Five ways winter cycling ruins your fitness – and how to avoid them

We all know that the winter training period is very important in laying the groundwork for the upcoming season. Is it possible that

1. Dress the wrong way

(Image credit: Future)

First, you don’t wear enough kit. If you’re used to wearing shorts and jerseys, it’s very easy to get the kit wrong or not wear enough when the temperature starts to drop. , it can be difficult to raise your body temperature sufficiently to be able to perform the required effort adequately. Recovery from training sessionseven if you spend a lot of time in the lower cycling training zone.

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Both of these negatively affect fitness in the short term.Being too cold and feeling unwell will affect your training and fitness in the long run. winter cycling gloves Also cycling overshoes and get numbness in hands and feet Hands and feet have a very high level of nerve endings and can affect you greatly.

Secondly, wearing too much will overheat. In winter, you may want to stack a lot of kit to stay warm and reduce your chances of catching a cold. I think it’s always better to wear too much kit and then take it off and unzip it when it starts getting warmer. decrease. For example, the Sunday Club Run (Zone 2 Endurance Ride) is a staple for most winters cycling training plan.

The image shows a person training in winter.

(Image credit: Future)

However, if you leave home at 8:30 am, it can be significantly colder than during the ride. Wearing too much and overheating creates two potential problems. First, fluid loss increases, making dehydration more likely. A simple solution is to drink enough water and salt. However, in winter, you may not want to drink as much. Not only does being dehydrated hurt your training session, it also hurts your recovery from training and thus your overall fitness.

Another downside to overdressing is that if you unzip and cool off, it can get cold pretty quickly. We know that the purpose of sweat is to wick heat away, so when combined with unzipping and blowing in cold air, it cools you down in no time.

2. Forget Strength

The image shows a person training in winter.

(Image credit: Future)

It’s common in many people’s winter training routines to ignore intensity when cycling. Base (training) is often considered to be everything. It follows a traditional periodization training plan, but periodization has some issues when trying to emulate the pros. Professionals spend a limited percentage of their winter training and out-of-season training time at higher intensities, but only a small fraction of their much larger overall training volume.

If you’re not training 30 hours a week, and only, say, 7 hours, you’d be better off spending 1 hour 24 minutes on periodization rather than Z1/2. If you’re training that total, if you’re doing mostly Zone 2 and training at higher intensities for a limited amount of time, you won’t be making the most of your training time and you’ll lose your fitness over the winter. You will lose.

3. Ride indoors only

The image shows a person training indoors in the winter.

(Image credit: Future)

training indoors The best indoor cycling training app Great, no doubt about it. However, restricting your training to indoors only can negatively impact other important aspects of cycling as well as your overall fitness.

Purely indoor riding – stick to turbo trainer – Has no effect on bike handling or bunch riding skills. These are skills that many seek to improve and see their results in races improve. Not only that, but you may also lose some of them.

Another area where indoor-only riding can negatively impact your fitness is that you may be neglecting easy or long endurance rides. Some people are big fans of indoor training, where he enjoys rides of five hours or more. But for most people, this is not a fun idea. This is what a good training plan should always be.Intensity is necessary to improve and maintain fitness, but fitness is compromised if the optimal plan does not balance intensity and volume.

Finally, training purely indoors increases your chances of burning out in the long run. Spending time outdoors is not only good for your physical health, it’s also good for your mental health. Add to that the lack of face-to-face social interaction and the fact that you can’t let up on pedaling indoors, and mental burnout is a serious consideration when training purely indoors. .

4. Neglect heavy lifting

The image shows a person training in winter.

(Image credit: Future)

This is an area that many cyclists ignore all year round.Single-minded strength training while increasing the power common cycling injuriesDuring the winter months, many people try to increase the amount of cycling they do to increase their base miles. However, doing only volume work and neglecting strength training actually puts you at an equal disadvantage.

Strength training has been shown to increase time to exhaustion, increase peak power output, and shorten time trial duration.For those of you who are worried about gaining muscle mass and gaining weight, unless you are a very genetically gifted person, you won’t be able to gain many kilos of muscle mass. , as power increases, your watt/kilogram It increases with further increases in Watts/CdA. That means it’s faster everywhere. So, training volume or neglecting strength training with a turbo can hurt your fitness and your chances of getting faster.

5. Overdoing

The image shows a person training in winter.

(Image credit: Future)

Common mistakes made by people moving from end of season break Their winter training is overkill. Doing too much too soon is a surefire way to get sick, burn out later in the winter, or get injured.

When resuming riding after a break, it is very important to build your training load progressively and sustainably, regardless of intensity or duration. It should also be borne in mind that winter is the time when many diseases are prevalent. If a child goes to school or works in an office, the cold virus can catch her once or twice during the winter.

As such, you may need to take some time off from training in order to properly recover from the cold. Training through it can leave you feeling unwell for a long time and training will be adversely affected along with your fitness. Cycling lots can weaken your immune systemmake you more sensitive Get sick.

1. Dress the wrong way

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