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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00:00We all know that the winter training period is very important for building your foundation
00:04for the upcoming season. But might you be doing things that are actually compromising
00:09your fitness gains? Well, I've put together a list of five things that you're probably
00:14doing wrong in your winter training. It's commonplace in many people's winter
00:24training routine to neglect intensity when cycling. It's often seen as always being about
00:29the base miles. Now, although this follows a traditional periodization training plan,
00:35there are several issues with periodization when trying to emulate the pros. Although
00:40professionals spend a limited amount of their training time at higher intensities when it's
00:44winter training and out of season, they are spending a small percentage of a much larger
00:49overall training volume there. If you aren't training 30 hours a week and you're doing,
00:54say, just seven, then periodization would suggest that you spend maybe an hour and 24 minutes
00:59above zone one or two. If you are training that total volume, then doing mostly zone two
01:05with such a limited time at higher intensities, you're likely not going to be making the most
01:11of your training time. And over the course of a winter, we'll end up losing fitness.
01:21Indoor training is fantastic. There's no doubt about it. However, limiting your training solely
01:27to indoors could be impacting negatively on your overall fitness, as well as other important
01:33elements of cycling. Riding purely indoors does nothing for bike handling or bunch riding skills.
01:39These are skills that many people could seek to improve and see their results in races improve
01:44alongside. Training purely indoors not only limits the opportunity to work on these skills,
01:49but can also lead to loss of some of them. Another area where only riding indoors can impact your
01:55fitness negatively is that you may be neglecting the easier rides or the longer endurance rides.
02:00Some people are diehard indoor training fans and are happy to spend five hours or even longer
02:05on the trainer. But for most people, this isn't their idea of fun, which is something that a good
02:12training plan should be. Intensity is required to improve and maintain fitness, but the best plans
02:18balance a mix of intensity with volume or else your fitness will suffer.
02:24Finally, purely training indoors can lead to a greater chance of burnout longer term.
02:28Not only is spending time outdoors good for physical health, but it also benefits your mental health.
02:34Add to that the lack of in-person social interaction and the fact that there's no let up in pedaling
02:39while indoors, a mental burnout is a very serious consideration if training purely indoors.
02:48Getting your kit choices right on winter rides can be difficult and if done incorrectly, you can
02:57really impair your training sessions and have a negative impact on your fitness. Firstly, not wearing
03:04enough kit. It can be quite easy when you've been used to wearing shorts and jersey to get your kit
03:09wrong and not wear enough when the temperature starts to drop. If you're not wearing enough kit, then it can
03:15be difficult to raise your temperature sufficiently enough to enable you to perform well and perform
03:21any efforts that you have to do. Not being warm enough can also increase the time it takes to
03:26recover from training sessions, even if they're at a lower intensity. Secondly, another big mistake is
03:32actually wearing too much and overheating. When it gets to winter, it can be tempting to layer on lots of
03:37kit to stay warm and reduce the chance of getting a cold. However, I would say it's always better to have too
03:44much kit on and then strip or unzip it later if you do start to heat up too much. However, if you can get
03:50your kit right in the first instance, then that will reduce the need for you to carry more kit and then end up
03:56stuffing your pockets. However, if you're leaving the house at 8.30am, it's likely that it's going to be a lot colder
04:03than it will be midway through the ride. So wearing too much and overheating has two potential issues. Firstly, fluid loss increases
04:12and dehydration can become more likely. The easy fix is drinking enough fluid as well as consuming salts,
04:18but in the winter, it can sometimes be difficult to want to drink that much more. If you become dehydrated,
04:24this will not only impair your training sessions, but also your recovery from training and therefore your
04:30overall fitness. The other downside of overdressing is that unzipping to cool down can lead to quite a rapid
04:37chill. If you do an effort over the top of the climb, you will then become sweaty. And we all know
04:42that the purpose of sweat is to dissipate heat. So when you combine that with unzipping and a rush of cold
04:48air, you can get cold very, very quickly. This is an area which a lot of cyclists neglect throughout the
05:00whole year. Dedicated strength work can be a huge benefit, both for increasing power while also
05:06reducing the likelihood of injuries. During winter, many people try and increase their volume of cycling
05:12to get those base miles in. However, doing just volume work and neglecting strength work really does
05:18put you at a comparable disadvantage. Strength work has been shown to increase time to exhaustion,
05:24increase maximal power production, and decrease time trial time. So for those worried that they'll
05:30put on loads of muscle and get heavy, well, unless you're very genetically gifted, you won't put on
05:36kilos of muscle. You may gain some, but with power increasing. Your watts per kilo will increase with
05:43your watts per CDA increasing by more. In other words, you'll be faster everywhere. So if you're just
05:50training volume or you just train on the turbo and neglect strength work altogether, you could be
05:56damaging your fitness and the potential to be faster. A common mistake made by those moving from their
06:07end of season break to their winter training is actually just overdoing it. Doing too much too soon
06:14is a surefire way to get ill, burn out later, or give yourself an injury. Any of these obviously will
06:21impact significantly and negatively on your fitness. When starting to ride again after a break, it's very
06:28important to build up that training load, be that intensity or duration, very progressively and
06:33sustainably. It's also worth bearing in mind that, well, there's a lot of illness in the winter season.
06:40So if you've got kids or you work in an office, it is very likely that you're going to pick up a
06:44cold virus at least once or twice during winter. If you do catch a cold, then this may mean you have
06:50to take time off from training to recover properly. But if you do train through it, you may be unwell for
06:56longer and training will be negatively impacted along with the fitness. If you do take a break to get
07:03well again, then you've got to be careful that you don't overdo it when you start back up. Training
07:09locks can weaken your immune system, making you more susceptible to illnesses.
07:15So there's five things which I think you're doing wrong in your winter training. If you have any tips
07:20of your own, then do share them down below. If you enjoyed the video, drop it a like,
07:24subscribe to the channel for more content, and I'll see you again very soon.