CYCLING TO WORK

Are you riding your bicycle to work?  People all over the world are changing their methods of transportation. The millenniums and Y Generation have forced us to think differently about a lot of things. Some do it to save the planet, some to save money, others find they are forced economically and financially to find a better way of doing things. Transporting ones-self five days a week, 50 weeks a year is costly. Whether by car, bus or train, getting from point A to point B sustains a cost whereas bicycling is virtually free. True, there are upfront costs, yet once you have the bicycle, the clothing, a couple of spare tires, a wire bottle and a good pair of shoes, your cost free.  There is one factor which remains a challenge for many – the physical requirements. Hoping on a bicycle and riding 6-8 miles to work doesn’t come easy.

     Google commuting by bicycle and you’ll find articles referencing exercise, fitness, race training, health benefits and more. There is very little however on how to prepare for the commute. If you don’t exercise at all, jumping on a bicycle and expecting to ride 6-8 miles on day one will led to parking your newly purchased bicycle in the garage or hanging it from a hook in the ceiling never to be touched again. If you don’t know your physical limitations, you will end up hating the experience as much as you hate the bicycle.

     Although cycling is a low-impact exercise, any prolonged physically activity (you’re not prepared for) can leave you with injuries.  Back strain, arm pain, shoulder and knee discomfort are problem areas new and many seasoned cyclist experience.  Tiredness, fatigue, a lack of hydration and poor nutrition should be added to the list.  If you are planning to purchase a bicycle, or own one you’re planning to use for commuting prepare yourself for the ride – emotionally and physically. There are rules and regulations when riding in traffic, there are challenges riding up and down hills, bike routes aren’t always available and safety is a major concern.

     Group bike rides are a must. Before heading out alone join a local group bike ride. Most have different levels and many offer indoor classes before taking to the road. Bike Shops such as Bixby Bicycles and Accessories can provide maps to lay out safe routes.  They also have coaches who can help you prepare physically, give nutritional advice, ensure equipment fits properly, and teach recovery methods. No one wants to feel great about bicycling to work and arrive unable to put in an eight hour day. Your boss just might have something to say about that. Being aware of the weather conditions, having extra clothing, and having a plan B is crucial. Bicycling is physical exercise and if you’re in a hot climate you’ll need a way to freshen-up once you arrive at the work place. You don’t want to arrive exhausted neither do you want everyone to smell you coming.  Snow, rain and drastic changes in temperature can make the ride home challenging, have a plan B. Preparation is key!

     Commuting to work by bicycle is more popular than ever.  You save money, see things you’ve never seen before, avoid rush hour traffic and rush hour crowds, save money, save the planet, get your daily dose of exercise, and let’s not forget the freedom of the ride. If you’re properly trained, physically fit, and properly attired for safety and comfort, know your route and have a plan B for unexpected changes in the weather or that requirement to work overtime, commuting by bicycle can be a truly rewarding experience.

How to Dial-in Your Race Specific Triathlon Training

You train hard. You put in the hours and the effort day after day. Effort is rarely the limiting factor to an endurance athlete’s performance. Efficient allocation of that effort, or training hours, can be. 

     Athletes’ regimens often consist of a combination of hard efforts (Functional Threshold Power(FTP), Threshold, VO2 and anaerobic work) and easy efforts (easy endurance mileage) arranged depending on schedule, available friends or group rides, time and how they feel.

     They often repeat this schedule consistently throughout the year rather than periodizing their training to focus on specific physiological, physical and psychological adaptations required for success in their races. Furthermore, athletes are often not progressing their training toward the specific effort level required on race day.

While this approach can result in fitness gains, especially in less trained individuals, it will eventually lead to a plateau in performance and ultimately fail to optimally prepare an athlete for the specific demands of their race.

     Specificity is arguably the most important aspect of training that is often overlooked or ignored. A well-structured training plan will progress through multiple phases, each designed to elicit specific physiological adaptations, becoming increasingly more specific to the upcoming race. The combination of these phases will result in the compounding of performance improvements that will ultimately lead to the athlete’s optimal performance on race day.

