(Part 2) Top products from r/Velo

There are a blizzard of meditative techniques and guides to consider. I tried one in great detail (1) and am considering resuming it in part to improve this problem. It is essentially a close variant of a better known older guide (2).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindful-Way-Through-Depression/dp/1593851286

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Revised-Illness/dp/0345536932/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415294573&sr=1-3&keywords=MBSR

The guy who developed these meditation techniques for western therapeutic application, Jon Kabat-Zinn, started with Olympic athletes and visualization in the 1970s. I was first introduced to it as an athlete in the 1980s. Ignore the titles. the exercises are the same whatever you seek to accomplish. The meditations help unlock parts of your mind that you don't directly control and free them to solve problems. These skills and the focus you can develop will aid you in absolutely everything you do. Daily practice of 25min a day over 8 weeks has been shown to change both brain function and even physical structure in both novices and experts (no ashram required all can benefit quickly).

It is not a religion. It won't try to sell you on anything. It will seem odd, but if you do it daily you will get valuable results. (They may be realizations regarding anything, so keep an open mind.) if all this sounds too flakey or new age for you, consider that the muscles we hope to better control are involuntary. The study showing the link between meditation and physical brain changes was so groundbreaking it made the cover of the NYT and the researchers won a prize. The studies are out there.

It is the cheapest therapy you will have tried to help with this problem. From my experience, I would expect it to improve awareness of muscle state and activity, from there, you could train yourself to relax the muscles. To build strength, physical exercises will be needed.

The Confidence Gap

The Chimp Paradox

Mindfulness

These are some great books, by some fantastic psychiatrists. All these can help with anxiety. The Chimp Paradox book especially is written by Dr Steve Peters, who worked with the British Cycling track team and helped Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, etc become the top in their sport (though his book is not specifically for cycling).

Althought some people will be saying 'don't worry about it' or 'just enjoy it', these are particularly useless statements and (through not fault of their own) generally come from people who have never delt with mental help issues. If it was as easy as 'don't think about it', then you wouldn't have made this thread. These books are based on real scientific evidence and help you deal with the anxiety and not just push it away.

I would say that The Chimp Paradox is best for understanding why you're feeling anxious and the other two books are really good for practising how to deal with the anxiety.

I don't know what you mean by energy systems, but for understanding training with heart rate zones, Joe Friel is fairly popular and easy to understand. He has a book that is good, but the essentials are covered on his blog.

Been working on weight training this off-season. "Starting Strength" seems to be the equivalent of "The Cyclists Training Bible" for general strength training. Everyone should read it. Maybe twice.

My back is my main limiter. I had a bad case of thoracic hyphosis (aka "nerd neck") so I needed to fix that and train up my upper-back muscles in order to be able to safely squat heavy. I'm thinking the added strength and mobility will help for holding my head up after long hours on the bike.

I've brought my Bulgarian squat up from 3x5's at 80 lbs to 3x5's @ 130 lbs. I've also brought my weight up by 7 lbs, so I guess I'll be carrying that around. But it's pretty flat where I live and race so I wouldn't mind trading some W/KG for some raw watts.

I'm planning to continue building strength through base and switch to more speed/power movements during build. I'm going to incorporate the fast lunges described in Maximum Overload (terrible book, fine idea) for blocks of 30s to 5m. I think that will be a good accessory to VO2max intervals. Hard days will get harder, so easy days will need to get easier.

https://www.amazon.com/Kool-Stop-Tire-Bead-Jack/dp/B001AYML7K - your new best friend.

To make it fit into my saddle bag easier, I sawed off the entire handle, right up to the base that keeps the whole thing together. You don't need the extra leverage.

I've carried one of these forever, for various rims. Right now I'm on Hed Jet Plus rims and gp4k tires - same story as all the others. Those are hard to fit even at home - forget doing it on the roadside.

i love obree -never a guy who would follow the crowd. Would thoroughly reccommend his book which shows how insanely determined he was to succeed (on his terms) despite some pretty insane barriers to overcome.

It’s a great sport for older guys with a good job, health insurance and money to spend. I’d double check my outlook calendar for the Monday following ( as well as PTO and FSA balances) before hopping into my first Cat 5 crit though.

Being able to work remotely is a boon when you are changing out tegaderm on the daily Save more and buy in bulk!

[Road to Valor](Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307590658/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_mNW.BbXEKW98K) is a terrific read about Mario Bartali in WWII.

This book is pretty old-school but amazing none the less:

http://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Road-Racing-Complete-Competition/dp/0941950077/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462602033&sr=1-1&keywords=cycling+training+eddie

Actually I go to the gym once per week, and I have my personal coach to teach me, at end of each training, the coach will help me do some stretching and massage to relieve the muscle pain. And it did work. He always uses electric or manual massage stick to help me relief my muscle soreness. The electric massager is a little expensive so I bought a manual one, and I can use it at home my self, you can have a look.

https://www.amazon.com/Athletes-Massage-Exercise-Dancers-Body-Soreness-Recovery/dp/B07XWNRB8N/ref=sr_1_36?keywords=muscle+roller+stick&qid=1574662623&sr=8-36

If you are looking for scientific research on positive/negative effects on the body due to youth racing, this book was fantastic: https://www.amazon.ca/Elite-Youth-Cycling-Alfred-Nimmerichter/dp/1138086843

Pricey to buy but if you have access to any post-secondary or library you should be able to find a pdf for free.

You can get it on amazon - even in long rolls (which work nicely for covering big swaths of road rash).

It's like a plunger - you should buy some before you need it.

Jobst Brandt is on my side. Last I checked, he's a wheelbuilder around the world somewhere.

Radially laced wheels are stiffer both laterally (side to side) and radially (weight straight down at the axle) than crossed lacing patterns. The shock absorption is nice for mtb wheels, but not on the road. Look at every high end weight-conscious (Road) front wheel out there, Enve, Zipp, HED. All use radial lacing. If 3x were stronger, then they would be 3x, with fewer spokes to reduce weight further.

That's a good read. I laid on the hammock for a weekend last summer and read it while recovering from an injury. Actually got it from the Rapha store, glad to see it's on Amazon now.

I highly recommend Sex Lies and Handlebar Tape http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1845964616

I skimmed through Sport Psychology for Cyclists in a used book store once and took away some interesting tips on using mental imagery and mantras to push through the hard stuff, might be worth a read if TT's are your thing

> i wasn't that impressed with this book, tbh - i was hoping it would be more academic. but just chasing this down has raised my opinion

Have you seen Cycling Science? It appears to be the same format as Performance Cycling in that it's a collection of papers edited together into the volume. That's not exactly a bad thing, but I get how it easily leads to disappoint as a book.

This book helped me a lot.

https://www.amazon.ca/Kool-Stop-Tire-Bead-Jack/dp/B001AYML7K

You need to read the Eddie B. book - http://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Road-Racing-Complete-Competition/dp/0941950077

Talk of eating horsemeat.

One I personally subscribe to is legwarmers below 70 degrees. Keeps the knees from getting crispy.

Is this your first year of racing? If so, just ride a lot. If not, pick up the bible before worrying about base/build/taper/race periodization