The Midlife Cyclist: The Road Map for the +40 Rider Who Wants to Train Hard, Ride Fast and Stay Healthy
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The Midlife Cyclist: The Road Map for the +40 Rider Who Wants to Train Hard, Ride Fast and Stay Healthy
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With the help of medical experts, leading coaches, ex-professionals, and pro-team doctors, cycling biomechanics pioneer Phil Cavell produces a practical guide for mature cyclists who want to stay healthy, avoid injury, and maximize their achievement levels. cleats are only for keeping a firm connection to the pedal in a pre-adjusted stance to suit the user’s feet; I think the answer is counterintuitive. The better cyclist you want to be past 50, the more you probably have to drop cycling sessions out and put something else in to compensate. So you probably need to drop a cycling session now and put in a gym session, or a running session, or some other sport to work on bone density and muscle fibre loss. So it's a counterintuitive thing. The more you cycle and the more you seek cycling performance, the more you probably need to cast your net a bit wider in terms of activity base. You talk to Nigel Stephens, a leading cardiologist and an extremely good masters racer in the book. And to paraphrase him, he broadly says that cycling, even at a high level, will give you improved heart and lung capacity at the risk of broken bones. But that's something that you have to weigh up yourself. Which, I guess, is a pretty good summary of it, isn't it? We start the book with rather humbling first principles – that reaching middle age at all is a formidable achievement, as we’ve seen already. In a quarter of a million years we have wandered and now cycled the planet, but it is only in the last century that getting past 40 years of age has been a real possibility. And as a possible consequence, how the veteran human form reacts to being physically pushed to the extreme is still fairly poorly understood. Bluntly, in evolutionary terms we are not really meant to be alive at all, and almost certainly would not be at any other time in history. The experts and doctors in part hypothesise, speculate and theorise about how the ageing body reacts to high performance. Their frustration at not having all the answers at their fingertips is palpableand provides the impetus for much of their current research and thinking.
Substitute ‘exercise’ for ‘therapeutic’ and that could be my ethos captured in one very short sentence. Change the terms of engagement by continuing to train into middle age and beyond – lean in on exercise as the panacea to adaptively change my body for the better; to load the dice in favour of better, not necessarily more.
Renowned cycling biomechanics pioneer, Phil Cavell, explores the growing trend of middle-aged and older cyclists seeking to achieve high-level performance. Is it hard to work out whether exercising past 40 is good for you? Everyone assumes that within certain parameters, it is, but we don't actually know, do we? RENOWNED CYCLING BIOMECHANICS PIONEER, PHIL CAVELL, EXPLORES THE GROWING TREND OF MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER CYCLISTS SEEKING TO ACHIEVE HIGH-LEVEL PERFORMANCE.
The ‘Bikes, Bike Fit and Biomechanics’ chapter is our professional happy place, and is how we’ve spent almost every working day for the last 20 years, working at Cyclefit, helping professional and amateur athletes and teams of all ages and aspiration. We’ve also taught bike fitting all around the world to a new generation of student technicians, who are keen to help their own clients function better on their bikes. We’ve jammed every secret and nugget of information that we’ve ever gleaned about how folk interact with their bikes into this chapter. It is truly our greatest hits section. We ran the Midlife Cyclist Lecture Series in 2017 and 2018 at the Cyclefit store in Covent Garden, London. We had wonderful, warm and generous speakers who contributed for free in the spirit of joint exploration and education – many are featured elsewhere in this book. The lecture slots filled up as soon as they were launched online and then we let people in so they could listen and ask questions. Men, women, mums, dads, grandparents and concerned grown-up children all in search of enlightenment on that key question – can we use the bicycle to simultaneously get fitter and healthier as we get older? Indeed, it’s the humble aim of this book to square that troublesome triangle. First, the bad news. As we grow older, in addition to our declining senses (eyes, ears) we must also contend with reducing muscle fibre, hormones and bone density. Not everything goes down: our blood pressure, cholesterol levels and body weight, for example, move right on up. But our heartbeat max takes a drop and, as if all this wasn’t bad enough, our very cells just don’t work as well as they used to. Atrophy. Remember, Dr Baker is going out of his way to point out that if you feel good, you should not increase the intensity, meaning no more watts or a higher heart rate, but instead add in a rep or two. Going too deep or too hard will increase the required recovery time and may lead to fatigue. If you assume your real (not inflated) FTP is 250, then your hard sessions using the Dr Baker algorithm will be 250 x 105-110% x 4-6 (8-10 minute) reps. This means that you'll be working at between 262 and 275 watts during those 8-10 minute reps. This isn’t going bonkers and sending your systems haywire — it’s a controlled elevation of training stimulus.Mindfulness is almost certainly where the gold is buried in terms of harmonising future performance and longevity for any athlete, but most especially midlife cyclists. Our contention is that professional teams will spend ever more resources and time in this arena, as a way of achieving and preserving athlete performance. Dr Baker thinks that most amateur riders function at only 60 per cent of their theoretical aerobic (oxidative) capacity due to training incorrectly — mostly from riding too much at too high a level. You need to be a fast tortoise before you can become even a slow hare. In ‘Food for Sport’, we ponder how our nutritional requirements alter as we get older, but as we still endeavour to exercise at the highest level possible. We also review how we might change our dietary strategies to both maximise performance and maintain long-term health. Midlife Cyclist offers a gold standard road-map for the mature cyclist who aims to train, perform and even race at the highest possible level. Cycling has seen a participation uplift unprecedented in any sport, especially in the 40, 50 and 60-year-old age groups. These athletes are the first statistically significant cohort to maintain, or even begin, genuine athletic performance beyond middle-age. But, just because we can continue to tune the engine into old age, does that mean that we should ? And, what do these training efforts do to the aging human chassis? This book answers those questions and offers a guide to those elongating their performance window. The final chapter, ‘The Mindful Cyclist’, gathered importance during the writing of the book. It grew from a single sentence into an entire chapter. Why? Because every consultant, medic, coach and athlete that we interviewed went out of their way to highlight the emerging importance of a holistic mind-body approach to effectively balancing hard training, ageing and general life health. All the cardiologists flagged up unspecified ‘inflammation’ as a possible contributor to potential problems. We look in depth at the role of the autonomic nervous system, alcohol and even sleep to help you become faster, calmer and healthier.
