When you have limited time to ride, it's often very hard to "sacrifice" that very precious time with a warm-up. Sometimes it's just the excitement of getting out on our bikes that makes us start too hard, or perhaps you're at the mercy of a group ride that sprints out of the parking lot. While almost anyone who's raced has most likely warmed-up and believes in the value of warm-up, many choose to omit a warm-up before a group or solo ride or a training session. So is skipping a warm-up a big deal? If you are interested in putting forth your best performance and just feeling better, I believe so. Although science on the cool-down is not so clear, there is indeed much research supporting the notion that a warm-up provides a performance benefit. Here are five reasons why you may want to make sure you always work in a warm up before you rides. 1. Increase Body Temperature It doesn't take much to see that this is probably where the term "warming-up" comes from. We are literally increasing our body temperatures. While getting too hot can be detrimental, the enzymes that are linked to energy production get fired up with this increase in temperature. This means your muscles will be better able to do the work you're about to ask of them. 2. Increase Blood Flow and Circulation Our muscles need blood to do work. By increasing our heart rate slowly during a warm-up, we'll be also increasing the muscular blood flow. Our body gets the signal that we need to start dedicating more of the blood for our muscles, again getting them ready and capable of doing the upcoming work. 3. Establish Range of Motion According to Cyclist.co.UK and sport scientist Greg Whyte: ‘The muscle fibres need to be activated, which means increasing bloodflow and establishing range of motion. These muscles include those associated with respiration – the diaphragm and intercostals – that assist with breathing and supplying oxygen to the muscles. More oxygen to the muscles equals better performance.’ So it's more than just our leg muscles, it's also the muscles involved in breathing that can get better activated. Bonus! 4. Reduces Muscle Stiffness and Increase Speed of Nerve Conduction Think of a piece of meat that's straight from the freezer. Certainly not very flexible at all. Now consider one out of the refrigerator. More flexible, but still perhaps a bit "stiff." Now let it heat up to room temperature and a bit above, and it becomes more an more flexible. The same is true with our muscles. It's not as large a shift as frozen to thawed, but that increase in temperature can make our muscles more flexible which means they can move more easily. While this is happening, the speed of nerve conduction is increased, which means the signals get communicated more quickly. Some also believe that this will help to prevent injuries, but there is not much science behind. To me, however, that does make some sense in that supple muscles seem less likely to get aggravated with doing hard work. 5. Prepare Yourself Mentally for Your Ride or Workout While this one does not have quite the same science behind it as it's hard to measure, many believe this is a very important and beneficial piece of warming-up. This aspect may even be more important than the purely physiological ones. By consciously preparing our mind, we can get focused on what's coming up. This may be simply detaching yourself from your other worldly tasks, problems, and concerns. Those chores, work projects, e-mails, etc. won't get done while you're out on your ride. During the warm-up is a great time to "put them in a box" and put that box on a shelf in your mind. They haven't gone away, but don't let them creep into your focus and fun while riding your bike. On a more dramatic level, if you're too distracted to focus on your ride, you may become a safety concern not only for yourself but others around you. I can definitely remember crashing at least once on my mountain bike after having been distracted with my thoughts. In a future post, I'll write about some guidelines for your warm-ups. For now I'll suggest taking at least 10 minutes to slowly increase your heart rate, and if there is going to be hard efforts or a fast group ride start involved, one or two "hard" efforts of 30-60 seconds. If you want a better ride, take the time to warm-up. What do you do for a warm-up? Do you skip warm-ups? Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Please post below. Here are some great resources to check if out if you want to learn more: Articles: https://www.velonews.com/training/training-warming-up-for-better-results/ https://www.bicycling.com/training/a20040253/the-right-way-to-warm-up-for-every-ride/ https://www.cyclingweekly.com/fitness/do-you-need-to-warm-up-cycling-328966 https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/2399/cycling-fitness-do-i-really-need-to-warm-up https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/article/izn20140115-Intermediate-Warming-Up-and-Cooling-Down-0 Podcast: https://www.fasttalklabs.com/fast-talk/forget-what-you-thought-you-knew-about-warm-ups/ Thanks for reading. Coach Brian
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The cool down, also known as the warm down in some circles, has long been a practice in many sports, particularly endurance sports. I know it was always impressed upon me by my mentors, teammates, coaches, and pre-Interwebs literature. It has been a consistent component of my rides and races that I almost always practiced barring some extenuating circumstances.
