FasCat Cycling Training Tips Podcast

Perhaps #crossiscoming. Perhaps #crossisnotcoming. Regardless, we are going to have some fun with this one. We’ve created a 6 week Strava CX challenge to keep you motivated, inspired and ready to race just in case it’s necessary. Here’s the deal: each week builds off the previous with the goal of making you smoother, more efficient and ultimately faster. Follow the directions below and add this to your training plan or talk with your coach on how to incorporate this into your current plan. Feel free to ask us any questions and let us know how it’s going in the FasCat Forum! Good luck and have fun! Week 1: Set Up Your Practice Cyclocross Course Warm up in zone 2 by riding over to your local cyclocross practice area (course, park, school, etc.) and lay out a ~ 5 minute cyclocross practice lap. Features to include, if possible, are: A bazillion corners Mixed terrain: grass, dirt, pavement, sand pit, singletrack, ditches, gullys, stairs, logs, retaining walls, etc. The course you design needs to be one that is easily replicable for the next 4 weeks because you are going to repeat this course each week to gauge your improvement. Use this day to re-familiarize yourself with getting ‘crossy: bike handling, getting on and off the bike, accelerating, tire pressure, etc. Week 2: 5 Lap Strava Segment CX Set Up Head back over to the CX course you designed last week to set up your Strava segment. Make sure you have an adequate warm up. Ride 5 laps for time at about 90-95% CX race pace. Make it fast, yet fun. Afterwards upload to Strava. Create the 5 lap (not 1) strava segment per this training tip, podcast & video. This ride will establish the ~ 25 minute segment so that you have a time to race against using live segments next week Star this segment and sync your Strava account to your bike computer to use the live segment next week. 45609 Cyclocross Strava Race and Skills Plan Week 3: Strava CX Race 3rd week progression: Warm up in zone 2 by riding over to your cx course and this week you are going to race your 5 lap strava segment for your best time. This should be a cyclocross time trial. Use Strava’s live segment feature to verify you are ahead of your 90-95% pace from last week – but this week let it all hang out:  GO FULL GAS, as fast as you can at your CX race pace for roughly 25 minutes! Afterwards upload to Strava and this should be your PR/KOM ! Week 4: Heart Rate Ceiling of 150bpm By now you’ve got your “Svenness” and have every nook and cranny of your course dialed Today you are going to work on riding faster by being smoother. To force you to slow down and ride smoother we are putting a governor on your engine! That’s right: You may not exceed a heart rate of 150 bpm for these 5 laps. It will feel slower and probably be slower on Strava, but the point is to carry more of your momentum and speed out of the corners. This prevents you from riding like a bull in a china shop and bashing your way around the course by brute force. Carve those turns and carry your speed and we’ll go back next Wednesday with the very same 150 bpm criteria to measure your 5 lap Strava segment improvement not in watts, but in smoooooothness 10 second penalty for each time your heart rate exceeds 150 bpm! Week 5: Ride at 150bpm MAX – try to beat last week’s time Try to beat last week’s Strava segment time, but you must ride at a heart rate of no greater than 150 bpm. Remember: smoother is faster ! The key to riding your segment faster is by cornering smoothly, dismounting and remounting smoothly and handling your bike smoothly. Week 6: Strava CX Race! Week 6: Finale – put all your cornering skills and watts together and absolutely annihilate your Strava PR/KOM from week 3. Use Strava’s live segment features to check if you are ahead or behind your segment PR as motivation and as a carrot to dig that much deeper.  Upload your ride data to the strava segment leaderboard and voila – there’s your race result! Bonus: If at any point along these six weeks you want to share your cyclocross course with your friends, teammates, community: simply share the link to the strava segment and let the leaderboard take care of the heckling, podiums and results Copyright © 2020 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! The post #secrettraining: How to have a Cyclocross Race Season appeared first on FasCat.

