Cycling is not just taking your bike out for long smooth rides. If you want to boost your stamina and increase your speed you need more than just riding practise. You need regular work outs and cycling exercises. Biking tones your muscles and keeps you fit. But to help boost your speed and balance you need to work out with your bike. This helps improve your speed at a faster rate than just riding your regular trial everyday for long hours. Here are nine workouts that you can try out.
The Triple Threat:
First warm up for fifteen minutes. Then boost up your intensity and hold it for at least three minutes. This means you work very hard for those three minutes. Take the next three minutes to recuperate. Repeat the entire procedure at least twice. Then finish your trail at your regular pace. This helps improve you VO2 capacity, i.e. it helps force your body to find better methods to utilize more oxygen when your body demands it.
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Spin Ups:
Warm up for five minutes and then spin up to the fastest motion with smooth pedal strokes, keeping your upper body quiet for one minute. Rest for the next three minutes. Repeat the entire procedure six to eight times. After some time increase the duration of the fast spins and rest for less time. Spin-up slike these helps make you more efficient by moving the effort from your leg muscles to your cardiovascular muscles.
The Meander:
Sometimes all you need to do is forget about all the technological trash with gears and equipment and just ride a bike like a kid. Grad hold of a ride any cycle available and just ride your heart out. Look around you, feel the breeze, ride through your old trail and enjoy riding for the sake of riding.
Hill Attacks:
You know what they say, Hills always make you stronger. So what better method is there to improve your strength then to ride over hills regularly! Now you can go about this in two ways. One you can include a trail with at least five to six hills on its path. Ride up those hills hard and recover in the intervals in between. Or you can find one high hill that is not easy game and ride hard over it. Recover while coming down and then go over.
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Tempo Training:
Tempo training helps boost your sustainable race pace. It also helps improve your threshold by forcing your cells to produce more energy. Warm up for at least ten minutes and start riding a hard pace that could carry you over a 40km race. Ride on for fifteen minutes. Then take three minutes to recover. Repeat the procedure twice. As your fitness improves increase the tempo time and reduce recovery.
Cross The Threshold:
This exercise helps push your legs to their breaking point and then helps extend that limit. You warm up for ten to fifteen minutes and then make your effort high enough that you feel your legs scream. Hold it for five minutes at least then relax and ride just below your comfort zone. Do at least three sets of this exercise. It will prove to be a great help in increasing your threshold.
Thirty Second Blasts:
First you need to warm up for at least ten minutes then sprint all out for thirty seconds. These are called the thirty second blasts. After the thirty second sprint, spin easy for two and a half minute. Then repeat the procedure at least twelve times. Spin easy to cool down. This is an effective method to improve your body’s ability to use more oxygen in stressful situations. However it is not advisable to carry out this workout more than twice every week.
Adult Recess:
Find a group of other avid cyclists who are willing to help you train. Then practice different formations of paceline like a single file then a double or rotating paceline. Race each other to the mountain top or across the town line. This will help you improve your balancing skills. It will also help you learn how to read other riders and most importantly it will take some pressure off and lets you enjoy.
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Steady-State:
Start your ride at a moderate intensity not too below your comfort zone and then hold it for the next hour. Maintain your breathing and your legs shouldn’t be burning. This exercise helps train your body to tap into your stored fat and utilize that energy.
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