As race season ends, the off-season becomes crucial for recovery, reflection, and building a solid foundation for next year’s performance. In this article, we explore essential off-season strategies for athletes, including balancing rest and activity, setting new goals, and refining nutrition. Whether you're coming off a successful season or seeking improvement, learn how to use the off-season to your advantage and set yourself up for a stronger 2025.
For athletes striving for peak performance, maintaining smooth and even power output during intervals is crucial. This holds true no matter your discipline, from roadies to MTB athletes and everyone between, the ability to sustain consistent power levels can significantly impact your performance. Power meters, with their precise data feedback, provide valuable insights to help you optimize your training. Yet, achieving smooth and even power output throughout intervals can be a challenge. Fear not! Here are six practical tips to enhance your interval training and attain greater power consistency.
As the world of sports and athletic performance continues to evolve, one essential aspect often overlooked is the distinction between training methodologies for junior athletes and their adult counterparts. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a pivotal period in an athlete's life, marked by unique physiological, psychological, and developmental changes. These distinctions are crucial to acknowledge, comprehend, and integrate into training programs tailored explicitly for junior athletes.
The Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race is the ultimate test of endurance, resilience, and mental fortitude. Perhaps the most famous endurance mountain bike race in the world, the Leadville Trail 100 spans the rugged terrain and extreme altitudes of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It's not merely a race, but an experience that pushes riders to their limits. For those aiming to conquer this iconic event and earn the coveted LT100 belt buckle, here are our coach’s top 10 tips that can significantly elevate your chances of success.
A while back, we posted an article What is the Off Season? Do Endurance Athletes Really Need One?. Over the years, this has been one of our most viewed blog posts by athletes all over the world. As we in the northern hemisphere start to transition into the Fall and Winter months, we thought we would whip up a new article that answers some of the questions we’ve received and that dives a bit deeper into the foundation of a cyclist’s annual training cycle.
Let’s take a look at the overall structure of your annual training plan: At WPA, we divide your year, or your Annual Training Plan, into these key phases...
In recent years, gravel racing has become a more prominent staple on race calendars - not just in the U.S., but worldwide. However, with the growing popularity and prominence of gravel racing, there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding the topic of training for gravel events. I use the five tips below with the athletes I coach to create a framework that should help to inform training needs for any event.
The winter season is often a time for athletes to reflect on the previous season’s training and performance, and begin to lay the framework for the coming season. One crucial component to that framework is conducting a thoughtful analysis of past performances, and to create a clear and specific set of goals in an effort to create a roadmap of tasks and processes to follow for the coming season. The process of goal setting…
Training productivity is often closely tied to your level of engagement, motivation, and how much you enjoy the training process. In the warmer months it can be easier to nourish these aspects of your training, but the cold, dark, and seemingly unending winter months often test our motivation. Check out these 5 tips to stay motivated while training this winter.
As we begin to crawl out of our climate-controlled winter pain caves and make our way outside to enjoy training and racing in the warmth of the spring sun, it’s important to remember that our bodies may need some time and attention to adjust to warmer temperatures.
Before we get into heat adaptation tips, let’s first take a look at some of the primary (negative) physiological changes that occur in the body when training or racing in a hotter environment…
Recovery is key. Whether you bike, run, swim, or climb, nutrition is what keeps you moving and grooving. To keep those legs fresh and the body from feeling stale in tomorrow’s workout, consider introducing tart cherry juice into the mix. Whether you have heard the hype about its benefits or not, let’s breakdown the proposed recovery benefits.
The term “marginal gains” has become a prominent buzz word in cycling media over the years. Shave a couple grams here and there, increase aerodynamics by a fraction of a percentage, utilize the latest nutritional breakthroughs, all with the goal of adding up a few tiny gains to the sum of an overall noticeable increase performance. For professional athletes in the pro peloton or athletes at the highest level of their sport, chasing these gains might be worth it in the long run. For the vast majority of athletes, however, becoming a successful athlete lies in the creation and maintenance of successful habits…
Spring has started to peak through these last few weeks, allowing for some runs and rides in shorts instead of layers. No matter the weather, there is a post-workout snack that always hits the spot: for me it’s smoothies. They are easy, versatile, refreshing, and can be prepped in advance as they last for months in the freezer.
After a race season devastated by COVID-19, many triathletes and roadies have flocked to the promising lure of gravel racing. With the ability to ride more socially distanced, stay away from traffic, and the added benefit of riding in some of the most beautiful locations, it’s safe to say that gravel is here to stay. More than any other year, the 2021 calendar is being filled with gravel events like The Wasatch All-Road, the iconic route of the Stupid Pony, Crusher in the Tusher, SBT GRVL, and Unbound Gravel (formerly Dirty Kanza). Distances range from 30 miles to staggering 200-300 miles…and even 300 mile tandem categories…for people who ride tandems…on gravel. With a new realm of bike racing comes the common question: “How in the world do I train for this?” This article will offer a high-level view to the chasm of information and advice surrounding the gravel scene.
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