Ever struggle to get yourself out the door and on the bike? Ever feel burnt out?  Want to find even more motivation and ensure you #FtFP on a regular basis? Well you have come to the right place! Here are our top five tips that will help you do just that: (Tips 1-2 come from our Dietitian and Community Manager, Lacey. Tips 2-6 are from Coach Jake) 1. Train in the Mornings!  Do we sound like a broken record yet? We preach this all the time because it is our #1 tip for nailing your workouts. You might even remember it from our Seven Habits of Highly Successful Masters Athletes training tip! Why do we recommend  this? Becasue training in the morning means you #FtFP before anything can get in your way. Whether that be a family emergency, work obligations or the fun afternoon showers we get here in Colorado. Training in the mornings is also a great way to increase your energy and mood so that the rest of your day is productive and pleasant. Many athletes get grumpy when they can’t ride their bikes or have to wait to ride… and who wants to be a grumpy pants all day?! 46075Champions are made in the Off Season: Lift Weights and Build a Big Base 2. Plan For Success  The night before: Lay out all of your clothes, plan your route, upload it to your wahoo/garmin if you need, mount your computer on your bike, make sure your bike lights, powermeter and computer are charged, air up your tires, fill up your bottles, grab your GU gels, prep your post ride meal, and any other little things that will save you time in the morning. That way when you wake up, you know all you have to do is put on your clothes and head out. You know you are already 3. Change things up Do a different route! Some riders get stuck in a funk and ride the same routes day in and day out. Use the Strava route builder to plan out a new route. If you don’t have time to do that, ride your usual route backwards or look at a map and find new roads to ride on. Really you are only limited by your own imagination! 4. Do Stravals or Bottom to Top Intervals You can still #FtFP by trying to accommodate these type of efforts, plus they add some fun and friendly competition to your ride!  Be sure to find segments that match the time of your intervals, then just focus on finishing the segment as opposed to a time. Same goes with a climb. Just go from bottom to top. 5. Go off the beaten path Do some off-road riding! You can do mountain biking, gravel riding or etc. Don’t just do all the same type of riding if you can help it. When you are on the MTB, you go off of heart rate and/or perceived exertion as opposed to staring at your power data the entire time, which can help change things up. 6. Ride with Friends While we aren’t advocating for group rides right now, they can be a great way to get you excited to go ride. MTB rides are typically easy to socially distance on… But if you don’t feel that you can practice social distancing or are wanting to stay as safe as you can, plan a group ride on zwift or even set up a Strava route for all of your friends to go out and complete. Heck, make it a time trial if you like! Again, you are only limited by your imagination. Here is a podcast for how to fit group rides in when you are following one of our training plans! We hope these tips help you find that little bit of extra motivation that you need. If there are some other tips you have, feel free to drop them in the comments below!   Copyright © 2020 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! Lacey provides education and guidance to athletes about how to make healthy food choices that supports their performance goals, aids in sustainable weight loss, and improves their recovery. We are currently in the process of developing custom nutrition plans and one-on-one counseling with her, so keep your eyes out for those to be released in the near future! The post Motivational Tips to Help You to Follow the Plan appeared first on FasCat.

Welcome to another periodized Q&A session of the FasCat Podcast, where we field listener questions from our forum, website, and social media to help you get even faster on the bike. This go around we touch on a range of topics, including how best to prepare for a race, interval specificity, gas station bonking, ‘cross training, and more. Here are the links we mentioned in the Podcast: 20 Minute Power Based Field Test Phil Gaimon’s Advice to New & Experienced Cyclists  FasCat’s Coaching Philosophy Seven Habits of Highly Successful Master Cyclists Supplemental Oxygen Reference where the BigCat was a research subject: Randall L Wilber, Paige L Holm, David M Morris, George M Dallam, Andrew W Subudhi, Dennis M Murray, Samuel D Callan, “Effect of FIO2 on oxidative stress during interval training at moderate altitude” Med Sci Sports Exerc . 2004 Nov; 36(11):1888-94. Conclusion: Supplemental oxygen used in conjunction with high-intensity interval training at altitude (“live high + train low via supplemental O2” (LH + TLO2)) results in a significant improvement in exercise performance without inducing additional free radical oxidative stress as reflected in hematological and urinary biomarkers. If you want to get a question answered in the next one, be sure to sign up for our forum over at forum.fascat.wpengine.com to hop in the conversation. Thanks to everyone who contributed! As we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, we are deeply saddened and shocked at the passing of our friend and two time podcast guest, SBTGRVL founder and great human, Mark Satkiewicz. The cycling community lost a truly generous and passionate member and our thoughts are with his family. If you want to support, the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club has set up a Mark Satkiewicz Memorial Fund to support young athletes. Learn more: https://www.sswsc.org/support/donate-now 45926More Bang for your Training Buck Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post Ask FasCat #11 — Race Prep, New to Cycling, Gas Station Bonking appeared first on FasCat.