As a coach, I also encourage all of my athletes to incorporate a cool down into their rides, races, and events, and I build one into all of the workouts that I prescribed. It always "just made sense" to let our bodies gently come down from all of the physiological implications of a hard effort, first and foremost, our high heart rates. And of course we all heard many of the other reasons such as flush out the toxins, take care of the excess lactate that is produced, help calm our guts, and generally get us ready for recovery and the next workout. This is a very succinct article that explains the merits of cooling down: http://www.nsmi.org.uk/articles/injury-prevention/cooling-down.html And here's one from British Cycling, who certainly has had some success with their athletes: www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/article/izn20140115-Intermediate-Warming-Up-and-Cooling-Down-0 OK, so there's two sources indicating that the cool down is beneficial. But Dylan Johnson, who has a large library of YouTube videos, took a dive into this topic. Dylan certainly does his research and cites his sources. I like his take-aways on this one. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mckoAAinGDU What I didn't hear are any significant negative aspects of a cool down, and I believe you would be hard pressed to find research supporting this notion. Perhaps one could argue that it's a bad use of time, but that's a stretch in my opinion. I will continue to cool down on my own rides, as well as prescribe it as a coach. Stepping off your bike as you're gasping for air and your heart is in your throat just doesn't seem like a good idea. On a less extreme side of things, I personally use the cool down to reflect on the ride or race as well as get my thoughts together for when I am done. I'll plan out my recovery strategy for the day and make sure I'm setting myself up for the most successful way to finish up my day. This article from USA Cycling sums it up nicely and points out some other benefits: https://usacycling.org/article/why-every-ride-and-race-should-end-with-a-cool-down So while there's not a lot of hard science behind it all, it's worth experimenting for yourself. Do you regularly cool down? If so, for how long? Or no cool down for you? Leave a comment below. I'd love to hear what you have to say! Cheers, Coach Brian Your shorts legs...a great place to store food and trash!While personally I’ve tried to get away from gels, blocks, and bars as much as possible, those fast acting, easily accessible foods are sometimes the best solution for me. This is particularly true in a very hard training ride or a race. I’ve always been a fan of putting several of my gels just up my short leg. You can also leave just the tab of the gel poking out for an easy grab. I find this location faster to grab than reaching in my jersey pocket. It also frees up space in your pockets for other foods or supplies during the longer events.
Our short legs are also great places to store trash until you can dispose of it properly. Do take care to fold the wrapper kind of flat or it can poke you in the leg, which is less than enjoyable. Have a tip of your own? I’d love to hear about it! Post a comment below or send me an e-mail. Coach Brian It's almost impossible to be a part of the cycling multi-verse and not have heard the term "marginal gains." This term was made popular in 2015 by the commentators of many big bike races, most notably Le Tour de France, as they discussed Team Sky's approach of making sure every detail was taken care of. According to CNBC, "Sir Dave Brailsford, former performance director of British Cycling, revolutionized the sport using the theory of marginal gains.... As this thinking became a culture and a philosophy shared by all members of Brailsford’s team, they kept searching for any and every area where they could make tiny improvements. Their goal was a marginal or 1% gain in every aspect of their training and environment. Individually, each incremental change may have seemed unnecessary or random, but collectively, they helped create a powerhouse with a level of success that became the envy of the cycling world." Well, this post is certainly about something relatively easy and "small" that we all can do, but its impact might not be so marginal. I'm referring to making sure that, as we head out for 30 minute quick ride or an all day adventure, we put on that sunscreen and/or protective layers. On a very surface (no pun intended) level, getting sun burnt just hurts. It's uncomfortable, can make sleeping tough, and generally make you feel more tired than you are. From a performance standpoint, if your body is using significant resources to repair damaged skin, and then those resources are not available to repair your body from the effects of training. Sun burn is a form of inflammation, something we typically want to minimize. Continuing along the lines of performance, if the burn is uncomfortable enough to disrupt sleep, you have now robbed your body of that most crucial time of repair and adaptations. The poor sleep can also negatively impact your next training session, and the snowball effect continues. But the most important consideration is the long term damage that sun burn does to our skin, which can lead to much more serious implications down the road. From the MD Anderson Cancer Center: "How your skin changes during a sunburn When ultraviolet radiation from the sun reaches the skin, it damages the skin cells and causes mutations in their DNA. “Our bodies have a lot of amazing mechanisms to prevent and even correct these mutations,” George says. “But if the skin cells get more