The Benefits of Having a Cycling Training Plan
Measure It to Improve It
Cycling training plans do one thing in particular — they allow you to measure your fitness. Once you sign up for a cycling training plan you will see your body, mind, and outlook improve over the next few days, weeks, and months. You will contentiously break your own personal records and the records of your friends, as you monitor your own fitness.
Mental to Physical
The benefits of a cycling training plan are almost as much psychological as they are physiological — and your mental outlook will change. Once you begin to see yourself gaining power, endurance, and confidence, you will want more as your cycling training plan progresses. Breath control becomes natural, finding the zone or “flow” becomes automatic, and you reap rewards benefiting every aspect of your life.
Knowledge is Power
Knowledge is power and a personal cycling training program will show you the way. You’ll learn about yourself and how your body is responding to your cycling training plan. You will advance your own capabilities allowing you to make better decisions regarding your health and you will continue evolving your level of fitness. Once you embark on a cycling training plan, a new way of life is in your future.
Make a Change in Your Life
Establishing a cycling training plan eliminates the danger of becoming complacent or falling into the destructive “I will do it tomorrow” thought pattern. It makes you accountable as you follow the plan. It motivates you to change your habits and manage your time more efficiently to finish your first century ride or sign your name to that first gran fondo event.
Fitness and Weight Loss
A good cycling training plan helps you to keep track of less-obvious issues of fitness such as sleep and recovery, nutrition and hydration. You’re more likely to meet your fitness and weight loss goals if you’re well rested, well hydrated, and properly nourished. A detailed cycling training plan helps you keep track of these small details and makes you more conscious of them on a day-to-day basis.
Not Just Any Program
Don’t accept any old workout plan you found in a book or magazine. Stick to a cycling training plan crafted by cyclists for cyclists. Once you start putting the plan into practice, you will understand how simple, achievable steps laid out in front of you helps motivate your success.
A Blueprint for Success
A good cycling training plan breaks down your established goals of fitness, century riding, or gran fondo participation into smaller, achievable short-term goals — it’s a blueprint for success. With every goal achieved, you pass a turning point on the way toward long term goals. Looking back at how much you’ve progressed through the stages of your plan, you will see a visual record of your progress and positive reinforcement in moments of doubt. More importantly, having a cycling training plan means that you never lose track of what you’re next step is. Staying on track is a simple implementation of the instructions in the plan.
Make it Happen
Lack of time is the most common excuse for skipping a detailed cycling training program. But do you have time later in life for multiple doctors appointments? Will you make the time and enough money for medication every day to treat high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes? In the light of advancing your health into the future, you will make the time when engaged in a cycling training plan — and there’s really plenty of time when you become accountable for it. Time management skills are one of the hidden benefits of having a cycling training plan.
Time Management
The best way to make time for cycling is to sign up for a cycling training plan. Go over the plan and figure out the best times for cycling in your schedule and enter it into your computer or phone calendar on a repeating schedule. It shows up daily and there’s less chance of scheduling something during that time. Check your schedule in the morning, form a mental picture of when and how you’ll be cycling that day, and it will quickly become routine and will help keep you motivated.
Schedule an Event
With tons of planned century rides, gran fondos, group rides, benefit and charity rides already out there, pick one, sign your name to it and pay the entry fee if applicable. Nothing motivates you like an upcoming ride. These types of rides are planned months or even years ahead of time and you’ll have plenty of opportunity to initiate your cycling training plan ahead of time. Just do it.
Life is a Challenge
A cycling training plan might not be the easiest thing you’ve ever done in your life and there will be challenges — but what is life if not a series of ongoing challenges. The benefits of having a cycling training plan far outweigh the challenges that you will face and once you beat them, you’ll realize they were nothing to be concerned about.
Be Safe Out There
Cycling strengthens your bones and muscles, helps you control your weight, and reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes, among other things. It builds confidence and self-worth. The benefits of having a cycling training plan are good health and fitness. But if it’s been awhile since you’ve been on a bike and you’re over about 35 years in age or you have health concerns at any age, it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor before starting a cycling training plan.