and calcium loss in cyclists, even healthly men in  their 20s.   A 2 week break is the perfect time to shake things up and stimulate bone growth by doing weight bearing activities.

One of the cool ways you can use this 2 week break to kick start your cycling when you return is to do a 2 week weight room routine for the purpose of stimulating anabolic growth in your muscles (as well as your bones).  Even though this weight lifting is not specific to cycling activity, stimulating muscle growth in general can help wake up your body to respond well when you return to training.  When you come back to cycle training after the 2 week break, Hitting it hard with Anerobic and Power workouts can take advantage of this muscle growth and transition you back into cycling without feeling like you’ve lost much time.  Yet you should feel fresher and stronger when you come back.

Let me know what your thoughts are about that.

I can send you more info about what stuff to do in the weight room (or body weight based strenght training), what type of workouts to hit when you return.

If you don’t feel that you need a break off the bike…i.e. you are feeling strong, showing continued improvement, feeling great on the bike, feeling energetic off the bike…then I’ve got more info for you guys as well…some late Summer workouts to kick things up a notch.

-Coach Suzanne