6 Common Cycling Training Mistakes To Avoid
It’s the first episode of our Explaining Training podcast, where we kick off by talking through 6 common training mistakes that cyclists of all experience levels can easily make.
By skirting around such mistakes, you can improve the consistency of your training, make sure your program is working for your unique needs and ultimately see a faster rate of progression towards your goals!
1. Insufficient Recovery
The first mistake is not allowing yourself enough rest and recuperation. This seems obvious to say, but it’s number one for a reason and it’s hard to find an ambitious cyclist who hasn’t overdone their training load at least once!
It’s very easy to forget that inducing a training stress is only a part of the puzzle when it comes to improving fitness, and it’s in the recovery following a workout where the body adapts to the stress and becomes stronger.
It can be all too easy as a motivated athlete to train hard but not balance that with sufficient recovery, so be sure to give yourself enough time following challenging sessions to recover well.
And if you don’t feel quite ready to go hard again when the next planned session rolls around, be flexible and allow yourself even more time.
There are a lot of cyclists who aren’t necessarily overtraining, but are in fact under-recovering.
2. Inflexible Approach
That leads us nicely into the second mistake, and that’s being inflexible and unwilling to adjust your training program when needed.
Even the best laid training plans are speculative and there’s no guarantee that what’s planned for tomorrow, next week or next month is going to be right for you when the time comes.
Ignoring signs like excessive fatigue, injury niggles, and dwindling motivation just so that you can tick off the plan as it was originally programmed is going to be detrimental to perhaps the most fundamental principle of good training, which is consistency.
It’s important to know when to push on and when to take a step back and reassess the plan in front of you, so that you can ensure you’re training in the most appropriate way at any given time.
Although other articles and videos might list “not sticking to a plan” as a common mistake, many cyclists don’t so much struggle with the drive to follow a program, but do get tripped up by their stubbornness to, in their eyes, “admit defeat” by diverting from the original plan.
Try not to have this defeatist attitude though and instead see the ability to recognise the need to change and the willingness to make the hard decision to do so, as a strength.
3. Lack Of Variety
The body responds best when challenged with a number of different stimuli and can become desensitised to monotonous training where the same kind of workouts are used over and over again.
What’s more, a lack of variety can be a recipe for mental burnout.
To avoid this mistake, try to keep your training diverse and look to include some different workout designs and modalities each week.
Not only will this keep your training fresh and interesting, but it’ll activate more muscle fibre types, help you develop more components of your physiology and lead to you being a more well-rounded cyclist who isn’t drastically limited in any one particular area.
4. Poor Goal Setting
A very common mistake of keen cyclists is to launch into their training without first determining what it is they’re working towards and how they’ll go about getting there.
If you have ambitions of taking your cycling performance to the next level, then spending some time assessing what changes you’ll need to make to your current fitness and what are going to be the best workouts to get you there will be time well spent.
On the subject of goals, being too focused on purely outcome-based goals can leave you scratching your head and wondering what the shorter-term steps to take are to eventually achieve the result you desire too. It can also make lofty goals seem too overwhelming to even bother getting started with.
In this case, using “process goals” can be really helpful in providing a set of simple instructions for you to follow each day that will inch you forward towards achieving the outcomes you’ve set yourself.
Each of these small actions that you’re in full control of will ultimately then add up over time.
We have an article on goal setting if you’re interested in learning more.
5. Over-Intensification
When time is tight, the solution many cyclists gravitate towards is increasing the intensity of their training.
To some extent, this can be needed to compensate for a lack of volume and induce enough of a training stress to stimulate a good adaptive response. At the same time though, it’s important to realise that when time is lacking, the ability to recover well is often also stretched, and simply piling on more intensity can quickly tip the balance of stress and recovery in the wrong direction.
What’s more, if training becomes too intense and excessive amounts of time are spent above the second threshold, i.e. FTP, Critical Power etc, your physiology might be driven further in the wrong direction and not serve to progress your ability to sustain high power outputs for long periods of time or make you more economical, which are key abilities often lacking in those with very little training time.
Try to maintain a good balance of lower and higher intensity even when time-crunched, and be opportunistic when it’s possible to get in some longer, steadier riding, since this can’t be squeezed into a tight schedule in the same way as higher intensity, interval-based sessions can.
6. Lack Of Individuality
At first, it seems logical to try and mimic the training practices of top performers, since surely that’s what got them there in the first place?
However, copying the training of others, particular elite and pro-level athletes and not paying attention to what training actions are needed for your own physiological profile and the specific demands of the events you may be training for can be a very damaging mistake to make.
No two cyclists will respond to the same imposed stress in the exact same way and attempting to replicate the loads and workout designs of others could just as easily leave fitness on the table as push you too far.
This may then cause stagnation in your progression at the very least, or result in full blown overtraining syndrome in more extreme cases.
Try taking a healthy approach to experimenting with different sessions, taking inspiration from those who seem to be finding success. At the same time, be conscious to adjust your training to suit your strengths and limiters profile, your schedule and your likes and dislikes, so that you can make your program work best for you.
Of particular interest when it comes to individualisation are your training intensity zones, especially those above your threshold. These intensities need to be adapted acutely to you as an individual, as using generic % of something like FTP are just as likely to be unachievable or inappropriate as they are correct.
Approach any new workouts without precisely-defined intensity targets at first and instead use your own ratings of perceived exertion and best judgement to figure out what intensities are right for you to complete these workouts to a high of level of quality.
Also take it easy on yourself and don’t worry about finishing these new workouts will more left in the tank.
It’s best to get some momentum going with a workout you finish strong rather than start out too hard and struggle to complete, which may leave you with little faith you can repeat the same kind of session for weeks going forward.
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