In this week’s Training Guide, GFNY Coach Christian suggests a few great New Year’s resolutions to incorporate into your training.

We’ve gotten through the holiday season, it’s January, and cyclists are starting to think about race season. Some of us may be kicking off our race season in just a couple of months, while others may have goals lined up for later in the spring or summer. All of us, though, are looking to shake off those December cobwebs and start to build our fitness.

And although it’s a few days after the New Year’s Day, there’s still plenty of time to set new habits for 2021. Here are 5 New Year’s Resolutions that can help you become a stronger, better version of yourself in 2021.

1. Practice better intensity discipline

Your first resolution for this season should be to practice better ‘intensity discipline.’ That means leaving the house or jumping on the trainer with a plan, and sticking to that plan. It means ignoring your friends who are attacking up every hill when you’re on an endurance ride. It means digging as deep as you can on the days you’ve marked for intense interval training. And it means recovering properly on your recovery days.

Too many cyclists fall into the pattern of making every ride mildly intense. This means you’re always a bit fatigued, and can’t perform well on your high-intensity workouts. It also may get in the way of building a proper base: if you feel it’s impossible for you to stick to 60-65% of your max heart rate while riding at a good pace, this is definitely you!

2. Find the time to train a bit more 

Cliches like “Quality over quantity” have convinced a lot of athletes to limit their training time. But the truth is that quality and quantity go hand-in-hand, and putting in more hours on the bike will always contribute to your long-term development as a cyclist. Plus, all GFNY races have a serious endurance component to them. By increasing volume steadily and in small amounts, training quality won’t suffer either.

So, this year, aim to bump up your yearly hours by 10%. This is a great goal that will increase fitness with minimal risk of overtraining. Even time limited athletes can find this time in their schedule: it could be adding an extra 15 minutes to your trainer workouts, it could be taking less rest days or rest weeks, or it could be squeezing in an extra hour each weekend.

Don’t use this as an excuse to go wild and overtrain; and practice the intensity discipline mentioned above: these new hours should be endurance training at a reasonable pace.

3. Sleep 8 hours a night

Too many athletes make recovery complicated: worrying about foam rolling, massage, compression, ice baths, or other things that make a small difference in your recovery. The truth is, sleep and nutrition are far and away the most important aspects of proper recovery.
Try to get as much sleep as your schedule allows, targeting at least 8 hours a night. This may be difficult, but it will pay big dividends.

Focus on sleep quality too, not just what time you go to bed. Try to avoid screen time right before bed, and wind down with reading, meditation, or something else relaxing. Create a good environment for sleeping in your bedroom: quiet, dark, and a comfortable temperature.

4. Eat during and immediately after nearly every training ride

We’ve covered in-ride and post-ride nutrition extensively in the Training Center, but the fact remains that many athletes haven’t made this part of their daily routine.

Aim to take in carbohydrates during every ride aside from short and easy rides, and make sure you’re getting a recovery meal after any hard training ride. Work on making this a habit: a post-training meal should be just as much a part of your routine as putting your bike away, showering, and changing clothes.

If you’re worried about weight, don’t be. Eating more while training and immediately after will keep you feeling satiated and less likely to attack the nutella jar in your pantry in a fit of post-ride hunger. And in fact, proper nutrition is a big key to losing weight while still maintaining quality of training sessions.

5. Stop Tracking Miles (or kilometers) and start tracking hours

Tracking mileage is a borderline useless stat: it’s fun, sure, but it means very little. Flat rides accrue more distance than hilly ones, and if you throw in gravel riding, mountain biking, or indoor training, things get thrown off even more. Same goes for aerobic cross-training activities like XC skiing.

So, to truly track how much you train in a week, month, or year, use training duration and not distance. Tracking duration year-to-year is a great snapshot of how much you trained and it’ll always be relevant, even if you move to an area with different terrain or you switch-up your winter training modalities.

Tracking miles or kilometers can still be fun, and we all like to see how far we went in a year. But for serious training purposes, track hours.

GFNY Coach Christian talks about caffeine in this week’s Training Guide.

