1. Understand nutrition

Cyclists are an elite bunch, but there are many who underestimate the importance of good nutrition. You need to eat small, frequent meals with plenty of non-refined carbohydrates throughout the day to help build up glycogen ahead of training. If you need a quick energy boost, a burst of refined energy such as an energy bar or gel can help give you some much-needed power. If you’re riding for longer than two hours, eat every hour to keep you fuelled.

2. Implement strength training

While you need to be careful not to be carrying too much weight, a good weight room program can help you increase speed and power in a way unrivalled by other methods of training. Implementing squats, lunges and deadlifts into your routine can help give you legs like Sir Chris Hoy and increase your pedalling power.

3. Train intervals

Interval style training is the ultimate way to increase your speed and emulate sprints come race day. Repeatedly climbing a hill, slowly cycling down and heading back up again builds up a unique kind of endurance and ability. If you’d like to perform intervals on a longer route, pedal normally for five minutes, then power to top speed for two, back to normal for five and repeat.

4. Improve your posture

A simple trick that is easy to implement, improving your cycling posture is vital for a better, faster ride. Wind resistance drags your speed down and stops you achieving your max potential. Reduce resistance by lowering your body position. Lower your body closer to the bars and tuck your elbows in to increase an aerodynamic form.

5. Hydrate!

One of the most overlooked aspects of cycling is hydration. Cardiovascular activity reduces your blood volume and makes your heart work harder. To combat this, you need to take in plenty of fluids throughout the day. When you’re riding, energy drinks are a good way to get some carbohydrates and liquid. Aim to drink a bottle every hour when pedalling hard.

Stay fit and healthy with cycling

To start with, cycling builds muscle tone and strength. Contrally to the normal perceptions of many, cycling is essentially not really a fitness activity as such but the exercise helps in strength building in a holistic way since the activity involves nearly each and every part of your body. In addition, cycling helps a lot in increasing muscle function as you can exercise easily with less straining. Cycling regularly helps to strengthen your leg muscles and works wonders in enhancing the mobility of your knee joints and hip. Cycling builds stamina and it is greatly effective in this especially due to the fact that it is something that most people really enjoy.

Health experts will also tell you that cycling helps a lot in improving cardiovascular fitness. This is mainly due to the fact that cycling helps a lot in making your heart bead steadily and boosts your cardio vascular fitness in a remarkable way. Since cycling makes use of a large group of muscles in the legs, it is able to raise the heart rate to greatly benefit from fitness and stamina. In addition to this, cycling also eats up calories and it is a perfect way to shed out those unwanted pounds and boosts your metabolism in a major way. And most importantly, cycling reduces stress as well and depression while remarkably improving yourself esteem and well being. Cycling gives you a chance of getting in touch with nature and feeling the breath of earth.

Importance of selecting the correct clothes and footwear for cycling

Wearing cycling specific clothing and footwear makes your ride comfortable, whether you are cycling on the road, commuting to/from work or hitting the trail. Bike styled wear can really help a lot in making you perform much better and also ride longer as well. Checkout Fat Birds for a wide range of bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes & cycling clothing. Cycling also reduces your level of fatigue and improves your stamina while making you engage in the activity for a prolonged time period. If you are using clipless pedals, opt for shoes, which work well with your cleats and then match your cycling style. It is even much better that you seek lightweight shoes with a durable sole to offer you ample tread for gripping the trail when needed. When cycling in a rainy or wet day, consider using shoe covers or toe covers as well.

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Plan

To achieve your desired results, it is critical that you know what you are doing right from the word go. You should have a clear idea of how your workouts will be structured. According to experts, you should aim for between 2 and 3 sessions of cardio workouts per week. Also, start with simple workouts at first that progressively get harder over time. If you are not making any progress in your training, then you will need to adjust your workout to be more challenging. If you are able to handle more as you continue training, this shows that you are making a great progress.

Cool Down

I cannot stress enough the importance of cooling down periodically while training. Why? This is because it helps in bringing the rate of your heart back down. In turn, this contributes greatly in improving your process of recovery. It gives your body a chance to slow down after engaging in an intense session. In short, don’t strain but train – this can only be achieved by giving yourself some breaks to cool down and giving your body a chance to prepare for the next task in your cardio workout.

Sprints

Sprints help to build muscles in the legs and it is essential that you either have them as their own workout session or as a part of your comprehensive cardio workout. Whichever way you choose, sprinting will add a great boost to your cardio workouts and will help you achieve your desired fitness level within the shortest time possible. As such, don’t overlook sprints but make a point of capitalising on the benefits they offer.

