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.
Building Success from the Ground Up: Defining the Off and Base Seasons
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...
Five Tips to Plan and Train for Gravel Racing
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.
How to Stay Motivated Training this Winter
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.
Making an Athlete: 6 Habits of a Successful Athlete
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…
Training and Preparing for Your First Gravel Race
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.
5 Winter Cycling Training Myths: Busted!
As odd as it may sound, from a coaching perspective, winter is one of my favorite seasons. Athletes are typically coming off a brief window of recovery following a season of intense training and racing. The tail end of race season for many athletes is a time marked by physical and mental exhaustion, burn out, and feelings of either success or failure looking back at the season. Winter, however, is a fresh start. It’s the time of year where the successes or shortcomings of the previous season are behind us, and ahead lies the promise of new races, new results, and new opportunities.
Increased Exercise and Injury Prevention
Welcome to the 23rd Saturday of COVID-19 social distancing!! With this new norm of the “stay-at-home” order also comes an increase of free time for some; and in this new routine, exercise is rapidly becoming a sought after method of occupying our space and time. Consistency in exercise routines has long been a struggle for many.