If you’d like to build on your fitness levels, tone up, or even just to explore the open air one great and easy way is through cycling. This simple programme is designed to help you improve you riding capability, fitness and strength on your bike, and is suitable even if you haven’t exercised regularly before. This 8-week programme will give you the motivation to get started on your fitness goals.
Choose a Goal!
One great way to keep you motivated during your programme is to think of a goal before you get started. Think of the reasons on why you’d like to get fit and write them down and perhaps there’s a local charity riding event coming up soon that you’d like to get involved in? Getting involved in something like this is great to keep yourself motivated during your programme and it's so rewarding helping the wider community just through your own cycling too! Remember to also keep a journal of your progress too, noting down how you felt about the day's training, etc.
In this programme there are also scheduled in sessions for an extra active living/sporting activity. It may be a great time to take up another sport, such as swimming, running, tennis, yoga, etc. There's a whole host of opportunity out there for you and this is an ideal chance to take up another activity you’ve always wanted to do, and in doing so learn new skills and gaining more confidence in yourself. Keeping another activity going during this cycling programme also helps to keep things varied and fun, as well as building your strength in other areas, further helping you to easily complete your cycling goals.
It’s also important to manage this programme under a healthy lifestyle. Simply by eating a healthy balanced diet will give you the energy needed for this training programme. And remember to keep yourself hydrated throughout the day too by drinking lots of water. Also during exercise, remember to drink water before, during and after your session, and eat a couple of hours before you train, and snack in the half hour after your session to ‘re-fuel’ your body and aid muscle recovery.
Healthy Snacks
Great for during your training session and eating afterwards too, try some of these healthy snacks:
- Fruit
- Dried fruit and nuts
- Bananas
- Peanut butter wholemeal bread sandwich
- Fruit loaf
- Oat or wholemeal biscuits
- 100% fruit juice drink
The Programme
You can print the chart out and stick into your journal. The key explaining the what the different zones are at the bottom of this article. Don’t worry about being strict in sticking exactly to the training sessions outlined here. Use this programme to guide you, if you miss a session or two, just keep doing as much as you feel you can; the more you can complete the better your riding will be, but more importantly listen to your body, if you feel you need an extra day’s rest, then rest!
Getting Advice
Remember it's worthwhile to visit your doctor before embarking on any fitness training programme. They can assess your current fitness levels and give you professional advice before starting a fitness programme.
Warm-Up, Cool-Down, and Stretch
Very important and don’t forget to warm up and stretch before and after exercising. For the sessions that you are cycling, around 5-15 minutes gentle cycling beforehand will you warmed up followed but a full body stretch, then after you session cool down with a further 5-10 minutes gentle cycling, and another set of stretches.
Key for the Chart
Recovery – Very light Effort – For easy riding, recovery training, and short rides
Zone 1 – Light Effort – Easy riding to help develop ergonomic pedalling
Zone 2 - Moderate Effort – Further pedalling refinement, and provides greater cardiovascular work
Rev It Up: To improve pedalling efficiency - How To: Using flat surface, light gears, with low pedal resistance. Increase cadence to 80-100 revolutions per minute. (count revs over 10 seconds then add more revs, such as 15-18 for 10 seconds, which would give you around 80-100 revs a minute).