     The human body is an incredible machine and is capable of immense adaptation. This adaptation is determined by the stresses and strains we place on it. If we teach our body to perform at a specific intensity for a specific duration, it will adapt and improve at that task.

     What it will not do is improve at a task that we almost never introduce into our training. While it is necessary to train all the energy systems during training, it is the timing of specific training stimuli that will determine race performance.

A coach or athlete must start with a “needs analysis” of what is required on race day and assess the athlete’s current fitness, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. The result of this analysis will guide the design of a plan to maximize adaptations for success. This plan must evolve to become increasingly more specific to the race demands if one is to expect success.

An Example

In the case of long course triathlon racing, race intensities for age group athletes tend to be around 80 to 85 percent of FTP for IRONMAN 70.3 distances and 70 to 75 percent of FTP for IRONMAN distance bike legs.

     It is all too common, however, for athletes to never experience these intensities for anything close to race-like durations during training. Most of the training will be focused at FTP and VO2 intensities (100 to 120 percent of FTP) or “easy pace” (55 to 65 percent of FTP).

     Specifically, there will be interval sessions with low durations and high intensities and there will be endurance sessions with low intensities and high durations. What will be absent is race-like intensities for increasing durations. Why do we do that? What will the body adapt to?

     It would be more logical to introduce race-like “stress” into training to allow the body to adapt and become better at handling it. We still want improvements in VO2 and FTP but, as we get closer to race day, we want our training to become progressively more specific.

     That is why introducing race-specific sessions is such a powerful tool in an athlete’s or coach’s toolkit. These sessions can be based on Training Stress Score® (TSS) and evolve from low intensity and high duration to race-like intensity and race-like duration. Over time the body will adapt to the stress and become better at handling it.

Leverage Technology

     Technology has made remarkable advancements in recent years and has provided us with an abundance of tools to accurately measure our efforts. Why not take advantage of these tools to ensure all our hard work pays off on the big day?

     Power meters on the bike allow precise measurement of our effort, making specificity in training easier than it has ever been before. Heart rate monitors and GPS on the run have been a staple of training for years now and allow real-time feedback to guide training and racing. 

     Power for the run is a relatively new tool, but it promises to revolutionize the sport by making that feedback even more valuable, increasing the level of precision in training prescription and analysis as well as race pacing.

     With all these tools at our disposal, it becomes a matter of understanding, planning and implementation to create tailored and race-specific workouts and training plans that will vastly increase the probability of success on race day.

Use the Data

We now have the capability to precisely measure the overall training stress placed on our bodies. With this knowledge we can forecast race demands with considerable accuracy and structure our training to prepare our bodies for them.

     Moreover, we can create a long-range plan and monitor actual adaptations versus what we have forecast. This will provide insight on the specific individual characteristics of each athlete, making precise adjustments to their training to further fine tune their race preparation.

     We can discover that the “plan” for race day is either too aggressive or conservative, depending on how an athlete responds and progresses through training. We can also track an athlete’s adaptation to the required race demands over time to reinforce their confidence that they are making progress toward their goal.

     On the flip side, the data can also alert an athlete or their coach to the fact that the current training plan is not preparing the athlete for the demands of their race. The data won’t lie!

     For example, an athlete who is preparing for an IRONMAN race but who likes to join his local cycling group one to two- hour road race style ride will see fitness gains on the bike, but will those gains be the ones that will be the most appropriate for their ultimate race goal?

     I would argue that the answer is “no.” The data will bear proof to this by showing improvement in the ability to repeatedly produce power for a break—a useful trait in a cycling road race—but not in the metrics that matter for an IRONMAN, such as four to five hour smooth power production.

Fitness can be described and measured in countless different ways. It all depends what you are trying to achieve. A power lifter is fit, so is a track and field sprinter and so is an IRONMAN athlete. However, most of us would agree that if you put any of those athletes in the others’ competition they would do rather poorly. Therein lies the concept of specificity. Your body will excel at what you train it to do. Your training should create the aerobic, anaerobic and muscular foundation to maximize your (or your athlete’s) physiological and physical potential and then fine tune it to specific race demands.