Ever since we began talking about Winning in the Kitchen two years ago you all have been asking for us to create a cookbook and we thought that was a great idea.  But since adding Lacey Rivette, a Registered Dietitian, to the FasCat team we began to brainstorm and realized we could come up with something even better.  Enter FasCat Meal Plans! These plans are uniquely designed by Lacey to give guidance to even the most unexperienced of cooks so that they can start eating better and riding faster! How is FasCat’s Intro Winning in the Kitchen meal plan different than others? Unlike most meal plans, FasCats meal plans are delivered directly into your TrainingPeaks Account so that you get email notifications each monday about what you need to eat or meal prep. You also get PDF’s of your meal prep guide, recipes and grocery list to print out to keep with you when you don’t have access to your phone or computer. Whats even better is that the meal plans match your training plans, providing more food on days when the training load is heavier (Tuesdays, Wednesday’s & the weekends). Plus are even tips included for how to eat while on the bike to ensure you feel your best and are able to #FtFP. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else! What if I am plant-based or have special dietary restrictions? No worries! All of the meals in our plan are dairy free, gluten-free (when you purchase indicated GF items) and include directions to make all of the meals plant-based. If you have other dietary restrictions, shoot Lacey a question in our nutrition forum or consider signing up for one-on-one nutrition coaching with her. 45301Win in the Kitchen to Ride Faster Meal Plan How are the meal plans structured? During weeks 1-3 of the plan you will be introduced to 3-4 new recipes. You will make these for all your meals that week so that you can gain confidence in cooking from scratch, learning your portion sizes and decreasing the amount of time it takes you to prepare the meals. Lacey is a big advocate for making nutrition simple and sustainable, which is why you will find 1-2 “flex meals” (not cheat days) on the weekend to allow you to enjoy food with your family and friends or to satisfy that craving you built up from #FtFP’ing your training all week! In week 4, we begin to encourage you to adjust the recipes based on your preferences and really start testing your own meal planning and cooking skills based upon what you have learned. Don’t worry though, we still provide you with a suggested meal plan in case you still need a little guidance. What is Meal Prep Monday? Throughout the plan, you will have specific days (mainly Monday/Sunday) that you meal prep your staple foods like rice, chicken and tofu, which allow you to prepare the majority of your meals in less than 10 minutes. This is KEY to winning in the kitchen, because let’s be honest… If the food is in the fridge almost ready for you to eat, you are much less likely to grab something on your lunch break or on your way home. Plus, you don’t want to let all that healthy food you worked hard on to go to waste! What do I do once I perfect these meals? After you complete this meal plan you can move onto our advanced winning in the kitchen meal plans and our weight loss meal plans that will be released in the upcoming weeks! You might even consider signing up for one-on-one nutrition counseling with Lacey if you have specific goals, want to lose weight, need more guidance for how to fuel during training or if you have any specific dietary restrictions. Copyright © 2020 FasCat Coaching – all rights reserved. Join our *FREE* Athlete Forum to nerd out with FasCat coaches and athletes about your FTP, race data, power based training, or anything related to going fast on the bike! Lacey provides education and guidance to athletes about how to make healthy food choices that supports their performance goals, aids in sustainable weight loss, and improves their recovery. We are currently in the process of developing custom nutrition plans and one-on-one counseling with her, so keep your eyes out for those to be released in the near future! The post Winning in The Kitchen Meal Plans are HERE! appeared first on FasCat.

As we continue to navigate the weirdest cycling season in history, one of the greatest training tools out there, the group ride, has also been affected. With social distancing rules, group rides are generally a no-go in today’s climate. So how can we mimic the huge benefits of smashing it with your friends on your weekly group ride? Frank and the team of FasCat coaches have 3 quality workout ideas to satisfy the group ride itch while giving you a very similar training stimulus to your favorite weekly throwdown. So, in this episode, Coach Frank and Jackson break down simulating the group ride and how to perform these workouts: Jake’s Diabolical “Kitchen Sink” workout Isaiah’s 4 hour, 4 intervals pain cave sesh Frank’s Freestyle Fartlek / AmEx ride Remember that just because races and group rides as we know them are cancelled doesn’t mean that training hard and smart is cancelled. Keep pushing the pedals and finding ways to keep working hard and building fitness. FtFP! 45238From the Home of Sweet Spot, Sweet Spot #4 Polarized will take your game to the next level. Quickly!   Thanks for listening, and subscribe to the podcast to hear more! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fascat-cycling-training-tips-podcast/id1381614039 Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post How to Simulate Group Rides | 3 Diabolical Workouts appeared first on FasCat.

