Cardio respiratory fitness is the cornerstone of physical fitness, and uses the “large” muscles of the body in a rhythmic, continuous manner to increase heart rate and breathing over a period of time. Aerobic literally means "with air", and examples of cardiovascular training include walking, jogging, swimming, rowing, stair climbing, and - of course - bicycling. 

It is a good idea to "cross train" by alternating between several appropriate exercises that work for you, as it reduces the chances of overuse injuries and fosters a more balanced conditioning program. Alternating between high impact exercises like running, tennis, and racquetball with low impact aerobic exercises like golf, swimming, steps, rowing and cycling is best.

Try to train every other day with high-impact activities, but if you are overweight, de-conditioned or you have an injury history or problems with joints of the feet, ankles, knees, hips or lower back, it may be wise to steer clear of high impact activities altogether.

Anyone can learn proper form and technique in performing cardiovascular exercise. It is important to do so, because injury will result if your form is incorrect. By enlisting the help of a trained fitness professional you can simply save yourself a lot of pain and aggravation.

Muscle fibre exists in i) fast twitch and ii) slow twitch fibres.

• Fast twitch muscle fibre is white because it contains no oxygen-carrying blood, and performs the anaerobic (zero-oxygen) muscle contractions for short-duration, high-intensity work (sprints and lifts).
• Red fibre (filled with oxygen carrying blood) carries out aerobic contractions used in long-duration, lower-intensity efforts like walking and jogging.

Fast twitch fibre contains stored energy in the form of adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), and it has enough for a burst of effort lasting a second or two. Thereafter creatine is used to replenish the ATP supply, and it has enough creatine to allow another several seconds of effort, for a total of about 10 seconds.

After the creatine is used your body uses highly inefficient and polluting ‘energy pathways’. Using them increases a muscle's size because it stores water to dilute the waste products, without any real benefit in the muscle's strength. Muscles sustain activity by accessing the red, oxygen rich aerobic fibres, which stimulates a catabolic reaction that burns the muscle for energy. Once the muscle's energy supply is exhausted, it uses fat to recharge.

In a typical aerobic workout your active muscles perform hundreds of low resistance repetitions, which is an ineffective toning stimulus. Resistance exercise / “weight training” is where real toning and firming of muscles occurs. The harder you work, the more calories you burn - including calories from fat - but unless you're doing resistance training to stimulate muscle growth, you wind up with the thin physique of a long distance runner, rather than the muscular body of a sprinter.

Your body needs a variety of nutritional building blocks to build cartilage, muscle, and bone. Eating well and taking the right supplements is very necessary, but without exercise it is not sufficient to tone and grow. Muscle, cartilage and bones respond to the demands placed on them, and proper weight training -especially if you do multiple sets - is good for burning fat.

Without muscular stress neither muscle nor bone will grow, as the body almost stops building cartilage after a certain age. In order to sustain and improve condition it is important to eat right, exercise regularly, properly rest, and with the right kind of training a release of growth hormone can be triggered that ‘tells’ your body to build muscle, bone, and even cartilage.

How long should you train aerobically to reap physical benefits? Depending on your condition anything from 10 to 60 minutes is an acceptable range. If your goal is body fat loss and you are appropriately conditioned, then longer is better. Aerobic fitness levels can improve with as little as 10 minutes duration, as long as exercise is performed often (2 / 3 times a day, 5 days a week).

To balance general fitness with our fast paced scheduling concerns, 30 minutes of relatively low intensity exercise would seem to be optimal for many people.

How hard should you be training? Aerobic exercise intensity can be measured by heart rate, the "talk test" (you should be able to talk comfortably while you are exercising) or perceived exertion (how hard the exercise feels to you (on a scale of 1-10), but there is no real need to "knock yourself out” as moderate intensity is always appropriate and always more enjoyable.

Aerobic exercise is repetitive, it does not require a high degree of concentration and it may be a good idea to read, listen to music, watch TV or talk with a friend (if you can't talk because you are out of breath, your workout is probably too intensive) to make your workout more fun. If your goal is to lead a balanced lifestyle to enhance your health and well being, keep in mind that it is very important to perform aerobic exercise regularly (even if the intensity is low or the duration is short).

The bottom line for health and well being enhancement is to get some frequent aerobic activity. Try to take it easy and enjoyable, so you will want to keep it up.

How often do you need to work out? The minimum to maintain your fitness level is two 30-minute workouts a week, but for most people 3 to 5 sessions a week will be better. If fat loss is your goal, then 6 to 7 low impact workouts a week (nearly every day) would be optimal. The more often you perform aerobic exercise the more important it is to cross train to prevent injury. It is important to gradually increase your duration, intensity and frequency, but if in doubt, go easier, shorter and slower, rather enjoy yourself!