A well-designed training plan will create this framework in a logical and organized manner. This will guide an athlete through the multiple cycles, addressing all the energy systems, each timed specifically to build upon the previous one to maximize the overall performance gains.

     As the race draws near, the training should transition to ever more specific race preparation to optimize the adaptation to the particular demands of the upcoming competition. Any athlete will gain confidence by seeing their performance improve. This confidence will be a powerful motivator to adhere to the training and ultimately result in their best performance on race day.

     We are all familiar with and live by the saying “don’t try anything new on race day,” so why would we try a new intensity level? How will your body respond to a “new” stimulus on race day? The answer is “probably not that well.”

     A well-constructed training plan will encompass all the primary energy systems but will become increasingly specific to race intensity as the race approaches. This will not only allow for specific adaptations that will benefit the athlete on race day but will also build confidence that the specific and planned for pace is known and sustainable for the duration of the race. The end result will be an athlete’s optimal performance on race day!

SEXUAL HEALTH AND BICYCLING

Relieve stress, restore stamina, exercise muscle and stop to smell the roses if time permits; and it will. As transportation, for exercise, training for the big race or for pleasure you can’t beat the joy, benefits and fun of riding a bicycle. Today people worldwide are improving brain power, connecting with friends and family, improving health and sleeping more soundly thanks to two wheels, two pedals and a leather seat. Below are the pros and cons connecting sexual health and bicycling; research findings, solutions, conclusions and the bottom line.



SEXUAL HEALTH AND BICYCLING

Who knew it could change your sex life? For the better – some say. Scientists worldwide have disagreed on the effect bicycling has on male sex organs. They know and most of us agree it is great exercise and the more you exercise, the more fit you remain, and being fit affects all areas of your life. However, researchers have found in some cases the bicycle seat causes problems:

RESEARCH FINDINGS:  National Institute for Occupational Safety

“Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health(NIOSH) evaluated 17 members of a bicycling police patrol unit in Cincinnati, Ohio. The men averaged nearly 5½ hours in the saddle each workday. Almost all of them experienced genital numbness from time to time. Those who rode the most were at the highest risk for erectile dysfunction, and the men who exerted the most pressure on their bike seats had the most problems. In a follow-up study, the NIOSH researchers found that bike-riding patrol officers who used a no-nose saddle reported penile numbness far less often than those using a standard saddle. A team from NIOSH also looked at bike riding and sexual function in women who rode for an average of two hours several days a week. These women experienced decreased genital sensation compared to women to ran several days a week. In a later study, the team found that narrow seats and so-called cut-out seats increased pressure on the perineum.”

HE DISAGREES - William D. Steers, Urologist, Univ. of Virginia School of

William D. Steers, chairman of the urology department at the University of Virginia, School of Medicine in Charlottesville, believes there isn’t really a problem: “The whole cycling impotence thing is really out of proportion. In China 90 per cent of the male population cycles, and they don’t seem to have a problem maintaining the population.”

  

SOLUTIONS: Harvey B. Simon, M.D., Editor, Harvard Health

You don’t have to give up biking to preserve your sexual function. In fact, you can break the vicious cycle of biking and sexual dysfunction by taking a few simple precautions.

• Don’t use a racing seat with a long narrow nose. Pick a wide seat, ideally with plenty of padding. Special gel-filled and shock-absorbing seats are even available.
• Don’t tilt your seat upward, a position that increases pressure on the perineum.
• Be sure your seat is at the correct height, so your legs aren’t completely extended at the bottom of your pedal stroke.
• For extra protection, consider wearing padded biking pants.
• Raise the handlebars so you are sitting more upright.
• Shift your position and take breaks during long rides.

Above all, be alert for early warning symptoms. If you experience tingling or numbness in your “privates”, get off your bike. If the problem recurs even with a broad, padded, well-positioned seat, consider switching to a recumbent bike.

GOOD NEWS:

University of Chicago Researchers: “It’s a well-known fact that hormones called endorphins are released during and after physical exertion and produce a feeling of satisfaction and extreme well-being. They are sometimes called the body’s own opiates. But did you know that they can also make you feel aroused? Researchers at the University of Chicago discovered that one in four women had experienced sexual arousal while exercising.