Cycling and coffee go together hand-in-hand: a pre-ride espresso or a mid-ride coffee stop are almost religious for some cyclists. Caffeine is also a proven ergogenic aid, with dozens, if not hundreds of studies showing it’s benefits. It’s no surprise, then, that caffeine is extremely popular among endurance athletes.

Still, though, misunderstandings and myths exist about caffeine. Today we’re going to dig into the basics of caffeine, talk about it’s benefits, and debunk a few myths.

Caffeine: Overwhelmingly Proven as Beneficial

Caffeine is one of the most proven benefits to performance there is, perhaps the most proven. So many studies have shown benefits of caffeine for athletes that aren’t going to take the time to link to any in this section.

The basics are that caffeine has been shown to have a noticeable impact on performance in many different forms of exercise, including cycling.

While myths around huge quantities of caffeine exist, research shows even moderate doses (the equivalent of 2-3 cups of coffee) have performance benefits.

This means a daily routine of coffee drinking in the morning can have a benefit to your workouts, especially if you train in the morning.

Does Coffee Dehydrate?

One of the downsides of caffeine has been that it’s been credited as a diuretic, and therefore has the potential to dehydrate athletes.

However, recent evidence indicates these worries are probably overblown. This study concluded that there was “no evidence of dehydration with moderate daily coffee intake,” in subjects drinking 3-6 cups of coffee per day.

What About Caffeine During Exercise?

For short events, it’s enough to take in caffeine before the event. However, during longer events, the benefits of pre-race caffeine probably peak early on, fading later in the event.

However, it’s proven (as in this study) that taking caffeine during exercise can provide a boost to performance.

For long events like GFNY, taking caffeine midway through or perhaps in the last ⅓ of the event can be beneficial. Consider using gels or other nutrition products that use caffeine for a nice late-race boost.

Do I need to detox from caffeine to get the best effect?

Some athletes believe that habitual coffee drinking will deaden the effects of caffeine, and that they should stop using caffeine before a race, only to load up on race-day.

This is probably not true, as shown in the linked study. Athletes can benefit from caffeine even if they use it every day.

A word of caution on sleep

Caffeine can impact your sleep in high enough quantities or ingested late in the day.

For that reason, despite the benefits of caffeine, we don’t recommend high doses before afternoon workouts. Athletes who train late in the day should drink coffee as normal in the morning, and consider a small dose of caffeine in the afternoon if they find it doesn’t impact their sleep.

Final Practical Notes

Caffeine is a proven ergogenic aid, and there’s very few downsides to using it both as part of your daily routine and on race day.

We recommend moderate caffeine consumption (usually via coffee) before competition, with further moderate intake during the race (via caffeinated energy gels).

If you are a habitual coffee drinker, a race day routine that mimics your typical morning routine and then adds in caffeine during competition is probably best.

If you don’t habitually use caffeine, be sure to experiment with it in training to find a dose your body is comfortable with.

El entrenador de GFNY explica la importancia de la nutrición después de los entrenamientos en la Guía de Entrenamiento de esta semana.

Recuperarse de las sesiones de entrenamiento a tiempo para la siguiente es una de las claves de un programa de entrenamiento exitoso. Dejar que tu cuerpo se recupere y se repare a sí mismo, y hacerlo lo suficientemente rápido como para que puedas entrenar duro varios días a la semana, te permita continuar estresando su cuerpo y generar las adaptaciones necesarias para hacerlo más rápido.

La nutrición después de los entrenamientos es uno de los factores más importantes en ese proceso de recuperación. En concreto, recuperando los niveles de carbohidratos, que se almacenan en el organismo como glucógeno. El glucógeno es clave para proporcionar energía a su cuerpo para entrenar duro, pero muchos atletas subestiman la importancia de concentrarse en restaurar los niveles de glucógeno en el cuerpo después de entrenamientos.

La ventana de post-entrenamiento

Incluso si te proporcionas a tu cuerpo suficientes carbohidratos, se necesitan de 24 a 48 horas para reponer completamente las reservas de carbohidratos de tu cuerpo después de agotarlas.