Stretching, warming-up and cooling down are very important to reduce discomfort and the chance of injury. Warm-up for aerobic exercise by performing the exercise at a very low intensity and gradually build up over 2 to 10 minutes prior to your workout. Do not stop and stand abruptly without cooling down, as you run the risk of getting dizzy and possibly passing out!.

Monitor your progress on a daily basis. Keeping an accurate log of your workouts is a good way to see at a glance how far you've come in your pursuit of fitness, as your progress will help to keep you interested.

Heart rate training. During exercise your heart rate will increase, but it should only vary within certain limits and must never exceed your theoretical maximum heart rate. (Your maximum heart rate is 70 % of (225 less your age).

Training at 80 to 85% of your maximum heart rate on every ride is a waste of time, as you’re working hard – being able to maintain the effort for a while – within training’s no-man’s land. It’s too hard to allow rest and recovery, but not intense enough to bring about improvement.

A heart rate monitor with multiple heart rate training zone alarms really pays off – set one zone to keep you below 80% and another to keep you above 85% during intervals. You’re on the right track when recovery rides seem too easy and interval workouts are nearly impossible!

How would you measure your heart rate? It’s easiest to gauge your heart rate with two fingers in your neck – follow the arch of the trachea from the midline of your throat to either the left or right side of your neck, and you’ll feel the beating pulse right where the arch of the trachea curves into the hollow “valley”. Simply count your pulse for 6 seconds, multiply by 10.

If you’re at all serious about training, you will need a heart rate monitor: for what you are getting they do not cost a lot.

Monitors let you quantify a useable aspect of training effort, it being key to a structured training regimen. Using a monitor ensures your rest rides are easy, your hard rides hard enough, and helps your gauge recovery and progress.

Lactate threshold (LT):  This is the exertion level beyond which the body can no longer produce energy aerobically resulting in the build-up of lactic acid and debilitating hydrogen ions. Muscle fatigue, pain and shallow, rapid breathing marks this ‘glass ceiling of performance’ - it's an invisible barrier that ‘keeps you down’ wherein lactate is produced faster than it can be removed (metabolised), and is referred to as the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA) or the anaerobic threshold (AT). When exercising below LT/AT threshold the body removes any lactate & hydrogen ions produced by the muscles, without impairing muscle contraction and fatigue.

Lactate - your body's buffering agent - neutralises the acid that builds up in your legs making the muscles ‘burn’ during heavy exertion. The harder you hammer the faster acid accumulates; your muscles will generate more acid than you can neutralise which forces you to ease up. The point at which you begin to accumulate acid more quickly than you can dissipate is what is called your ‘Lactate Threshold’ and in riding terms it constitutes the fastest pace you can maintain for 30 minutes without feeling like your legs are on fire.

Blood lactate levels serves as an indirect marker for biochemical events within exercising muscle. A person's LT reflects the ability of muscles to match energy supply to energy demand, which in turn determines both the “fuel mix" used and resultant muscle fatigue. The exercise intensity at which lactate begins to accumulate in a person's blood - the lactate threshold (LT) - is a powerful predictor of performance ability.

When you raise your LT, you can produce more power at a comfortable heart rate, and that makes you a better rider in every situation.

The basic goals of any training program is to:

• increase the threshold limit
• increase sustainable power under threshold,
• increase the ability to exceed the threshold,
• minimize the recovery period required after overexertion.

Vo2max: The ‘equation’ Vo2max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that can be consumed during all-out exertion, and is a key indicator of a person’s potential in cycling and other aerobic / endurance sports. It’s largely genetically determined, but can be somewhat improved by training. It is the maximum volume of oxygen absorbed - in relation to body weight - by each heartbeat, and varies between 30ml/kg (untrained) to 80ml/kg (seriously trained).

Find your lactate threshold: Map a safe, 7km route that you know well and can ride without stopping. It’s important that the route should not allow any downhill or coasting/resting! Strap on a heart-rate monitor, stretch and warm up for 15 minutes, then ride the route at the fastest pace you can sustain. Recover for 10-20 minutes (ride back to the start of your route at an easy pace). Repeat the test. Your lactate threshold is 103 percent of the average of your heart rate during this time. Keep a log of your times and average paces; repeat the test in 6 weeks to see your progress.

Your lactate threshold shouldn’t dramatically change whether your fit or not, but the fitter you are the longer you’ll be able to hold it without tiring.  At the same time there is a mental aspect to lactate threshold, as it does come down to how much pain you can withstand. A novice not used to enduring the discomfort will not be able to ride their true physiological lactate threshold, and will register a lower rate initially.

