Yeah its the off season and I am excited about it. Time to relax and spend some time not riding.
I know this is counter to what some would have you believe. I will be riding but I will also be running, lifting weights, stretching, hiking, yoga, Mountain Biking, plyometrics and a lot of core. I have several teammates who are also going to be giving P90X, Yoga and Cyclo Cross a try this off season.
I learned this last season from other coaches who are not cyclists or competitive cyclists that there is more to being fast and fit than just riding your bike as fast as you can as long as you can.
We need time to rejuvenate, recover, rebuild and rethink the past season.
The one lesson I have learned from my career and from cycling is that everything learned and experienced is iterative. Next seasons progress isn’t just due to this off season but the previous seasons. So the more you try, train and race the better chance you have reaching your goals.
No matter what kind of training you may embark on this off season just believe in it.
If you are a self coached cyclist I strongly recommend that you bring some structure to your training this season as well. You can purchase ready made training programs from me here.
Training Peaks is used by most of the major cycling and triathlete coaches and has amazing abilities to receive uploaded data from many cycling computers, power meters and heart rate monitors. If you don’t have a coach or want to purchase a training plan Training Peaks offers there Annual Training Plan (ATP) Wizard to create your own plan(s). The ATP Wizard uses much of what is taught in Joe Friel’s training Bible series of books for the self coached. My only complaint about Training Peaks is that as it has grown as a service so has the complexity of this web application and logging service.
The Cyclo Club is an amazing resource for both recreational cyclists and those just getting into racing. Annual membership is on par with Training Peaks but you get quite a bit of information on Auxiliary training such as core, yoga, flexibility, nutrition and breathing! Most all of the information is available as a video stream, download or even pod cast. I have learned much from the owner Graeme Street that has made a difference in my ability to cultivate even more on and off bike assets. If I had anything negative to say about Cyclo Club is that it was hard to find things and the search engine was not very useful. The site went through a recent redesign along with some search engine tuning. So things are much easier to find. Forums on the site don’r seemed to be as active as others I use.
What ever training you use train smart.
Good luck this winter and work hard!