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Ways To Avoid Stress in Cycling

This article is about stress that comes as a result of cycling too hard for what your body is ready for as well as ways to avoid this type of stress to the body.

When training for your cycling career, there are many stresses involved. Although we normally think of stress as a negative factor, in cycling stress is to be expected. However, it’s important to avoid training stresses before the body is ready. If you try to do too much before you’ve reached the fitness level that you’re ready for, you not only can cause injury, but may decrease your chance of ever meeting your full cycling potential for the season.

Learning About Stress Levels

When your body is in training for cycling season, it takes from six to eight weeks to move from one stress level to another. By stress level we mean, a level of fitness. For instance, when the training season for cycling begins, your goal is to ride 2 miles per day.

The two miles per day is your first stress level because your body is getting enough stress to perform for you. When you decide to increase your goal to 4 miles per day, you are increasing a stress level. This is why it’s important to not move to a higher stress level until your body has had plenty of time to adjust to the current level.

The last three weeks of the current stress period, you may want to try a new stress level one or two days per week and see how you feel. If you don’t notice a big difference, you can be assured that your body has reached a plateau and is ready to move to the next stress level.

Principle of Diminishing Return

Training may not be as simple to understand as you think. You body will not necessarily benefit more from a harder or longer level of stress. A better way of putting this is when your level of fitness increases and your training stress level also increases, you will actually get less out of the increase.

If you’re starting a new stress level of 4 miles per week and reach 50% of your potential, adding another 4 miles per week as a new stress level , which totals 8 miles per week after a few weeks will not provide you with 100% achievement. Adding more volume to your sessions also does not increase your fitness because you’re increasing your risk of injury, which will only set you back. Repetitive injuries are more commonly seen when your try to increase your training stress too quickly. This is why it’s very important to progress slower but surer.

Written by alastair · Filed Under Training