5 Ways Winter Cycling Is Ruining Your Fitness
Winter cycling is often the time to build your foundation of fitness as you prepare your body for another year of fun in the sun, however, could you be doing things to your fitness which are actually ruining your form? Sam Gupta runs you through everything you could be doing wrong on the bike this winter. The key thing to remember is that as long as you're having fun on the bike then you can never really go too far wrong.
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00:00 We all know that the winter training period is very important for building your foundation
00:04 for the upcoming season, but might you be doing things that are actually compromising
00:09 your fitness gains?
00:10 Well, I've put together a list of five things that you're probably doing wrong in your winter
00:16 training.
00:22 It's commonplace in many people's winter training routine to neglect intensity when cycling.
00:28 It's often seen as always being about the base miles.
00:30 Now, although this follows a traditional periodization training plan, there are several issues with
00:36 periodization when trying to emulate the pros.
00:39 Although professionals spend a limited amount of their training time at higher intensities
00:44 when it's winter training and out of season, they are spending a small percentage of a
00:48 much larger overall training volume there.
00:51 If you aren't training 30 hours a week and you're doing, say, just seven, then periodization
00:56 would suggest that you spend maybe an hour and 24 minutes above zone one or two.
01:02 If you are training that total volume, then doing mostly zone two with such a limited
01:07 time at higher intensities, you're likely not going to be making the most of your training
01:11 time, and over the course of a winter, we'll end up losing fitness.
01:22 Indoor training is fantastic.
01:23 There's no doubt about it.
01:25 However, limiting your training solely to indoors could be impacting negatively on your
01:30 overall fitness, as well as other important elements of cycling.
01:35 Riding purely indoors does nothing for bike handling or bunch riding skills.
01:39 These are skills that many people could seek to improve and see their results in races
01:43 improve alongside.
01:45 Training purely indoors not only limits the opportunity to work on these skills, but can
01:49 also lead to loss of some of them.
01:52 Another area where only riding indoors can impact your fitness negatively is that you
01:56 may be neglecting the easier rides or the longer endurance rides.
02:00 Some people are diehard indoor training fans and are happy to spend five hours or even
02:05 longer on the trainer, but for most people, this isn't their idea of fun, which is something
02:11 that a good training plan should be.
02:14 Intensity is required to improve and maintain fitness, but the best plans balance a mix
02:19 of intensity with volume, or else your fitness will suffer.
02:23 Finally, purely training indoors can lead to a greater chance of burnout longer term.
02:29 Not only is spending time outdoors good for physical health, but it also benefits your
02:33 mental health.
02:34 Add to that the lack of in-person social interaction and the fact that there's no let-up in pedalling
02:39 while indoors, and mental burnout is a very serious consideration if training purely indoors.
02:45 [music] Getting your kit choices right on winter
02:53 rides can be difficult, and if done incorrectly, you can really impair your training sessions
02:58 and have a negative impact on your fitness.
03:01 Firstly, not wearing enough kit.
03:05 It can be quite easy when you've been used to wearing shorts and jersey to get your kit
03:09 wrong and not wear enough when the temperature starts to drop.
03:13 If you're not wearing enough kit, then it can be difficult to raise your temperature
03:17 sufficiently enough to enable you to perform well and perform any efforts that you have
03:22 to do.
03:23 Not being warm enough can also increase the time it takes to recover from training sessions,
03:27 even if they're at a lower intensity.
03:30 Secondly, another big mistake is actually wearing too much and overheating.
03:34 When it gets to winter, it can be tempting to layer on lots of kit to stay warm and reduce
03:39 the chance of getting a cold.
03:41 However, I would say it's always better to have too much kit on and then strip or unzip
03:46 it later if you do start to heat up too much.
03:49 However, if you can get your kit right in the first instance, then that will reduce
03:53 the need for you to carry more kit and then end up stuffing your pockets.
03:58 However, if you're leaving the house at 8.30 AM, it's likely that it's going to be a lot
04:03 colder than it will be midway through the ride.
04:07 Wearing too much and overheating has two potential issues.
04:10 Firstly, fluid loss increases and dehydration can become more likely.
04:15 The easy fix is drinking enough fluid as well as consuming salts, but in the winter, it
04:19 can sometimes be difficult to want to drink that much more.
04:23 If you become dehydrated, this will not only impair your training sessions, but also your
04:27 recovery from training and therefore your overall fitness.
04:32 The other downside of overdressing is that unzipping to cool down can lead to quite a
04:36 rapid chill.
04:38 If you do an effort over the top of a climb, you will then become sweaty.
04:42 We all know that the purpose of sweat is to dissipate heat.
04:46 When you combine that with unzipping and a rush of cold air, you can get cold very, very
04:50 quickly.
04:57 This is an area which a lot of cyclists neglect throughout the whole year.
05:01 Dedicated strength work can be a huge benefit, both for increasing power while also reducing
05:07 the likelihood of injuries.
05:09 During winter, many people try and increase their volume of cycling to get those base
05:13 miles in.
05:14 However, doing just volume work and neglecting strength work really does put you at a comparable
05:19 disadvantage.
05:21 Strength work has been shown to increase time to exhaustion, increase maximal power production,
05:27 and decrease time trial time.
05:29 For those worried that they'll put on loads of muscle and get heavy, well, unless you're
05:33 very genetically gifted, you won't put on kilos of muscle.
05:37 You may gain some, but with power increasing.
05:41 Your watts per kilo will increase, with your watts per CDA increasing by more.
05:46 In other words, you'll be faster everywhere.
05:49 So if you're just training volume, or you just train on the turbo and neglect strength
05:54 work altogether, you could be damaging your fitness and the potential to be faster.
06:05 A common mistake made by those moving from their end of season break to their winter
06:09 training is actually just overdoing it.
06:12 Doing too much too soon is a surefire way to get ill, burn out later, or give yourself
06:18 an injury.
06:19 Any of these obviously will impact significantly and negatively on your fitness.
06:25 When starting to ride again after a break, it's very important to build up that training
06:29 load, be that intensity or duration, very progressively and sustainably.
06:35 It's also worth bearing in mind that, well, there's a lot of illness in the winter season.
06:40 So if you've got kids or you work in an office, it is very likely that you're going to pick
06:43 up a cold virus at least once or twice during winter.
06:48 If you do catch a cold, then this may mean you have to take time off from training to
06:52 recover properly.
06:53 But if you do train through it, you may be unwell for longer and training will be negatively
06:59 impacted along with the fitness.
07:02 If you do take a break to get well again, then you've got to be careful that you don't
07:06 overdo it when you start back up.
07:09 Training locks can weaken your immune system, making you more susceptible to illnesses.
07:15 So there's five things which I think you're doing wrong in your winter training.
07:19 If you have any tips of your own, then do share them down below.
07:22 If you enjoyed the video, drop it a like, subscribe to the channel for more content,
07:26 and I'll see you again very soon.
07:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:30 (upbeat music)
07:33 (whooshing)