Accessibility - the cover and marketing makes it appear tailored to midlife cyclist MAMILs like me who are just trying to live their best life. But the text itself was tailored to the tiny minority who are actually trying to win races. If you’ve read this far, let me tell you, before I get into the weeds, this is a brilliant book. I am a skeptical person, a cynic, but I can tell you honestly that The MidLife Cyclist changed my behavior on the bike (and off), and even improved my relationship with cycling (read: less burn out efforts, more fun). What I want after all is fun. I want health too, and I want longevity. I want to be able to do the things I enjoy doing as long as I possibly can. This seems to be suggesting a polarised training approach although he doesn't name it as such, which generally works on a 3 zone model rather than the more regular 7 zone model but whichever is used I agree with much of what is said with the odd caveat. The MidLife Cyclist taught me how to get those things with less pain, fewer injuries and most importantly, with a better attitude. Pluses of the book are Mr. Cavell knows bicycling and what it takes to both race or just ride as we get older. This is shown repeatedly as he talks about his experience and brings in knowledge from experts in the field (sports medicine and doctors in general). There’s also his own personal knowledge base as a bike fitter who’s done it at upper levels. This is stuff to be respected and readers should pay attention to what’s discussed. Interesting discussion points included the myth of power when you pulling up with your legs while pedaling, use of power meters, what type of riding you should do regularly, and the use of indoor trainers (for the record I feel Mr. Cavell is light in this information and needs to reassess things given the different types of trainers and the use of virtual training aides). These items were driving me to a 4-5 star rating for this book, I have to say it they’ve influenced my riding and training.
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But just because we can, does that mean we necessarily should? Using contributions from cardiologists, pro-team physicians, coaches and nutritionists, this book evaluates the newest research, and where that research is missing, adds informed opinion, to formulate the gold-standard paradigm for the midlife cyclist, who wants to ride fast but also live long and stay healthy. If you're going to exercise immoderately after certain ages, is cycling worse or better for you than something like running or swimming, or are there different advantages?
Which leads us onto the most important question of all in ‘Will I Die?’ Will doing more of what you love, kill you or make you better? The press loves to run poorly researched, sensational articles about how intense exercise could hurt or even kill you, should you exercise hard into middle age. They are cynically exploiting a temporary knowledge gap to sell their newspapers and magazines. We consult with world-leading cardiologists and cyclists, and review the latest research for a calmer, deeper assessment of the likely outcome of riding as hard as you like as you get older. And whether outcomes may differ for men and women. A growing theme through the book is to simplify training and put more emphasis on lower intensity efforts, focus less on FTP, trust how you feel with an emphasis on rest and recovery, supported by HRV measurement. For cyclists trying to balance a training schedule with competing demands for time from work, family etc, this is a great dose of common sense. The honesty and frankness of the author about his own "chaotic" training is refreshing and relieving. It has changed the way I think about cycle training. I'm not competitive but now I feel good about cycling the right amount, in the right way, to add healthy years to my life instead of getting hung up on the latest Strava KOM. The complex and highly interactive relationship between age, health and athletic fitness is the holy triumvirate – there are many out there who feel that only two can increase significantly at any one time – age and fitness or age and health. How important is stress/inflammation as we age and train? Is this burden different for men and women?
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We also consider the big questions surrounding cycling as a fitness tool – is it fundamentally different to other forms of exercise? And, just as importantly, is cycling all you should do to stay fit and healthy or should you be supplementing cycling with doses of other exercise? (Another spoiler – you should.) Renowned cycling biomechanics pioneer, Phil Cavell, explores the growing trend of middle-aged and older cyclists seeking to achieve high-level performance. Using contributions from leading coaches, ex-professionals and pro-team doctors, he produces the ultimate manifesto for mature riders who want to stay healthy, avoid injury – and maximise their achievement levels. These concepts taken together are not something written about much. We have a lot of books on training plans, some designed for older athletes, and the author does not stray into this area at all. But Cavell’s views, both from his past as an amateur racer as well as his profession, are food for thought. He gently ridicules our attachment to numbers, pointing out that V02 max is nothing really useful and even FTP, the measure of functional threshold power, should not be our focus. As someone with biomechanical expertise, he feels that some drills, such as one-legged pedalling, are useless or injurious. He is not impressed with our pursuit of high cadences, or even smooth pedalling, noting that the people who stomp on the pedals tend to be the ones winning the races. I was reminded of watching a Giro d’Italia stage years ago where a Russian and a French rider had escaped and Phil Liggett pointed out how awkward and gawky the Russian looked compared to the elegant spinning of the Frenchman but Paul Sherwen interrupted, pointing out that they were both going the same speed so what did it matter? As someone who has spent years building souplesse, that effortless and beautiful fusion of man and machine, well, I was a bit disappointed but sometimes looking good is better than being fast, yes? It would say try and look at a broader basket of metrics other than just FTP, (functional threshold power). I would say enjoy your cycling, enjoy how you increase your performance: how you climb, how you descend, how pleased you feel on the bike, how much you enjoy cycling.
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- EAN: 764486781913
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