Dr. Michael Roizen Wellness Institute Cleveland Clinic  “….the importance of being an athlete in the bedroom as well as on the bike is justified on health grounds. For men, the more the better. The typical man who has 350 orgasms a year, versus the national average of a quarter of that, lives about four years longer. 700 orgasms a year could add up to eight years to your life.

IN CONCLUSION
Safety in any sport is important. Our bodies are strong in so many ways, yet we as humans remain fragile. Cycling Weekly reports:

 “partaking in high aerobic activity such as cycling produces feelings of intense well-being and increased sexual vitality? And according to some research, cycling has the power not only to make you more desirable to the opposite sex, but also to increase your level of sexual satisfaction, and even your lovemaking ability.”

As a USA Certified Cycling Coach I can share a few simple things you can do beyond listening to your body.  Wearing well fitted shorts with chamois or gel inserts will ensure minimum discomfort. Chamois cream used prior to a ride is also advised – Assos, Vaseline, or nappy rash cream can be used, and check your riding position, and the reach of your bicycle. If your seat is properly adjusted, your weight will be carried through your ischial tuberosities.   

Bicycling is one of the best sports for cardiovascular conditioning. Increased energy, taking longer to tire, and being more attuned to your body are just some additional benefits. Join us for a bicycle ride.

 Call Bixby Bicycles for more information.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT BICYCLE SHOP

Choosing the right bicycle is just as important as choosing the right bicycle shop. With the growing popularity of bicycling in the U.S., media, print and online resources have commercialized that special bond between kids and bikes. Often however, the quality of the information you find online comes nowhere near the quantity of sites available. With the recent explosion of the bicycle market choosing a bicycle of any type for any purpose can be a daunting task. As a child your first bicycle was chosen for you, handed down to you, or magically appeared on Christmas morning, shiny and new with training wheels, streamers and a bell you could ring. Brand, shape, size and fit didn’t play into this “rite of passage”.  Making the transition from a bicycle chosen for you to one fitting your specific needs can be challenging. Choosing the right bicycle shop leads to choosing the right bicycle. 

Knowing how much you want to spend is important. Bicycles range in price from hundreds of dollars to thousands, not including upkeep, maintenance, gear and accessories; then there’s the overwhelming choice of products. The right bicycle shop offers a trained, knowledgeable sales team asking the right questions, be local to the community you live in and the places you ride, have reasonable hours of operations and an approachable repair and maintenance staff.  Maintaining your bicycle is important. Whether you’re riding for pleasure, for exercise, commuting or racing, having the right bike shop repair and maintenance personnel will keep your bike riding smoothly. A good bicycle shop will quote prices, give estimates and make appointments – with pickup dates and times. 

Are you riding off-road, are you riding on pavement, do you need a mountain bike, road, hybrid, commuter, or e-bike?  All important questions – easily answered on the internet, however understanding fit, testing various models, test riding, assembly, adjustments, training, access to certified coaches and the comradery of other riders will only happen in a brick and mortar store. Purchasing the wrong equipment, having a bad fit, being unprepared for weather and road conditions and the absence of proper gear and accessories can lead to discomfort, frustration and injury.

The right bicycle shop will provide personal service from a cycling professional who will explain budget (often includes more than just the bicycle), brands, fit, equipment, gears and accessories. The customer service focused bicycle shop will include individual and group training sessions, group rides, and accessories such as helmets, all weather clothing, shoes, protective wear and nutritional products.  The riders physical fitness, experience and riding goals are considered when choosing equipment, providing maps, bicycle trails, access to events and in developing a coach/rider training program.  

Fitting the person to the bicycle and not the bicycle to the person should be the mission and the goal of each customer interaction.  Specialized service, Individualized training plans, a concentration on fitness and injury prevention, coupled with a wide range of products, a knowledgeable staff, and bicycle training and coaching in a clean, safe and friendly environment makes knowing and understanding the options an easy one. Local to and invested in the community, the right bicycle shop is open to new, novice and experienced riders and racers. With the right brick and mortar bicycle shop, you’ll enjoy the experience and enjoy the ride.

BUSTER BROWN, USA Certified Cycling Coach