preparing for a race - I Love Bicycling

Visualizing and Mental Training For Cycling

May 13, 2016 by Josh Friedman

Your heart pounds, your palms are getting sweaty. The strange thing is that you are not even on your bike. You are sitting at your desk daydreaming. Or you might be laying in bed at night and staring blankly at a newspaper in front of you. In each instance you are scheming how you will win the big race. And in each instance you feel a physiological response to the images in your mind. Visualizing and mental training for cycling is a powerful tool to prepare your mind for the task ahead. Cycling is mostly mental as its your brain that’s telling your body what to do. Preparing every aspect of yourself for a race will help you to achieve maximum results.

See Your Success

There is a connection between your mental preparedness and physical success. By visualizing critical moments in a race and how you will react to them, you are visualizing and mentally training an important component of your cycling repertoire. While a race will often not play out exactly as you had envisioned it, it is still important to see yourself succeeding, making the winning attack, reacting to the big attack, dropping everyone on the big climb or taking the best lines in a time trial. Your brain will have felt the feeling once before so it then knows how to react in the critical moment.

Clinical Trials

There have been many clinical trials on visualizing and mental training in sports. A few are cycling specific, but there are lessons for cyclists in all of them. Most come to the conclusion that the brain thrives on envisioning physical tasks that are then put into practice with great success.

There is some great stuff from David Henderson’s Blog on some studies with athletes and their performances. One study broke down mental training versus physical training with Soviet Olympic athletes to find that the a 75%/25% mental to physical training yielded the best results. That’s quite surprising considering how much time athletes put into physical training. Another study showed on electromyography scans that the brain does not differentiate between visualization and physical training; if you see it in your mind your brain thinks it is doing the action. There is a payoff to daydreaming about your push to success.

Start Small

Practice visualizing and mental training with a segment of road that you already know. See it in your mind. Take the best lines through the segment. Put the power down where you really require it and recover when it is possible. Imagine yourself going faster than you ever have before on this familiar road . Then go out and ride that road. Did you feel the difference?

Time Trial as Laboratory

In a time trial, there are far fewer variables than a road race. It is rider versus the road and clock. It is also a perfect place to hone your visualizing and mental training skills. Pre-ride or drive the course so you are familiar with the turns and undulations. If you have a day or two to ponder it before the actual race, all the better. Take some quiet time to rehearse the race in your mind – again, taking the best lines, putting the power down and recovering in the appropriate sections. With the other racers removed from the equation, you only have to rely on your mind and the positive thoughts you put in place to ride a great race.

Mass Start Races

It takes some mental flexibility to visualize what is going to happen in a mass start race. Break the course into important segments – a tough climb, a tricky technical section, the finishing sprint – and imagine what it will be like in the thick of the race. Remember that you have to stay alert to the other racers around you; you may have to alter plans based on them. It is important to stay calm in that situation and rethink what the best course of action is at that given moment. It may even be helpful to visualize a situation that does not go your way which you then overcome – maybe a crash in front of you that you avoid or a field split that you must jump across. It will prepare your mind for unseen adversity.

Avoid Negative Thoughts

Keeping your thoughts positive will aid your visualizing and mental training. You do not want to envision failure; it will only lead to actual failure. Make an effort to keep your thoughts positive at all times to allow your visualizing and mental training to flourish. Look at adversity as an opportunity to overcome. Remember that if you are suffering, so is everyone else. That is a great time to put in the winning move. See the perfect race in your head, all the details, and how you execute everything perfectly.

How Often Visualizing and Mental Training Should Be A Part Of Your Preparation

There is a balancing point in visualizing and mental training for cycling as if you are constantly thinking about a race, it becomes a stressor and something you worry about. In the days leading into a race, take the time once or twice a day to visualize the race. Do it for anywhere from one to ten minutes. Some top-level athletes my say to do it even longer but once you are done thinking about it, stop thinking about it, especially if you are laying in bed trying to go to sleep.

Sleep!

The brain is a very powerful but also very energy intensive organ. Just like your muscles need recovery, so does the brain. This happens during sleep when the brain makes sense of what it experienced the previous day and rests active centers that it used during the day. A fresh and recovered brain in the morning will be ready to tackle the day’s challenges ahead – training sessions, visualization, racing, and everything else that comes your way.

Make the Effort

Cyclists put a lot of time and money into equipment and physiological training, but there are great gains available with mental training. Drawing a positive image of competition will allow you to reach and break barriers that were unimaginable before you started visualizing and mental training.

Massage Tips For Tight Muscles

January 15, 2015 by Dyani Herrera

Frequent rides may do wonders for our fitness level both physically and mentally, but they do take a toll on our muscles if we don’t stretch sufficiently. Not properly caring for these muscles could lead to restrictions in our fascia. Fascia is a type of tissue in our body which envelops and divides the muscles. It has the ability to contract and relax with our muscles as well as withstand any load we may place.

