Athlete Key Workout
SoCal Race Season: Are you ready?
January marks the beginning of SoCal race season. If you’re still riding base miles, it means you’re behind and it’s time to spice up your training with some higher intensity crit-specific workouts.
Read MoreBrody McDonald: U23 World Championship Road Race Prep
Brody McDonald is one of the favorites to win the U23 World Championship road race in Glasgow. In this article, we take a look at his training and preparation for the race. We discuss his focus on volume and zone 2 training, his on-the-bike nutrition, his racecraft, and his taper. We also give our predictions for how he will perform in Glasgow.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Heat Adaptation
Hot and humid weather is the universal foe that impacts every summer race. Being heat adapted is like having a superpower that allows you to conquer any climate.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Mid-season Zone 2
It’s mid-season and you’ve probably been racing lots and can feel that race form coming on strong but it’s probably time to some mid-season Zone 2 training
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: FRC 40-20s
These Functional Reserve Capacity (FRC) 40-20s do an excellent job of providing a training impulse to your anaerobic capacity.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Over-Unders
The concept of over-under intervals is to work in a tight range over your FTP for a short period of time and then to alternate to a power target under your FTP and repeat.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: 30-30s
We like to use these 30-30s or Tabata intervals to really engage an athletes anaerobic system. The explosive efforts are short and unsustainable and coupled with a rest that’s incomplete this workout really quenches the big power thirst of criterium racing.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Film Study
Film study has always been an important tool for improving personal and team outcomes in competition. Teams and racers were late to the game but are catching up and now film study is just as important in cycling as it is in other sports.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Rest Days
Recovery days are often overrated but are crucial to criterium racing because of the repeated high-intensity efforts. These intense efforts can lead to muscle fatigue, soreness, and even injury if a rider doesn’t allow their body enough time to recover. Recovery days allow the body to rest and repair, reducing the risk of injury and improving…
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Sprints!
Most criterium races require a high degree of skill and neuromuscular coordination and right in the middle of that Venn Diagram is sprinting.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: VO2 and Race Winning Intervals
This is a great workout to simulate establishing a breakaway or going for a last lap solo attack.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Sweet Spot All-Day- Long
Sweet spot training. Criterium racing is still an endurance event, despite our willingness to make it about explosive efforts. Any event lasting 30 minutes or even 90 minutes is definitely an endurance based sport. So how do we get better at riding for that long? Sweet spot training.
Read MoreCriterium Workout of the Week: Zone 2
Criterium Workout of the Week: Zone 2. What it is and is not.
Read MoreRider Highlight: Dean Parker takes the win at Keen Wealth Kansas State Cyclocross Masters 65+
Dean Parker, a Kansas force to be reckoned with, has been ripping it up in Kansas. He recently took the win at Keen Wealth Kansas State Cyclocross Masters 65+! Brief event/course description: Course had a lot of climbing, in fact as soon as you turned off the pavement the climbing started. The other tricky part…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Patrick Bos
Patrick Bos wins crits. How a rider wins crits is key in what workouts to give them. We have to work out our weaknesses but at the end of the day we win with our strengths. Patrick is a versatile rider but lately we have been seeing success in working his strengths, a hard effort…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Nick Torraca of Elevate- KHS Pro Cycling
Nick Torraca has been on the go and on the road since the week after he finished up classes at the University of Texas at Austin. In order, he’s seen action at: Superior Morgul Classic in Colorado, Memorial Day criteriums in Dallas, TX, Oklahoma City Pro AM Classic, Tulsa Tough, North Star Grand Prix and…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Homayoon Farsi’s TT practice.
Here’s a quick time trial bike workout SE athlete Homayoon Farsi completed several times in his preparation for the Arizona State TT Championships. Homayoon can be found on podiums across the state, and is a staple in the Arizona master’s racing community. Everyone wants to be a better time trialist, but many riders leave out…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Team Grip-N-Rip
The end of the month marks a pretty big race in the local Kansas City scene, with the Tour of Kansas City. A few of the Grip-N-Rip riders will be focusing on practicing the Time Trial that finishes up a steep hill. Scouting missions never hurt chances of success and this time trial is no…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Brady Reed
Brady Reed’s 60-90 minutes, Easy Endurance Ride. With a string of criterium racing weekends coming up, Brady has systematically prepared himself for the repeated high intensity efforts they’ll demand over consecutive days. This preparation started months ago, and we don’t want to let the training load go to waste for later road racing, so Brady…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Justin Williams' Recovery Ride
June 5, 2017: Justin Williams of Cylance Pro Cycling 60 minute, Recovery Ride. Recently, Justin has had what I would consider a brutal last few days. During that time, we put him in a state of systematic overreaching in order to push his fitness into a solid mid-season form. The benefits of this training block should…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Nate Taggatz
A couple weekends ago in Colorado was the Wheels of Thunder Criterium. We saw Nate Taggatz or Rio Grande Elite Cycling Team make the break with Gage Hecht and Dan Holloway, lap the field, and then get in further moves to try and get away from the competition. Nate Taggatz ended up 3rd in a classic…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Pablo Cruz
Sometimes, you just have to do some hard riding. In this week’s workout highlight, we’ll take a look at a late build phase workout done by Pablo Cruz of Midwestern State University in preparation for the USA Cycling Collegiate National Championship. Prior to this workout, Pablo had already done some 200+ hours this year, in…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Skyler Mackey
After finishing up his most successful cyclo-cross (CX) season yet, Skyler Mackey of KCCX has decided to push in all his chips for the 2017-18 CX season. Once he was able to make this commitment, we set about building a periodization model that will let Skyler hit the ground running in early September in preparation…
Read MoreAthlete Key Workout: Eric Marcotte
We’re starting a short and sweet new series, Athlete Key Workout, highlighting a specific workout given to one of our athletes and why. First up: Eric Marcotte of Cylance Pro Cycling. We’ll look at the type of race openers Marcotte does leading into Redlands Bicycle Classic. (Thanks DMunson Photo for use of the photo above) With the…
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