Flexible hours
If you’re now working from home, you might well find you’ve clawed back some time when you would have been travelling to work, have access to your bike during the day and maybe your hours are a bit more flexible.
How about squeezing in some strength work when you would have been commuting, a lunchtime session on the turbo and some yoga to finish the day?
Finding another gear
Many cyclists who do the same rides week in and week out tend to be a bit one paced. If this sounds like you, use this time to focus on some high intensity turbo sessions and maybe even dip your toe into the water of Zwift racing. By developing your neglected top-end fitness, you’ll find, when you do get back to longer rides outside, you’ll be able to close gaps easier, climb more strongly and even contest village sign sprints. More importantly though you’ll also be pleasantly surprised that, with a bigger engine, your cruising speed will improve too. Including some high intensity work in your riding is especially important for riders in their 40’s and older.
Balancing your body
All cyclists could probably benefit from doing some off the bike training and, whether it’s some mobility work, yoga, Pilates or bodyweight strength training, now’s a great time to add it into your training. A quick search on YouTube will throw up loads of instructional videos to follow but here are a few to get you started.
British Cycling Back and Lower Body Mobilisation Routine
Yoga for Lower Back Pain in Mountain Bikers (good for all cyclists!)
5 Core Exercises For Cyclists – Improve Your Strength On The Bike
If you really want to invest some time into assessing and developing your mobility and strength for cycling this book by Phil Burt, former physio with GBCT and Team Sky, and Martin Evans, former strength and conditioning coach with GBCT, is well worth a read –
Strength and Conditioning for Cyclists
The social side of indoor cycling.
If you’re new to indoor cycling, check out our guide here.
If you’ve got any cycling positives or tips for staying motivated and keeping your fitness up, tweet @