Raise your lactate threshold: Your lactic threshold will be around 80-90% of your max heart rate, being partially genetic and partially trainable, but by systematically pushing your limit you can condition your body to become more efficient at clearing acid. The trick is to ride the region between being comfortable as opposed to where you can sustain your effort for only a few minutes before cracking.

• Steady state riding: After a good warm-up, ride 10 minutes at a steady effort, keeping your heart rate three to five beats below your LT heart rate. Recover for 10 minutes, repeat twice. Once you're comfortable at this level do two 20-minute steady-state efforts, recovering for 20 minutes between, and work up to a 30-minute effort.
• Interval Riding These intervals blend LT and VO2 max (your body's ability to process oxygen) training to simulate the effort you need when racing on a hilly course, where you have to push beyond your lactate threshold for short surges but being able to recover & clear the acid whilst on the bike. Warm up properly, pick up the pace to your LT heart rate and hold for five minutes. Push it to about three to five beats above LT for one to two minutes, then drop it back down to LT. Repeat twice.
• It is possible to elevate your ‘suffering threshold’ in addition to LT, as certain situations demand pushing past LT and holding it there for extended bursts (again and again). By simply training at an intensity where your body can't clear the lactate, you'll boost your ability to keep riding hard despite high lactate levels. After a thorough warm-up, increase your effort to about five beats above your LT heart rate. Hold it there for as long as you can (up to three minutes), reduce your effort to partially recover (90 seconds) – not being quite ready to go again – and repeat three times.

Powertraining

Powertraining is a form of training based around a number of power output (watt-based) measurements over time, and it takes a lot of the guesswork (and subjective opinion) out of a training regime. Heart rate monitors do provide an indication of how hard your heart is working / of the load that the body is under, and is a good start in improving the quality of an athlete's training, however, power-meter training provides an additional, objective measure of exercise intensity free from subjective issues or external conditions that can influence readings, and definitively records responses to the training regimen.  In basic terms:

• power = stimulus - i.e. how hard you are working, and;
• heartrate = response - i.e. your body’s response to how hard you are working.

The problem with heart rate is that it doesn't only respond to effort, it also responds to your hydration, state of excitement, energy stores, body temperature, which means for any given effort, your heart rate could vary by quite a large margin. Your heart rate tells you how hard you are working (input), but not how much work you are actually accomplishing (output).

Powertraining can be likened to tuning a car by using a dynamometer - you can still tune your car by ear (training until you are tired) or by measuring how fast it goes over a given distance (time trialing), but powertraining allows for the best possible adjustment to your training schedule within a variety of fields of concise, objective data. Power measurement simply ensures that you waste fewer bullets, hitting the training-target more often.

Lighter riders have an advantage in climbing. On a flat or sprint, the weight of the rider and bicycle have relatively little effect with aerodynamic drag being much more important than weight, and the rider who can produce the maximum amount of watts (e.g 2200watts) will be at an advantage in acceleration. The average at which such power can be sustained (e’g 430 watts per hour) however, will determine the yellow jersey. Climbing ability (the polka dot jersey) is determined by one's power to weight ratio in watts-per-kilogram (how much power one has available for your weight) - the ultimate ratio being constituted by the magical number 7.00 watts per kilogram - and it becomes exponentially more important as a climb’s grade gets steeper.

When LT is expressed as a power output (taking cycling efficiency into account) it is the single most important physiological determinator of performance in events (ranging from a 3 km pursuit to as a 3 week stage race).

Metabolic strain experienced when exercising at a given intensity (being dependent upon the power output relative to power at LT) provides a physiologically basis around which to design a powermeter-based training program.

Over time threshold power will change significantly as it depends on an individual's training history and habits - someone who is just beginning / returning to cycling may see large and rapid change in their threshold power, whereas a honed rider maintaining a high level of conditioning will experience much less variation.

The real benefit of training with power, however, is that it enables your to manage your training load thereby improving the quality of your training.  You don't really need an HR monitor or a Power Meter to tell you that you are suffering - what you really want from these tools is an indication that you are going faster, and that your training is having the desired effect.

At the same time all of the possible tests doesn’t help in not knowing what to do with them – powertraining is a scientific art - and you’ll do well in enlisting the services and advice of a professional.

Power training is not for the recreational cyclist due to the extraordinary high cost of:

• necessary (additional) equipment,
• the retainer for professional interpretation of your results.

However, there are a number of innovative devices available at a fraction of the real deal's cost, which warrant inspection and do go a long way of improving on the hit and miss of heartrate training.