However, at times if it is a higher load than our muscles can withstand, the fascia can become “deformed” and create restrictions, which lead to pain. They also cause decreased range of motion. These restrictions can become chronic issues if not treated adequately such as IT band syndrome, leg length discrepancies, or piriformis syndrome to name a few. Nevertheless, there are a few massage techniques which are great to address these “knots” in our soft tissue.

Active-Release Technique (ART):

This technique is best completed by a clinician (physical therapist, chiropractor, athletic trainer, or occupational therapist) that is certified in this manual therapy, but I’ll help you out with a brief video so you may do these at home with a partner if a clinician is not available to you. The idea behind ART is that it releases the knots in your fascia by moving the muscle in the direction it performs (refer to the chart for assistance). For instance, to release your quadriceps the therapist would massage upwards as you extend your knee/leg.

At first, this technique can be painful, but take it from someone who does this consistently; it feels SO much better afterwards. Once your legs have been released with ART you feel like you could ride for hours. Typically, ART is done on the area that is causing you pain, but it helps to release the most active muscles in the lower extremity (hip flexor, piriformis, hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, and peroneals). This is additionally helpful, since fascia is found all over our body, and a restriction in a surrounding muscle can affect the one below or above it.

Therefore, if you’re having pain in the hamstring, part of the problem can be a restriction or lack of flexibility in the calf, causing the hamstring to work harder than it should. One good tip before performing ART is to heat the muscle being treated for about 15 minutes, to enhance the effects of the massage. A lotion that has an oily base with some analgesic would be best to help the fingers glide and offer some pain relief. Some of my favorites include “Alo” and “Biofreeze” which can usually be found at your local CVS.

ART Hip flexor & Quads ART Quads & Peroneals ART Peroneals & Piriformis

Muscle	Action it Performs/Direction
Quadriceps	Knee extension
Hamstrings	Knee flexion
Hip Flexor	Flexes hip/brings hip up
Peroneals	Moves foot outwards, away from you
Calves	Moves foot/ankle towards floor
Piriformis	Hip rotation away from you

The next question you may be asking yourself is how often should you do this? This answer depends on several factors: How often do you ride? How many miles a week? Are you currently experiencing pain on one of these locations? If you’re an avid rider, it would be advantageous to do this at least once a week to address any restrictions and decrease your risk of soft tissue injury.

Deep Tissue Massage:

This massage is indicated for a person who would like a full body release after enduring a tough ride or race. It is important to note, this is not a relaxation massage, it can be painful over your pressure points, but you will feel more flexible afterwards. This type of massage should only be performed by someone who is a certified massage therapist. If an uncertified person performs this massage, they could do more harm than good. In addition, make sure to let you therapist know you are a cyclist and which areas you would like them to focus on. These can be completed once a month unless you’re in a heavy training bulk, then twice is more beneficial.

Graston Technique:

Graston massage is performed by clinicians who have been certified in this manual therapy and know how to properly use the tools. This is another technique which focuses largely on releasing restrictions in the fascia except it uses the tools in an almost “scraping” motion. Each tool is stainless steel and specifically shaped to treat certain areas of the body.

In addition to releasing fascia it also aids with removing accumulated lactic acid in muscles. It can be painful if the muscle and fascia are very tight, but will help increase flexibility and reduce risk of injury. When I’ve been in a high volume period of my training this has been a lifesaver, especially in helping me remove lactic acid. It has also helped with making my legs feel fresh for my next riding session. YouTube has several videos demonstrating the technique for different injuries and issues.

Self-Myofascial Release:

This technique is the most economical of the four and can be done consistently on your own with the help of a few tools. The most effective tools to help you include a high density foam roller, foam roller with ridges, the stick roller, and lacrosse ball. These can be completed a few times a week by rolling over the affected muscle for about 20-30 seconds, 2-3 times. Make sure to not continue rolling over the same muscle or tendon because, then you can irritate the area instead of release it. The lacrosse ball is great to release the rhomboids (between the shoulder blades) or the IT band.

It is vital that after completing any of these massages you drink plenty of water to help your body get rid of the byproducts from the massage. Although these massages can be painful they are beneficial. The same force and tension you applied on these muscles to get them this tight in the first place is the same amount needed to release them.

How To Mentally Prepare For A Race

March 1, 2014 by Guest Post

Being in a good place mentally is half the battle when it comes to preparing for a race. You want to be focused, relaxed, and confident when you begin. If you show up flustered, disorganized, or worried you’ll have a harder time focusing on what you need to do, how to pace yourself, or even how to breathe properly. Here’s some tips on how to mentally prepare for a race. [Read more…]