UV exposure than they can handle, the damage may be beyond repair, and the cells die off. Blood vessels dilate to increase blood flow and bring immune cells to the skin to help clean up the mess. All this causes the redness, swelling and inflammation we associate with a sunburn.” The sunburn will eventually heal, but some of the surviving cells will have mutations that escape repair. These cells could eventually become cancerous. Can you reverse sun damage? Some beauty products claim they can reverse sun damage or even stimulate cell repair. But no research has shown that any topical skin care product or lotion can reverse sun damage. “There’s no simple way to undo sun damage yet,” George says. “But there are lots of simple ways to prevent it by being sun-safe and avoiding sunburns.”" So that's the key right there: prevention. I am much more careful now than I was in the past, using both chemical and mechanical forms of sun protection. I got these arm skins (arm coolers) from Champion Systems pictured to the left a couple of summers ago and love them for their speed and effectiveness. Speed? Yes, much faster than applying sunscreen to my arms for a sunny jaunt on my bike. Are they hot? No, I'm not going to say they're "cool", but up to mid 80's they don't bother me too much. There's lighter options and colors out there, too. They make them for your knees and full legs, too. Do watch with your kit. Some jerseys these days are almost see-through and don't provide much of a Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF). In addition to my clothing, I hit the sunscreen religiously now. Most on the time I use the goopy zinc based stuff, but I figure if I'm going for it, I probably should use something healthy and decent. For those super long days out in the sun, I'll even throw a small tube or stick in my pocket and re-apply. I know, I know. It's just one more thing as you're trying to get out the door for your 60 minute lunch ride or squeezing in 75 minutes before that next client meeting. But the 5 minutes you take to protect your skin, can turn into hours and hours saved by not having to go to the dermatologist. And that of course can transition from an inconvenience to a serious problem very quickly. Here are some good articles with sunscreen options, how and when to apply, as well as more information and tips: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/g20005485/the-best-sunscreens-for-cyclists/#:~:text=Goldman%20suggests%20applying%20sunscreen%20to,a%20long%20period%20of%20time https://www.skincancer.org/blog/cycling-and-sun-protection/ https://www.theproscloset.com/blogs/news/cycling-sunscreen-and-sun-sleeves And this podcast really only touches on the issue, but if you've been in the mountain bike world for a while like I have, it might really hit home with you, too. Travis Brown was one of the mountain bike superstars from the 90's into 2000's, and to hear him talk about his scare with cancer was very, very real: Colby Pearce on Fasttalk So let's all take care of our largest organ so we can keep riding our bikes and enjoying other out of door activities for the rest of our lives. As a coach, I want to foster life-long cyclists so let's all stay healthy. There are so many options now with sprays, creams, sticks, etc. that we really don't have an excuse. Do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones, and, at the very least, do it for performance. Cheers, Coach Brian Most of us know it whether we want to admit it or not. Stress is stress is stress is stress. It doesn't matter if it's physical, mental, or emotional, it's all stress. And all of it impacts our lives. We often learn to live with the current level of stress and then it feels like there's little stress. For example, you might get a new job that is very stressful with demanding hours. After a while, you adapt and "get used to it." Then it doesn't feel as high stress any more. Of course it still is. And then we just pile on more and more.
I had a teammate who talked about the "stress bucket" and how your body doesn't differentiate where the stress comes from. It all just goes into the bucket. And when the bucket is full, your body will win. You might get sick, or just super cranky, or stop performing well, or worse. Or all of the above. You may have heard it described as a sponge or a sink or a glass. It doesn't matter what analogy we use, it's all a similar concept of a finite vessel that will all eventually fill up if we continue to dump in more stress. We must all be mindful of the stress that can undermine our goals and our lives. This is a super article that talks about that and how to successfully train, and REST, through it. Check it out: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/training-stress-vs-life-stress/ And here's another from one of my go-to podcasters, Colby Pearce: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/training-in-times-of-stress/ Colby's "been there and done that"; he's been a professional bike racer and gone to the Olympics. He's also a master bike fitter and coach. He hosts a very interesting podcast called "Cycling in Alignment" at: https://www.colbypearce.com/podcast/ So, go ahead and take some time for yourself, maybe take that unplanned rest day, get to bed early, go sit on the beach and relax, and try to de-stress a bit. Your body will thank you. And you might surprise yourself with how well you perform. Cheers, Coach Brian |
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Coach B.L.Coach B.L. is the head coach at BJL Coaching and an avid racer and cycling enthusiast himself. Archives
April 2024
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