Por lo tanto, es importante comenzar a repostar inmediatamente después de un duro entrenamiento para recuperarte lo más rápido posible. Esta ventana de tiempo después de un entrenamiento es importante porque inmediatamente después del ejercicio, su cuerpo recarga las reservas de glucógeno más rápidamente. Cuanto más espere para empezar a comer, menos posibilidades tendrás de estar al 100% el día siguiente, o incluso después de dos días.

Debes apuntar a consumir aproximadamente 80-100 gramos de carbohidratos en la primera hora después de un buen entrenamiento. Además de esto, se ha demostrado que agregar 20-25 gramos de proteína ayuda al proceso de recuperación. Esta comida puede ser comida sólida o puede ser una bebida de recuperación; cualquiera funcionará. Simplemente evita las bebidas proteicas que se encuentran comúnmente y que casi no contienen carbohidratos; esto no te servirá de nada.

Después de la primera hora, debes continuar comiendo bien el resto del día, ingiriendo suficientes carbohidratos, dependiendo de la dificultad del entrenamiento que hiciste. Discutiremos esto más a continuación.

Combinando la nutrición con su entrenamiento

Notarás que en la sección anterior mencioné que tenías que concentrarte en repostar después de los viajes difíciles. Vamos a desglosarlo más en esta sección, por tipo de entrenamiento.

Es importante hacer coincidir tu alimentación con tu entrenamiento. Muchos atletas mantienen la misma rutina diaria, que funciona después de entrenamientos fáciles pero los deja agotados después de los más duros. Por otro lado, es posible que si te sobrecargas de comida, puedas aumentar de peso. Esto no es típico, pero es posible.

Por lo tanto, analicemos brevemente cómo hacer coincidir tus comidas con tu entrenamiento.

Entrenamiento facil: después de un paseo de intensidad relativamente baja y menos de 1,5-2 horas, no es necesario que haga nada específico para acelerar el tiempo de recuperación, siempre que siga una dieta moderadamente alta en carbohidratos. Para este tipo de entrenamientos, no es necesario que apunte a la ventana posterior a la conducción o que tome una bebida de recuperación, pero no espere demasiado después de su entrenamiento para tener su próxima comida.

Entrenamiento moderado: estos son entrenamientos que son cortos pero de alta intensidad (como una sesión de intervalo de 1 hora) o montadas que son de baja intensidad pero moderadamente largos (3 o más horas a baja intensidad).

Después de estos entrenamientos, debes asegurarte de comer dentro 30 minutos después de bajarte de la bicicleta. Como mencionamos anteriormente, 80-100 gramos de carbohidratos junto con algo de proteína es perfecto. Los alimentos sólidos o una bebida o batido de recuperación son opciones perfectamente buenas.

Después de estos entrenamientos debes seguir comiendo una dieta alta en carbohidratos. Aproximadamente 6-8 gramos por kilo de peso corporal es un buen objetivo diario.

Entrenamiento duro: este es cualquier entrenamiento que realmente te estresa. Puede ser una montada larga (de 3 a 5 horas o más) o un entrenamiento que combina distancia e intensidad.

Al igual que con los paseos de intensidad moderada, debes concentrarte en comer dentro de 30 minutos después de la montada. Las pautas son las mismas que las anteriores.

Además, como se indicó anteriormente, debes concentrarte en ingerir muchos carbohidratos el resto del día. Sin embargo, debe comer aún más, aumentando esto a 8-12 gramos de carbohidratos por kilo de peso corporal como su objetivo para todo el día.

Terminando

Hay varios aspectos importantes para la recuperación; cubriremos los demás en otros artículos. Por el momento, utiliza este artículo como motivación para comenzar a trabajar en tu nutrición.

Si estás haciendo las cosas bien, debes notar que comienzas a sentirte mejor en los días repetidos de entrenamientos duros: te sentirás fuerte el domingo incluso después de un buen entrenamiento el sábado, o puedes comenzar a sentirte mejor en los intervalos que haces en semana.

