(Part 3) 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.

Personally, I'd work on over-unders, in your case going uphill; for a given work interval, stand up for 1-2 minutes bringing your HR/Power/RPE above threshold, then back down into the saddle and to tempo or sub threshold for 1-2 minutes (to start I would recommend doubling your work time to find your "recovery" time). Repeat this 3-4 times, then rest for an equal amount of time going very very easy, ie zone 1-2. Repeat. This mixed in with some steadier efforts. If you haven't read Friel that's a good place to start. Racing Weight and the Quick Start Guide help me lose weight. Depending on the type of racing you're doing, you may not have to lose all that much more weight. I race in NYC (virtually flat, no hill more than 40m) and I race fine at 5'10" and 165-170 lbs. Hope this helps.

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.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you.

Check out The Time Crunched Cyclist by Chris Carmichael. Pretty good stuff.

This is a great starting point: http://www.amazon.com/Cyclists-Training-Bible-Joe-Friel/dp/1931382212

I've had it for a month and it's helped a lot/taught me how to train properly.

Edit: for training that is. Racing, I haven't seen too much literature out there about tactics CyclingTips Blog is good for that

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.

Dr. John Ivy's Nutrient Timing: http://www.amazon.com/Nutrient-Timing-Future-Sports-Nutrition/dp/1591201411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452351091&sr=8-1&keywords=nutrient+timing

This book is one of the most accepted texts in sports nutrition. Dr. Ivy has many, many moons of research that completely eliminate the need for any belief. Evidence, friend. Evidence.

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.

The following will get you out of most mechanical issues:
workstand
mini ratchet
set of hex bits for ratchet
1-10ish Nm torque wrench
10-100ish Nm torque wrench with adapter for 1/4" drive bits
Park spoke keys
homemade bearing/bb press out of plumbing odds and ends
Park chain checker
Park mini chain tool
Park chain whip
Park master link pliers
Park hollowtech crank cap tool

This book helped me a lot.

read this, it will blow your mind

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Not-Die-Discover-Scientifically/dp/1250066115

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