What do you do when the whole season is cancelled because of a global pandemic? Keep calm and FtFP on, duh, because bike riding ain’t cancelled! Coach Frank revisits the topic after we discussed back when COVID-19 first exploded in the U.S. in March and put many things in question, and my how times have changed… Frank shares his expert covid summertime coaching advice to help you keep the motivation rolling, what training should look like right now, some ideas for challenges and ways to use your fitness, and more. Remember to stay positive and embrace this current moment; it’s still such a gift to be able to ride at all! 44449More Bang for your Training Buck SBTVRTL: https://sbtgrvl.com/sbt-vrtl/ How to Taper https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/tapering-in-cycling-for-peak-performance/ Using the Performance Manager Chart to Peak https://fascat.wpengine.com/tips/realtstwkt/ Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post COVID Summertime Coaching appeared first on FasCat.

Join Jackson for a short, 10 minute guided meditation to use while on a ride to cultivate more awareness, mindfulness, and concentration. For more of Jackson’s thoughts on meditation, check out his podcast In The Flow. The post Jackson’s Guided Meditation for Cyclists appeared first on FasCat.

Meditation has become a buzzword in the mainstream, and you’ve probably heard about elite athletes like LeBron James, Kate Courtney, and others espousing its benefits. But what actually is meditation? Why should we consider starting a meditation practice? What are the benefits? Today on the show, we discuss this topic at length and get into why you should consider leaning in to this ancient practice for your mental health, athletic performance, and managing stress in these crazy times. We’ll talk: how meditation works some common misconceptions why athletes could benefit from incorporating meditation practices into their routines and more! Jackson also shares a short, 10 minute guided moving meditation to listen to while on the bike at the end, so stick around! We’ll also release that as a standalone episode. Let us know how you’ve used meditation in your life in the forum at forum.fascat.wpengine.com. 43692More Bang for your Training Buck More info on meditation: Harvard Medical School: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/04/harvard-researchers-study-how-mindfulness-may-change-the-brain-in-depressed-patients/ Mindfulness Mechanisms in Sports: Mediating Effects of Rumination and Emotion Regulation on Sport-Specific Coping: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5605575/ Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post Meditation for Cyclists appeared first on FasCat.

They say that the true gains made in sport performance come not from the hard training, but from the rest and recovery from the training – the adaptation. This becomes more and more important as we get older, and in order to continue training hard and enjoying the sport of cycling, we absolutely must prioritize recovery. This week on the show, Coach Frank breaks down the three main principles of master’s recovery: Sleep Nutrition a Well-Designed Masters-Based Training Plan Frank dives into thoughts on meditation, winning in the kitchen, and training less (crazy right?) to maximize recovery and thus get faster on the bike, basically for free! Our Father’s Day sale is in full force this weekend, so pick up those #DadWatts by using code FASTERDAD at checkout to save 50% off your next training plan. Put that recovery to good use! 42594More Bang for your Training Buck We say ‘master’s recovery’ as opposed to most recovery recommendations you hear in the popular media that pertain to younger athletes (who recover faster and better).  Or ‘elite athletes’ in the scientific literature.  This podcast is a continuation of the June 12th, 2018 podcast Jackson and I recorded for our 4th ever episode way back when. Go back and give that podcast a listen but know that here today I will mainly be speaking about recovery as it pertains to adults,  ‘weekend warriors’ as recovery relates to their lifestyles.  These days, successful upwardly mobile people lead stressful busy lives.  So much so, that I think back to my life in my 20’s and 30’s that was so simple and I sleep like a champ, ate well and recovered great. In fact recovery wasn’t even an issue. I just thought that’s how it was. Add in a few kids, a stressful job, a relationship with your spouse, a pandemic, your career, and age related decline and whammo – that’s what we are talking about today. So much so that for the athletes I coach who are over 40 and the questions we field about training there are 3 VERY important aspects of training that pertain to masters athletes.  They pertain to all ages athletes but I’m specifically going to talk from my experience as an athlete and a coach who is over 40 dealing with and working on these three (Sleep, Nutrition & Training Plan) Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post Master’s Recovery appeared first on FasCat.

Welcome to another periodized Q&A session of the FasCat Podcast, where we field listener questions from our forum, website, and social media to help you get even faster on the bike. This go around we touch on a range of topics, including the most “coachable” traits in athletes, following the plan in the heat or sacrificing sleep, recovery, weight loss and treats, and even a question from Phil Gaimon. If you want to get a question answered in the next one, be sure to sign up for our forum over at forum.fascat.wpengine.com to hop in the conversation. Thanks to everyone who contributed! 41957More Bang for your Training Buck Thanks to everyone for tuning in, subscribing and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, and for engaging in our forum! For more things cycling training, visit http://fascat.wpengine.com. Save 25% on your next training plan with code 25podcast The post Ask FasCat #10 — Coachable Traits, TSS, and Recovery appeared first on FasCat.