Como muchas cosas, una vez que sepas lo que debes hacer, implementarlo en tu rutina es la clave. Experimenta con qué alimentos y bebidas de recuperación funcionan mejor para ti y ayúdate a cumplir con tu nuevo plan de nutrición.

GFNY Coach Christian explains the importance of post-ride nutrition in this week’s Training Guide

Recovering from hard training sessions in time for the next one is one of the keys of a successful training program. Letting your body recover and repair itself, yet doing so quickly enough that you can train hard multiple days per week, allows you to continue to stress your body and generate the adaptations required to make you faster.

Post-ride nutrition is one of the most important factors in that recovery process. Specifically, recovering carbohydrate levels, which are stored in the body as glycogen. Glycogen is key to providing energy for your body to train hard, but many athletes underestimate how important it is to focus on restoring glycogen levels in the body after hard training rides.

The Post-Workout Window

Even if you provide your body with enough carbohydrate, it takes 24-48 hours to fully replenish your body’s stores of carbohydrates after depleting them.

Therefore, it’s important to begin refueling immediately after a hard workout to begin refueling. This post-workout window is important because immediately after exercise, your body refills it’s glycogen stores more rapidly. The longer you wait to start eating, the less of a chance you have to be refueled by the next day, or even the day after.

You should aim to consume roughly 80-100 grams of carbohydrate in the first hour after a hard training ride. On top of this, adding 20-25 grams of protein has been shown to help the recovery process. This post-ride meal can be solid food or it can be a recovery drink; either will work. Just steer clear of commonly-found protein drinks which contain almost no carbohydrate; this won’t do you any good.

After the first hour, you should continue eating well the rest of the day, getting in plenty of carbohydrate. We’ll discuss this more below.

Matching Nutrition to Your Workout

You’ll notice that in the previous section, I mentioned that you needed to focus on refueling after hard rides. We’re going to break that down more in this section, by type of training ride.

It’s important to match your fueling to your workout. Many athletes keep the same daily routine, which works after easy training rides but leaves them depleted after hard ones. On the other hand, it’s possible that if you over-fuel, you could gain weight. This isn’t typical, but it is possible.

So, let’s briefly discuss how to match your fueling to your ride.

Easy Ride: After a ride that’s relatively low intensity and less than 1.5-2 hours, you don’t need to do anything specific to speed recovery time, as long as you’re eating a diet that’s moderately high in carbohydrate. For these types of workouts you don’t have to target the post-ride window or have a recovery drink, but don’t wait too long after your workout to have your next meal.

Moderate Ride: These are workouts which are either short but high-intensity (like a 1 hour interval session) or rides which are low intensity but moderately long (3 or more hours at a low intensity).

After these workouts, you need to be sure to eat within 30 minutes of getting off the bike. As we mentioned above, 80-100 grams of carbohydrate along with some protein is perfect. Solid food or a recovery drink or shake are all perfectly good options.

After these workouts you should continue eating high in carbohydrates. Approximately 6-8 grams per kilo of bodyweight is a good daily goal.

Hard Ride: This is any ride that really stresses you. It could be a long ride (3-5 hours or longer) or a long, difficult intensity workout like a hard group ride or a race simulation.

As with the moderate intensity rides, you should focus on getting in a meal within 30 minutes of getting off the bike. The guidelines are the same as above.

Also as above, you need to focus on getting in plenty of carbohydrates the rest of the day. However, you should eat even more, upping this to 8-12 grams of carbs per kilo of bodyweight as your goal for the entire day.

Wrapping Up

There are several important aspects to recovery; we’ll be covering the others in later articles. For the moment, use this article as motivation to start working on your post-ride nutrition.

If you’re doing things right, you should notice you begin to feel better on repeated days of hard training: you’ll feel strong on Sunday even after a hard ride on Saturday, or you might start feeling better on your mid-week interval workouts.

Like many things, once you know what you need to do, implementing it into your routine is the key. Experiment with what foods and recovery drinks work best for you and help you stick to your new post-ride nutrition plan.