Athletes must endure cycling for a long time, without getting tired, throughout the training or race. Naturally, this makes endurance cycling a very demanding sport. For this reason, coaches use various exercises and tactics in the training process, to improve the performance of their athletes.
Let’s have a look at them!
Endurance cycling: 6 Tips to implement in your athletes’ training plans
Without further ado, here are 6 key tips that will help your cyclists and triathletes achieve their cycling goals.
1. Strength training
Strength workouts are a big chapter in an endurance athlete’s training. For strength training to be effective, athletes need to execute exercises focused on the muscle groups that are activated when cycling. They also need to pay attention to the sets and repetitions, depending on the goals they want to achieve.
In the case of endurance cycling, resistance training should aim at endurance strength. To get there, athletes should perform 2-4 sets per muscle group of 15-25 reps. Note that the rest break between sets should not exceed 1 minute.
Indicative strength exercises for cyclists are:
- Squats
- Step-Ups
- Lunges
- Deadlifts
- Planks
2. Fitness testing
It’s very important for athletes to know the level of their physical condition. To that end, through your Endogusto coach account, you can assess your athletes’ physical condition, with tests suitable for cyclists. You can also repeat these tests at regular intervals, to monitor their progress. Doing so, will provide you with the right FTP and training zones for all your athletes, individually. That’s how you can design effective, personalized workouts for each athlete.
3. Training in the Sweet spot
In a previous article, we discussed sweet spot training, in detail. Hopefully, there, you’ll find all the information you need regarding this method. In short, the Sweet Spot is on the border between zones 3 and 4 — or just below FTP — and helps bring many physiological adjustments about. What’s most important with the Sweet Spot is that it helps improve the FTP; therefore, it can increase athletic performance.
Apart from the physiological adjustments, it can also make training very effective, in terms of time, since it doesn’t last long. So, its benefits are plenty, especially for athletes with hectic, modern lifestyles, and limited training time.
4. Bike fitting
It goes without saying, all cyclists and triathletes must bring their bikes to their body proportions and anatomy. With bike fitting, it’s easy to adjust the dimensions of the bike parts to the athletes’ body dimensions. In this way, during cycling, the force that the athlete exerts is utilized to the maximum. Thus, their bike posture becomes much less strenuous after hours of training or racing. Keep in mind, though, that bike fitting should always be done by experts in the field, who possess the necessary scientific know-how.
5. Regular bicycle maintenance
At first glance, it may seem that bicycle maintenance has absolutely no role in endurance cycling. Yet, if we look at it carefully, we’ll understand the importance of keeping the bike in optimum condition. That said, instruct your athletes to take special care of the handlebars and the saddle. These two bike parts can, especially, cause great discomfort during training. As a result, your athletes will have to alter their technique, to avoid skin irritations and injuries; and this may have negative effects, performance-wise.
Therefore, after each workout, athletes should clean all the moving parts of the bike, like the chain and the gears. That is, all parts that usually fill up with dirt and dust can make it difficult to ride the bike over time, since cyclists will exert more energy and power to perform their workouts.
6. Having consistency and regularity
Finally, having consistency and regularity in training is, perhaps, the most important thing in endurance cycling. The greater the consistency, the faster — and more confident — the athlete will become. Consequently, they’ll be able to improve their performance, with little or no chance of injury.
Endogusto: Your coaching platform of choice for endurance cycling sessions
So, in this article, we mentioned some tips and exercises that will help cyclists improve their performance in endurance cycling. Although we didn’t go into much detail about the training methods, we did try to offer a different view on the ways a cycling coach can help their athletes improve their endurance and achieve their goals.
If you ever need help with designing and monitoring quality training programs for your cyclists, know that Endogusto is here for you, dear coach! Drop us a line, and we’ll get back to you, as soon as possible, to discuss how Endogusto can help you skyrocket your cyclists’ performance.
Contact a Endogusto expert, today