In this video we cover off: how to eat while on the bike, how to to keep yourself cycling fit while you’re on holiday and without a bike and core strength training and stretching and how important it is for cyclists.

In this video we discuss how to eat while on the bike, how to keep yourself cycling fit while you’re on holiday and without a bike and Core strength training and stretching and how important it is for cyclists:

00:36 – Nutritional tips for cyclists while on the bike
03:07 – How to keep yourself cycling fit while you’re on holiday
05:28 – Core strength training and stretching and how important it is for cyclists

Video Transcript:

Hi. Welcome to Cycling-Inform’s weekly cycling tips. My name’s David Heatley and in this installment we’re going to be talking about nutrition. We’re going to be talking about what’s the best way to keep yourself cycling fit while you’re on holiday. We’re also going to be talking about core strength training and stretching and how important it is.

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Jess has asked a question, she’s saying, “I seem to be suffering big time from not fueling my body correctly lately, and it’s having a huge impact on my cycling and endurance.”
Jess, look, I like to keep things pretty simple. If you’re going out for a ride for longer than two hours, you need to eat something. The reason for that is that your body can only store around 50 minutes of glycogen [sorry, that should be 90-120 minutes]. If you’re riding flat out for 50 minutes [again, should be 90-120 minutes] you’ll deplete your glycogen.

Generally we’re not riding flat out for 50 minutes [90-120 minutes] and you’ll find that that glycogen storage will last you somewhere between an hour twenty and two hours. That’s why I recommend that people eat something if they’re going out for rides for longer than two hours.

If you are going out for rides for longer than two hours, then I recommend that you have a low GI carbohydrate meal before you go out, something like porridge, bananas, fruit, muesli, brown bread … those sort of things.

When you get out on a ride, then you need to eat some form of carbohydrate and I generally recommend low GI carbohydrates at the beginning of the ride, progressively moving towards high GI carbohydrates towards the end of the ride. The amount of carbohydrates that you’re looking at consuming is somewhere between 30-60 grams of carbohydrate per hour, so that’s roundabout a muesli bar or a chocolate bar or a banana or something like that once every 45 minutes.

If you’re racing, the formula’s a little bit different. We use the formula one gram of carbohydrate to one kilogram of body weight per hour. So if you weigh 70 kg, then you want to be consuming around about 70 gm of carbohydrate per hour. If you weigh 80 kg, then you want to be consuming about 80 gm of carbohydrate per hour. Now that’s only if you are racing.

When it comes to the nutritional products that you want to consume, it’s really up to the individual. I just recommend that people find out what works for them. That will take some trial and error. Once you get it sorted out, you’ll find that you’ll really enjoy your riding and that you’ll get a lot out of it because you’ll be able to go for a lot longer.

When it comes to what I recommend people eat out on the road, it’s really an individual and a personal thing. I recommend that people go out for their rides and they experiment with different types of food until they find something that works for them.

Cameron’s asked a question, “What do you do when you’re out on holiday for a couple of weeks and you can’t ride your bike?”
I have a lot of athletes on my program that are in this situation. Every now and again they do need to go on holiday for a couple weeks, and sometimes they do that with their family. That means that they may not necessarily be able to take their bike.

I found a lot of people that I’ve been coaching have high expectations and intentions to do quite a bit of exercise while they’re away on holidays, but this becomes quite a bit of an issue, especially when they’re taking families. Generally I’ve found that when I’ve talked to them after they’ve gotten back, that they haven’t been able to do as much as they wanted to do.
The first thing I recommend to people is that don’t have any intentions or expectations around the amount of exercise that you’re going to be doing. Just plan and expect that you won’t be doing very much at all, because in reality, that’s usually what happens.

Here’s what I recommend people do while they are on holiday. Walking’s obviously very good and it’s a good substitute for cycling, and so is swimming. They’re really good. Running, not so good, but still, if you are a runner and you like running, then running can be a great substitute for cycling while you’re away on holiday.

Sometimes people are staying at hotels that have gyms. Usually the quality of bikes in these gyms aren’t very good, but if they do have the opportunity to get and ride one of these bikes, then obviously half-an-hour or an hour on one of these bikes during the morning or the evening when things have settled down is a good substitute for training as well.

In a lot of cases I actually recommend that people just focus on their maintenance and strength training. In a gym, they can do some free weights in the gym. Usually gyms are really well setup for doing that. They can spend a bit of time working on their flexibility.

Also, I talk to my clients about doing stair climbs. This is where you get a small weight or a backpack and load it up with a little bit of stuff in it, and you just start walking up the stairs in your hotel room. The trick here is to work on ensuring that your pelvis is nice and stable like you’re on a bike. You really want to work on stabilizing your core while you’re doing these steps. That way, this translates really well into the bike riding when you get back from your holiday.

Gerry’s asked a question about core training and stretching and how important it is.
I’ve covered off a lot about core training and stretching in previous episodes of our cycling tips, but let me stress that core training and stretching is very important for cyclists.

One of the biggest issues about cycling is that it’s quite a mechanical motion. You’re fixed into a machine, and you’re in that machine for hours and hours and hours at a time. It’s very important, when you do get off your bike, that you do start moving in different ways and doing a bit of stretching.

Our Matt Brindle Functional Strength Training and Mobilizers are really great for doing this. If you get the opportunity, jump onto our website and check them out.

The Achilles heel of cycling is the hip flexors. The reason for this is that your leg is basically moving up and down in a motion and not getting the opportunity for the hip flexor to stretch out during that motion. When you get off your bike, it’s really important to stretch out your hip flexor. That’s really the Achilles heel and it’s one of the most important things that you can do after a ride.

Thanks very much. I hope you’ve enjoyed these cycling tips. My name’s David Heatley from Cycling-Inform.