cycling fitness

"Chasing records doesn't keep me on my bike. Happiness does."

— Lance Armstrong, on his third Tour de France victory, 2001

"Compare yourself to yourself. That's the most satisfying way to achieve improvement."

— Mary Jane Reoch

Sure, we're all concerned about fitness. But fitness means different things to different folks. Some aspects of fitness are very specific to specific sports. Weight lifters think of fitness differently than members of that new Olympic sport curling.

It's important to know about the elements of cycling fitness, because knowing what is important can help us decide how to train. Cycling fitness is more than just big muscles or big lungs. Often, it has nothing to do with either of those two factors. By understanding cycling fitness, we'll understand how to train to improve our performance.

Many elements of cycling fitness belong to more than one aspect of fitness and so it's sometimes hard to tease out the fitness elements, or understand them clearly. (Consider, as an analogy, various systems on your bicycle: The cogs on your back wheel belong to the drive train system as well as to the wheel system.)

Aerobic Fitness - The ability to use oxygen for energy production. You burn the most fat when you exercise within your aerobic heart range. Aerobic fitness levels are increased over time by exercising in your aerobic heart range on a regular basis.

Muscle Strength Fitness - All the aerobic capacity in the world won't get you anywhere if you don't have the right muscles to use that energy. In a strict sport-science sense, muscle strength refers to one-rep maximum strength—the amount of weight that a muscle can lift, push, or pull one time. Muscle strength is increased by lifting or pushing the weight a certain number of reps and sets on a regular basis. Riding your bicycle up hills on a regular basis is an excellent way to increase your "climbing" muscle strength.

Endurance - The ability to last. Endurance is required to get to the finish of the event. Although many equate endurance with aerobic fitness, and although there is some overlap, they are really not the same. You develop endurance by training longer or farther. You will generally need to train to 75% of target distance in order to be confident of your endurance ability on event day.

Metabolic Fitness - This aspect of fitness comprises many factors, including lactic acid clearance (the ability of the body to buffer or temporarily neutralize lactic acid as well as the ability of the body to metabolize or burn lactic acid) and energy production (the ability of the cells in your body to produce energy). All of these are improved with continued training.

The most important thing to remember about becoming fit is that you must be patient. Fitness doesn't happen overnight. Train consistently, gradually increasing intensity from ride to ride. Add variety to your training by riding distance one day, then doing a shorter but hillier ride the next time. Do a long ride on the weekend and at least two shorter rides during the week. On all rides, and especially on the shorter rides/ concentrate on quality as opposed to just quantity. Make those miles count!