p********y
发帖数: 5141 | 1 http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/celebrities
When I was 40, I had a heart attack. It came by surprise. I had been, and
still am, a dedicated athlete. Luckily, I survived, and, in 2008, I founded
MI:Aware--MI stands for "myocardial infarction"--to educate people about the
risk of heart attack, which can strike without symptoms.
I'll be leading a cycling clinic July 22 to 25 called the Tour d'Aspen to
help raise funds for MI:Aware. It will happen in conjunction with the climax
of the Tour de France. We hope to share in the excitement of, and pay
homage to, Le Tour. Riders will get the chance to improve their techniques
by cycling through training terrain used by Tour de France and Olympic
champions, such as Lance Armstrong. There will be three routes, which mirror
the final four stages of the Tour de France, set in the Roaring Fork Valley
, where our host, The Little Nell, is located. You can sign up at
thelittlenell.com (packages, including three-nights lodging and daily
breakfast and lunch, start at $2,500 per person; the clinic alone is $975).
In light of this upcoming long-weekend ride, I present my top 11 tips for
improving your cycling technique:
11. Pedal with flat feet: Some people think of keeping their heels down, and
some point their toes towards the sky. A couple of analogies we use are to
picture the linkage on an old steam engine and visualize your foot as the
linkage come up and staying flat throughout the revolution of the wheels.
The other is to picture an equestrian rider, riding a horse with heels down,
while toes are in the stirrups. Toes down is a no, no in my book, and you'
ll see why in the next two tips, as they all go together.
10. Get on the pedals early: This means you start pushing forward on the
pedals before they reach the top of the arc or 12 o'clock. With your feet
flat to slightly toed up/heeled down you'll be able to increase your power
band from two to three hours if you look at the face of a clock. With left
foot, start pushing at 10 o'clock instead of one o'clock. With toes down it
is very difficult to start pushing before the pedals reach 12 o'clock.
9. Focus on the push phase of the pedal revolution as it is where you
produce the most power: I read articles all the time and hear from people
that they focus on getting through the dead spot, as if scraping mud off the
bottom of their shoes. They spend so much time pulling up and focusing on
the weak part of the stroke they forget to push on the pedals.
I owe Joe Saling, multi-time national champion and one-time heart attack
survivor, for the saying "push hard and pedal fast" as he sent me off to win
the Pan Am Masters Time Trial Championship in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in
2006.
8. If you ride with your hands on the tops/flat part of the bars, ALWAYS
WRAP YOUR THUMBS: I've personally--and talked to too many pros--who've
slipped off their bars at the worst time or silliest time, depending on how
you look at it, because they didn't have a grip on the bars. I remember
Danny Pate of Garmin-Transistions in particular telling us about his
misfortune while racing one year because he'd had his thumbs on top of the
bars.
7. Change your hand position on the bars every few minutes, practicing to
produce power in the drops, on the hoods, and/or on the tops: This will
allow you to adapt neuromuscularly and be able to produce the necessary
power when slicing through a head wind or climbing a steep hill.
6. Visit your doctor for an understanding of your cardiovascular fitness and
blood work: Getting your cholesterol checked and practicing a cardiac
awareness and prevention lifestyle will improve your riding immensely. In
addition to knowing your true risk for heart disease, know the warning signs
for a heart attack so that you can avoid my story.
5. Go slow to go fast!: If you are a rider looking to gain improvement, do a
field test or visit a physiologist to help you determine your lactate
threshold power and heart rate, and train to improve it. Training in your
easier zones below lactate threshold will make you faster all around in the
long run or ride, as the case may be.
Probably 95 percent of the people I coach or ride with are going too hard,
too often, to reach their fitness goals. Some high school or college coach
along the way has them believing in the old adage of no pain, no gain, and
that's the last thing we want our athletes doing.
4. Use your gears and switch them before you get on the hill and have all
the tension on the chain and cogs: All that popping and grinding and
inability to shift gears under load is normal. You wouldn't shift your
manual transmission car without putting the clutch in, so why would you
shift a bike without letting up on the pedals a bit? And that goes for
shifting in and out of the front chain rings as well as changing cogs on the
rear cassette.
3. Keep your head up, and relax your elbows, shoulders, and hands slightly:
Keeping your head up too high, with all the tension in your hands, neck,
arms, and shoulders, will give you some aches and pains that are unnecessary
and put you at risk for erratic handling of the bicycle in adverse
conditions. Being loose allows your bike to respond just the right amount to
stones, gravel, or wind. Looking where you are going is pretty obvious.
After all, you wouldn't walk down the street in NYC looking at the sidewalk
just in front of your feet as you'd get mowed down by other pedestrians,
taxis, or cars.
2. Perhaps the most important thing to improve a rider's comfort is the
position of the saddle: Having a saddle flat to slightly up will keep you
from sliding to the front and allow you to be supported by the saddle in the
places intended. You may have to lower your seat slightly from where it is
now if you notice it pointing down, but you'll also notice all that pressure
on your hands, neck, and back gets alleviated a bit. It's something I'm all
too familiar with and one of the greatest things I learned from working
with the legendary positioning and aerodynamics guru Steve Hed of HED Wheels.
1. Eat and drink often on the bike: The metric we used to use was a bottle
an hour, and with the bigger bottles available today, it's just about right.
You can very rarely drink too much water, and I recommend mixing a little
electrolyte concoction to keep your reserves up. Eat your favorite solid
foods early in your longer rides and save the gels and bars for later. I
used to notice I was the first to start eating in longer TX road races and
one of the last to be left in the field, even as a 40-something-year-old
racing with the Pro/1/2 category. | i*********5
发帖数: 19210 | 2 赞！非常实用！好像就第二点我不太赞同。我的座垫略微有些nose down，不过我比较
习惯这样子。要不改天我再换换角度，把它弄来nose up。 | p********y
发帖数: 5141 | 3 这些只是建议。我觉得有的可以借鉴，但不必都照搬。saddle的位置你觉得舒服最重要。
【在 i*********5 的大作中提到】
: 赞！非常实用！好像就第二点我不太赞同。我的座垫略微有些nose down，不过我比较
: 习惯这样子。要不改天我再换换角度，把它弄来nose up。
|
|
