Controversially, I’m going to suggest a few midlife amendments to current training orthodoxy. The first is that we drop all the other strata of training, other than low intensity (LIT) and high intensity (HIT) training. We'll define LIT as anything below aerobic threshold, which coach Fox recommends could be as high as 70-80 per cent of maximum heart rate, but thinks is actually better executed at around 60-70 per cent of maximum. Dr Baker agrees with this and adds the context that ‘it's almost impossible to go too low’ for LIT or oxidative training, meaning that the most important principle to observe is that you must actually be oxidative, which you won't be if you go too high.

Dr Baker thinks that most amateur riders function at only 60 per cent of their theoretical aerobic (oxidative) capacity due to training incorrectly — mostly from riding too much at too high a level. You need to be a fast tortoise before you can become even a slow hare. physician or nutritionist, for example. We will meet all of these people in future columns. Exercise may well be the finest drug the pharmaceutical industry never invented, but can we also have too much of a good thing? Should the ideal prescription dose change as we age? And is the advice different for new and returning exercisers compared to lifelong athletes? These questions will be examined next issue. As a last word on data, I’ll leave you with this thought: we may well demand ever more accurate ways to record, slice and dice our training metrics, but every data set is just an abstract house of cards without the solid foundations provided by a deep understanding of biology and psychology, how it is changing over time and how that relates to you and your life.

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In addition, because of the more favorable dynamic of virtual cycling, the team unity and willingness to work as a team and sacrifice for the common goal is greater than any I have ever experienced in real life. They opened Cyclefit bike-fitting classes in 2009 and went on to work with Trek Bicycles a little while later to help create their worldwide bike-fitting educational program. Cyclefit’s educational DNA is in almost every fitting studio in the UK and many around the world. They worked with Trek’s professional racing teams for many years.

You may get a slight decline in joint, tendon and ligament health, and feel a bit stiff in the morning,” warns Roberts. What changes should I make? Not just cycling? Yes. A balanced training programme for the cyclist might also include a couple of weekly weights sessions, or “resistance training”, which will combat sarcopenia (that’s muscle-loss to you and me) and maybe the occasional run if your joints can stand it (good for sarcopenia but also bone density). Mr. Cavell asks himself and the reader as he lays the groundwork for the cerebral cornucopia to come, In the beginning, running helped Rachel gain mental strength and she thought she was healing fine. But her depression kept increasing, she tried to come out of it by winning races and collecting medals at Marathons. Data from Dr Jon Baker, who was a coach with Team Dimension Data for four years, says that his amateur clients (that’s you and me) are closer to fatigue and nearer to being overtrained than the professionals who ride for a living and race nine months of the year all around the world! That statement was genuinely worthy of an exclamation mark. And underpinning this startling mismatch is a fundamental misunderstanding about how the human body works, and therefore improves.Midlife Cyclist offers a gold standard road-map for the mature cyclist who aims to train, perform and even race at the highest possible level. Cycling has seen a participation uplift unprecedented in any sport, especially in the 40, 50 and 60-year-old age groups. These athletes are the first statistically significant cohort to maintain, or even begin, genuine athletic performance beyond middle-age. But, just because we can continue to tune the engine into old age, does that mean that we should? And, what do these training efforts do to the aging human chassis? This book answers those questions and offers a guide to those elongating their performance window.