Every time you ride your bike you'll improve in some way, whether it be technically, fitness or to gain strength, so each ride should count towards your overall goal. Even if you just want to ride recreationally or for pleasure at weekends, by riding regularly you'll be doing training even if you don't like the idea of calling it training.
Most women ride with men and can't always keep up, especially the first few times, but by training you can make improvements fast, which may allow you keep up with your partner or riding buddies. Also it's very difficult for mothers to fit in time for training in between work and the kids so when you do get the chance make sure you use your time wisely to gain the maximum benefit. By having a structured training plan you can decide how much time you have available and what you can achieve in that time.
This doesn't mean you have to follow a strict routine and get worried if you a take a day or week off the bike, or eat too many take-outs one week. In it's simple form training just means there is some structure to your riding and you are thinking about getting fitter, faster or stronger or aiming towards riding a certain distance or event. You can of course become obsessive and super competitive later on and do even more training if you choose, but that attitude isn't compulsory.
Anyone can train
You don't need to be a sports scientist or have a coach to get the best from your hours on the bike, although it will help, you just need to plan how you use your riding time more effectively for better results. Below are some general and quite simple ways of getting fitter, stronger and faster on the bike for beginners through to intermediate riders
Whatever your goal you need to put aside time to train and work up to your ideal distance or speed, this can take several weeks minimum but even after two or three weeks you'll see noticeable differences in performance.
Long mountain rides.........
|
Endurance miles
Absolute beginners need to start out slowly and gently until they get used to being in the saddle, this can be quite uncomfortable at first. Short rides each day can help the body to adapt quickly allowing longer rides after only a week or so and reduce the impact of a sore a butt. It's best to build up endurance and fitness slowly, by doing regular rides over gradually increasing distances, interspersed with shorter slow recovery rides, fitness and endurance will soon grow. These endurance miles are the cornerstone or base to your training and the more solid the base the better the subsequent training results will be. To build endurance you should concentrate on longer rides at a set intensity, keeping your heart rate at 50-60% of your maximum heart rate (a simple but not very accurate way of estimating your maximum heart rate is 220bpm - age in years, eg. 220bpm-29 years = 191bpm). Riding in the endurance exertion level for more than 45 minutes will burn fat most effectively so longer rides are ideal for those trying to loose weight.
Strength and power up the hills
After a few weeks training beginners will be able to up the cadence and speed and even start powering up climbs with ease, these bursts of power training and short sprints will increase explosive power, a useful and confidence inspiring tactic. This enables you to power over the rise of a hill when other riders get tired and give up, leaving you free to catch your breath on the downside and stay ahead of the pack.
The key to winning races or improving on your time over a set course is improving your climbing potential, to do this you can simulate a race environment and power up climbs, whilst seated try keeping cadence (the rate at which you spin the pedals) the same as on the flat and upping the wattage (that's the amount of power on the pedals) as the hill steepens. You'll obviously have to slow down and adjust gears accordingly at some point but by pushing it a bit further on each hill you can make big improvements fast. Even if you only have a short space of time to train you can choose a moderately steep hill and attack it several times in the space of a single ride. This sounds a bit dull but you'll notice the benefits really quickly and feel stronger on the flat too.
Other ways of building power and strength include sprinting for a up to 1 minute with several minutes rest in between, this can be done on or off road as long as the terrain is flattish, you can use markers such as trees or street lights as your start post and then try to get further within the minute than you did last time. By building this type of technique into your weekly training plan you'll break up the longer rides whilst improving cardio-vascular and leg fitness too.
Pedalling in circles
Pedal strokes are not all the same and many women riders only focus on the down stroke, you can improve your stroke by thinking about the upstroke. By pulling up on the upstroke you can get extra power out of each pedal rotation, to practice this try just pulling up on each pedal stroke for a short distance on the flat. You'll find your hamstrings will hurt with this technique so build it in to your training slowly to avoid injury. The other sections of the pedal stroke that affect power output are the dead-zones, the top and bottom of each stroke where the foot doesn't really apply any force. Try pushing the pedal forward at the top of the stroke and pulling it slightly backwards at the bottom to iron out dead spots and spread the workload through the hamstrings and quad muscles. If this adds a couple of centimetres to the wheels for each pedal stroke then imagine how that adds up over an entire ride.
There are many training techniques to improve your performance but by taking note of the above points you'll see a vast change in your riding and get you well on the way to achieving your riding goals whatever they may be.