Establishing your baseline: Establish your 'fitness baseline' in order to track changes. Your training can thereafter be scrutinized by re-conducting the test of your ability to create power, being the average wattage output over:

• 3 short 30 sec sprints, a 5 minute sprint, 3 short 30 second sprints (resting 5 minutes between each sprint), and
• a 20 minute Time Trial (on another day).

These tests gather information about your fitness in different time periods, allowing you to tailor workouts in having evaluated your performance (against the baseline) over time.

Based on your 20-minute test, you should have a good idea of your Lactate threshold wattage, and you can establish your ‘power zones’.

Establishing your rate of optimal cadence: Not everyone is meant to ‘spin a fast gear’, as some are more efficient and produce more power in the 85-90 rpm range, while others are more efficient whilst fluctuating in the 95-100 rpm range. In order to establish your optimal cadence ratio, 2 additional tests to the baseline test (having established your rate of comfortable cadence) are required, being:

• conduct the baseline test as a low cadence test, restricting cadence to 70rpm for each time interval, but set the resistance and gearing as such that you can go as hard as you possibly can (staying under 70rpm), and;
• conduct the baseline test as a high cadence test at 15 rpm's above your baseline cadence.

On completion you will be able to compare all three tests’ data to see where you are most efficient, and where you are lacking.

By having tested your cadence you now have a baseline and can work towards a goal tailored around your abilities, and you can start construction on developing your strengths and weaknesses.

An efficient training strategy will incorporate data of your max & average watts produced, your max & average heart rate for each time interval, allowing you to focus on:

• whether you produce more power for some time intervals utilizing a slower cadence, and;
• establishing your heart rate’s most efficient cadence,
• where – exactly - your body creates its max watts.

In racing you will often have a good ballpark idea of how long an interval will be, powertraining can allow you to pre-select the best cadence (gear) for the upcoming effort maximizing the potential result of your effort.

In addition you will be able to pinpoint your ‘weak’ areas, allowing you to incorporate some low cadence/high force workouts or fast pedalling exercises within specific intervals into your training regimen.

Cycling is highly variable – but not quite random - and many aspects will affect your output: health, wind, climbs and co-rider(s). You simply won't be able to hold a steady range of power on the terrain that you are riding, as there will be too many external influences that won't allow you to ride in a specified range.

However, with the aid of powertraining there will be many times that - in fact - you can plan ahead and cycle your best. At the very least, a powermeter’s data can tell you what went wrong (pedalling too hard during the session preceding your crack / pedalling inefficiently during your potentially ‘best’ zone, et al).

Overtraining

Overtraining is related to a lack of rest and recovery, but is a bit different. An over trained rider may be doing plenty of recovery rides and resting well, but is simply doing too much mileage at intensity, too soon. Frequent colds, moodiness and an increase in waking heart rate of 5–10 bpm (especially combined with a drop in average heart rate on one of your regular workouts) are all signs that you’re on the road to burnout. Take a break and if you frequently find yourself over trained modify your programme to include less intensity. You can change your bike, but you can’t change your body. Listen to it.

Overtraining is easy to identify with power-based training.  If you are not able to produce the target power level for the training session, you are fatigued and should rest!

Recovery

You don’t get stronger from training – it’s recovery that builds strength and endurance – training ‘triggers’ your body’s systems to build. If you neglect recovery, you’ll just wear yourself down, as the harder you work, the harder you need your rest. At least one ride during your 3-day training week should be a recovery ride done at a social pace.

Training doesn’t stop when you get off the bike. A regimen of stretching, cross training and resting, coupled with sensible nutrition and hydration will all combine towards the all-encompassing benefits of fitness.

Sports Massage

Therapeutic Massage Therapy is defined as the mobilisation of soft tissue (muscle, fascia and body fluids) to restore normal systemic and biomechanical / functional use. It can be used to assist in the treatment of musculo-skeletal and associated problems, as it contributes towards improved circulatory, lymphatic and neurological functioning.

Depending on the technique, depth and speed used it can be stimulating and/or soothing, is both safe and effective, and constitutes the oldest and simplest of all complementary health therapies.

Massaging applies structured or unstructured pressure, tension, motion, or vibration — manually or with mechanical aids — to the soft tissues of the body, includig muscles, connective tissue, tendons, ligaments, joints, lymphatic vessels, organs of the gastrointestinal system and reproductive system to achieve a beneficial response.

Massage Therapy is often used as a form of therapy by Chiropractors, Osteopaths, and Physical Therapists, as it aids the process of healing, relieves psychological stress, manages pain and improves circulation.

And it feels wonderfully relaxing after a hard day’s cycling!

Religiously following even a basic two-days-a-week training habit beats following any other big name / fancy training programme every once in a while. Develop a routine that works with your schedule, setting realistic goals (to help maintain motivation by giving your training a sense of accomplishment and purpose).