Have you trained hard all season...?

Recently competed at a big event...?

...and now find yourself pondering the sport and your ongoing commitment to it?

If so, you’re not the only one!

Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just a recreational cyclist who has trained to compete at a targeted event, restarting the training process can often be a mentally and physically challenging process.

We're going to offer you a few tips now to reignite yourself to go on to bigger and better things.

Understanding the Programming Cycle

The first thing we recommend you do if you’ve just come out of competition, is work out where you are in your overall training cycle.

If you’re not too sure what we mean by ‘training cycle’, we’d recommend you revisit our blog on Periodised Programming for Cyclists.

Are you in the middle of a macrocycle between a few major peaks?

Or are you at the end of the macrocycle headed into a transition period?

This is crucial to...

Do you get overwhelmed with all the information on the internet about how to cycle faster?

We don't blame you!

With so many programs, coaches, techniques, tips, strategies and equipment floating around the Internet, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of information available.

Importantly, a lot of the information isn’t actually going to be beneficial to you personally, and may not in fact be entirely correct to start with.

We’ve put this blog together with the average cyclist in mind who just wants to:

1. Ride faster;
2. Beat his or her personal bests, and/or;
3. Get the most out of our great sport of Cycling!

To simplify it, we’re going to give you 6 tips that are sure to help you Cycle Faster!

1. Discipline

It’s incredibly easy to go out and purchase a bike, bring it home, take it out of the box and let it sit in your garage.

It takes discipline to regularly wake up in the morning, or get your gear on after work and take your bike out for a ride or...

Whether you love or hate riding hills, they have a purpose for not only endurance track cyclists, but also sprinters.

We're going to explain the 3 main reasons why we incorporate hill training into our athletes programs:

1. Strength & Technical Development
2. Efficiency & Coordination
3. Pacing and Mental Preparation

Strength & Technical Development

Whilst strength & conditioning programs are usually associated with weight training and exercises in the gym, getting on your bike and riding hills is another excellent way to develop strength that compliments in-the-gym work.

Don’t fear the low gear!

There is a time and a place to incorporate low gear hill repetitions and exercises into your program. When they are included they’re an excellent way to gain not only leg strength, but also glute, core and stability strength.

When you are riding hills in low or big gears, it’s important to focus on switching on all muscle fibres and maintaining a good body...

This is Part 2 of our Cycling Nutrition Tips for Training and Racing delivered by Emily Rosemond.

In PART 2 of this video blog, Emily will share with you: 

1. NUTRITION TIPS for Training and Racing  

2. The difference between your HIGH TRAINING PERIOD and TAPERING PERIOD

3. Is Nutrition a GENERAL or INDIVIDUAL strategy?

4. What to do if you have a WEAKNESS FOR SWEETS!

Leave your questions below for our Nutritionist, as we'll be doing more videos on Nutrition soon.

Enjoy!  And don't forget to tag and share this with your cycling friends.

Learning to ride the rollers is definitely not as easy as one thinks!

It’s actually quite difficult and can take a fair amount of time to learn to ride them extremely well (at least a few months of almost every day practice).

Despite this, they’re hands down one of the best pieces of equipment that you can buy that will assist with developing pedalling efficiency.

Why is pedalling efficiency so important?

Check out Kerrie Meare’s FREE video on ‘How to Ride Faster’ and you’ll learn just how important pedal efficiency is!

For those of you not familiar with the rollers and are thinking about giving it a try... we’d recommend you watch our athlete Yvette Waterfall’s homemade video on how she learnt to cycle on rollers.

Yvette is one of our Masters track riders and since learning to ride the rollers (and with a whole lot of training) has achieved gold medal podium performances on the track! You can watch her comical video here...

...

We have a 2 part video series on: 

Cycling Nutrition Tips for Training and Racing delivered by Emily Rosemond.

EMILY'S BACKGROUND

• Track Cycling Head Coach
• Olympian 
• Commonwealth Games Medallist 

In PART 1 of this video blog, Emily will share with you: 

1. NUTRITION TIPS for Training and Racing 
2. The ONE MAIN DIFFERENCE between Training and Racing
3. What to eat BEFORE a Training Session or Race 
4. What to eat AFTER a Training Session or Race
5. When you should eat FATS

Leave your questions below.

Enjoy and we'll see you in Part 2!

Wind resistance is a barrier that every track and road cyclist - or any cyclist in general for that matter - has to overcome.

Whilst the human body is not very aerodynamic in it’s natural shape, many new technologies and position advancements have been developed over the years to reduce wind resistance in two ways:

1. Updating equipment design (bike, helmets, lycra suits etc.)
2. Changing body position on the bike

It only takes for you to head out on the road bike into a head wind for you to experience the full effects of wind resistance.

To push through the barrier, which is simply a large mass of air, most cyclists will apply more force through the pedals and try and counteract the wind with force, as opposed to changing body position or equipment.

What makes wind resistance worse, is SPEED - the faster you travel, the more wind resistance you’ll experience, and the more effort that will be required to overcome it!

In Kerrie’s FREE video on ‘How to Ride...

What are the best recovery methods for cyclists?

We're excited to introduce to you our Injury Prevention Coach and Physiotherapist Mark Stokes!

Mark worked with us both when we were on the Australian Cycling Team, and works with many other top athletes and teams, including Olympians.

Mark has done an exclusive set of 16x Injury Prevention Videos for Track Cycling Academy athletes which can be found here, but as a starting point, watch Mark’s video on his ‘Top 3 Recovery Methods for Cyclists’ before you continue reading.

Mark highlights in his video, that science shows us the importance of 3 things for recovery:

1. Sleep
2. Nutrition
3. Hydration

As a starting point, we really encourage you to maximise these 3 areas BEFORE focusing on the other 1 percenters below.

We've personally found the following recovery methods to have worked really well for us, and also for the athletes we work with:

1. Ice Baths
2. ...

Do you realise the IMPORTANCE of Periodised Programming for your cycling development?

Having a periodised training program that specifically prepares you for your major season goals is CRUCIAL and is something that is the backbone to every World Champion and International Cyclist’s success.

WHAT SHOULD MY PROGRAM LOOK LIKE?

Your program will need to encompass your short, middle and long term goals.

If you’re planning on working on your own periodised plan, make sure you have your goals in front of you so you can plan accordingly.

For more on goal planning, check out our blog on ‘How To Ride Faster’ for our FREE Goal Tracking Worksheet.

PERIODISATION = the method of structuring training programs to produce maximum performances at the right time.

In structuring our training programs for the cyclists we coach, we generally look at the most important events of the year and prioritise them accordingly.

Why?

Because it ensures we...

MINDSET = The established set of attitudes held by someone. (Oxford, 2000)

We're excited to introduce to you our Mindset Coach, Georgia Ridler!

Georgia has a wealth of experience, knowledge and expertise having worked with the Australian Cycling Team for many years, and also personally, with both Kerrie and Anna Meares.

Georgia has done an exclusive set of 16x Mindset Videos for Track Cycling Academy athletes which can be found here, but as a starting point, watch Georgia’s video on ‘Don't Compare Yourself To Others’ before you continue reading.

As Georgia highlights...

There is no benefit in comparing yourself to others in a race situation...

...and there is a difference between being aware of what’s happening around you vs. comparing.

In a race situation, it’s imperative that you know what’s going on around you so you can best utilise your own tactics to get the best outcome for yourself.  

Of course this will vary from race to race,...