Mastering Interval Training: 6 Tips for Athletes Using Power Meters

Mastering Interval Training: 6 Tips for Athletes Using Power Meters

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.

Understanding the Critical Differences: Why Junior Athletes Require Specialized Training

Understanding the Critical Differences: Why Junior Athletes Require Specialized Training

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.

Taking on The Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race: Top 10 Tips for Success

Taking on The Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race: Top 10 Tips for Success

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.

Building Success from the Ground Up: Defining the Off and Base Seasons

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

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

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.

Transitioning from Winter to Summer: How to Beat the Heat

Transitioning from Winter to Summer: How to Beat the Heat

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…

Training and Preparing for Your First Gravel Race

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!

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.

12 Steps to Prepare for Your First Gran Fondo

12 Steps to Prepare for Your First Gran Fondo

Since the first Gran Fondo in Cesenatico, Italy in 1970, Gran Fondo events have grown to dominate the amateur cycling community all over the world. And yet, there is a bit of mysticism around the infamous Gran Fondo…