Top 5 Winter Cycling Training Tips

It's that time of year where winter training is starting to kick in and you might be struggling where to start, So MBPC Coach Gareth Pymm has given us his top 5 tips to get you on your way to a successful year ahead.

Hopefully after a good season racing you’ve now had a decent rest period and are ready to commence winter training.

1. Review and Plan. Review the previous season and consider what went well and what mistakes you made that you could learn from to make next year better. Start to plan events and set goals for next year so that your training now will take these into consideration.

2. Be prepared. It’s a long winter and if you want to do well next year chances are you will have to ride your bike in some unpleasant conditions. So, make sure you are kitted out for winter, with warm clothing, waterproofs and a bike that can handle dirty, salty roads.

3. Use a mixture of turbo training and road training. You don’t have to ride your bike on the road all of the time and some turbo training will help you to do some focused interval sessions without the discomfort and distractions of riding on the road. But it is still important to get a mix of both road and turbo training in each week’s plan.

4. Lay the foundations for next year now. After a season of racing and hard training it is important to go back to basics for a while and lay some strong aerobic foundations that will allow you to train harder and recover well come the start of next season.

5. Do some work off the bike. It is definitely worth taking up some form of strength training if you haven’t already. A screening from a sport therapist will identify any weaknesses that you could work on over the winter but if you don’t do this then start to do some basic exercises with a focus on strength and power.

These key points applied to your winter training will set you on your way to a solid and focused winter with next years targets in mind.

If you are interested in taking your training to the next level and want to invest in some one to one coaching or even one of our one-off Performance Reviews then MBPC is the place to come to. Our dedicated cycling coaching team work closely with their riders to ensure that they are working on a bespoke plan tailored to their individual strengths, weaknesses and goals specific.

If one to one coaching is not in your budget then a Performance Review is the next best thing, This is where you come to our offices and Matt and our performance analyst will go over every aspect of your current training, set your training levels for you to take away with you and advise you on how to progress in your future training, You also get a bike and equipment set up analysis to help you find the gains you require in this area plus so much more.

For more information on our coaching or our one off Performance Reviews then please get in touch at www.mattbottrillperformancecoaching.com and we will be happy to help.