Mix In Exercises

The art of combining and mixing exercises is very essential in cardio workouts and it is one of the key elements of my training. Mixing in different exercises helps to optimise your training and keep your sessions from getting boring. You should come with a good action plan for how to integrate various exercises into your training sessions. Try to mix weight training exercises in between running sessions to achieve remarkable results. Most importantly, having a variety of strength and endurance exercises ensures that you will optimise your workout time. This also helps break up those boring sessions and the monotony that comes from doing the same thing over and over. Keeping in mind all these aspects will help you build the best cardio workout that delivers your desired results.

The Contenders

Cardio: Anything involving light physical exercise of a relatively low level of intensity is classed as cardio. It is a form of aerobic exercise, which refers to the usage of oxygen to meet the demands of the activity.

Cardio has a range of proven health benefits and can provide a great boost to fitness, in addition to bolstering endurance.

Weight Training: Weight training is an age-old form of developing muscle strength. One of the oldest recognised forms of exercise, this method uses the force of gravity to put strain on the muscles and tends to use a range of specialised equipment, designed to target different areas of the body.

Diet – The third Man: It’s worth noting that whichever training you do, you’ll need to back it up with proper nutrition. It’s hard to over-emphasise the role of diet in getting fit and losing weight so you neglect this factor at your peril.

Cardio

Cardio’s key advantage comes in the weight loss category of fitness, in that it’s unbeatable when it comes to burning calories. If you do a sufficient amount of cardio exercise to burn more calories than you intake – you’re bound to lose weight.

This method is also brilliant for beginners. It requires no special equipment or training and can take a form that can suit almost any palette – from jogging, to cycling, to various sports and gym equipment.

However, cardio isn’t the be-all and end-all of exercise and with good reason. Many find the repetitive nature of cardio to be a bit of a drag, it doesn’t adequately prepare the heart for extreme changes and stress, and is not efficient at burning calories when you’re not exercising.

Weight Training

Weight training is arguably the most effective – when combined with a good diet – in helping with weight loss. However, the caveat to this is that you need to target the right muscle groups and do an incrementally harder level of repetitions as time goes on to achieve the best results. Weight training also tends to have more of an impact on the body than cardio, necessitating an increased recovery time.

The Bottom Line

If you’re looking to gain fitness with your exercise regime, you’ll definitely want to investigate cardio and possibly combine it with a dabble of interval training. While cardio can be of some help with weight loss, those focused solely on shedding the pounds should definitely opt for weight training (although a spattering of cardio won’t do any harm in this regard).

Wanting a better body is part of the human condition (as Robbie Williams said, “all we ever wanted, is to look good naked”) but the goal seems out of reach for many.

Part of the problem is the amount of myths that surround the whole process of burning fat while adding muscle mass and definition. While these myths can be addressed and debunked, many still aren’t sure how to approach the project: do you focus on cardio, or do you hit the weights?

Gyms, such as Fitspace Gyms, take time and care to ensure that they have the correct mix of cardio and muscle building equipment. But where do you start?

First, let’s look at a couple of myths to set you on the right track.

Focusing on one part of your body will help you reduce fat in specific areas. If only that were true we’d all be able to reduce our bellies just by doing a few hundred sit-ups a week. However, there is no way to ‘spot reduce’ fat and no specific diet that will target particular parts of your body.

Sweating slows down muscle growth. This used as reasoning for many to avoid cardio exercise which should make you sweat profusely.  Sweating is simply a sign that your body is overheated, so take a drink!

You should never eat carbs. Carbohydrates are vital to a balanced diet so you should never cut them out completely. Instead, focus on getting the right types of carbs (such as brown rice, oats and brown pasta) while getting rid of useless carbs such as white bread and the complex carbs you get from alcohol.

Now you know more about the myths, let’s discuss cardio vs. weight training.

Cardiovascular exercise is something that should be in every routine. The reason that cardio is so named is because it focuses on exercising your heart. This is hugely important, especially if you are going to build muscle as your heart will have to work harder to pump the blood around your body.

Thirty minutes of intense cardio, three times a week should suffice.

Of course, if you want to build muscle, you need to lift weights. Weight lifting itself will also help you burn fat as every pound of muscle you add requires more calories for it to function. Once you have decided which parts of your body you want to add muscle to, speak to a trainer at your gym who will get you started.

So the key is to mix up your workouts and ignore the myths. Do this and you’ll soon have the body you’ve always dreamed of.

Thanks for reading,