The introduction of the Women's WorldTour, along with its more recent ♍reforms, has led to a massive jump in the level of professionalism of the sport and a surge of competitiveness in women's professional cycling over the last💜 five years.

The COVID-19 coronavirus may have halted the racing season for five months, but it's now back up and running and many riders haven't skipped a beat when it comes to their tr🍸aining, nutrition and equipment 🍷preparations, so if you're looking for cycling training tips, there's no better place to look for advice than the very top of the cycling hierarchy. 

Below, we hear from Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (CCC-Liv) on r🌱ace-day preparation and training, Leah Kirchmann (Sunweb) on race-day cycling nutrition, and from Lisa Klein (Canyon-SRAM) discusses equipment preparation, sharing top tips from within the pro peloton that you can take 𝓀into your own training and racing. 

Race day training - 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (CCC-Liv)

1. Train your weakest points, too

We are all tempted only do the interval sessions that we enjoy, and those are the ones we are usually good at. It's important to train your weaknesses, too, so that you can race your strengths. You have to do the interval sessions that you might not enjoy because they are obviously the ones that you often get the most value out of. For example, for me, it's really easy for me to go a do hill climb intervals because it's something that I'm good at and I see good results. However, I have often ignored sprints during training, but it's important to train sprints, even for me, because even as a climber or a GC-type of rider, there are going to be occasions when I need to be ཧable to sprint against a smaller breakaway or a group, and so it's important not to neglect that part of my training.

2. Understand your workouts

It's important to understand what you aﷺre doing in training. There's a session that I really hated doing, for many years, and so I would avoid it at all costs or find excuses not to do it. The main problem was that I didn't understand the session or it hadn't been described to me correctly by my coach. Having changed coaches and having it properly prescribed, the session now makes more sense. Now, I do that session more often. 

An example is under-over-training or Tabata-style training that is 20 seconds high-intensity followed by 40 seconds of lower intensity, a🌠nd so on. I hated doing those mainly because my coach prescribed it as an all-out sprint and then recovery. To me, all-out sprint meant all-out sprint, but it's impossible to do all-out sprints over and over again. My new coach explained it better and gave set targets for the sprints, which made more sense and it was more achievable, and now I've changed my opinion on the session. 

It's important for athletes to understand why th𓃲ey are doing certain interval sessions, especially if you don't enjoy them because it might give you more motivation. You shouldn't feel shy to ask if you don't understan🥀d why you are being prescribed a certain interval session. It's important to have that open communication with your coach.

3. Train your race-day nutrition

You have to train your nutrition. It's an area where I've made many mistakes during my career. I would get on with my physical training but didn't put enough focus on training my nutrition. Oftentimes, I probably didn't eat enough during my training rides and then I would try to eat a lot in the race, because I knew what I should be consuming per hour, but my bജody didn't respond to well because I never trained it. 

It sounds il⛄logical but I think a lot of people underestimate how important it is to train your nutrition. If you are going to do an interval session, you should treat those sessions as race-dayꦇ nutrition training, too. Try and get in the same amount of carbohydrates per hour as what you would be consuming during a race.

4. Race-specific training is key to success

Training specificall♒y for events is important. Training for the Spring Classics is different compared to training for the Giro Rosa, for example. The off-season is always geared toward volume and building your base, and then the closer you get to the start of race season, you would be doing shorter intensities within your sessions to simulate racing.

For the Spring Classic, you would be doing punchy-type trဣaining because the races have short, sharp and steep climbing. Leading up to Fl&egꦿrave;che Wallonne, I have a really nice climb close to my home, a perfect warm-up to the climb, and then it's a really steep climb similar to the Mur de Huy. I use that for my repeat intervals. 

Normally we would be racing the Giro Rosa in July𝕴, in which case, training would change to become more focussed on longer climbs, alpine passes and sustained efforts. Find climbs that are similar, if you can, because it's great for your confi💝dence to feel like you've practised that specific and important part of the race.

Five or ten years ago, women's cycling wasn't as specified as men's cycling, and so, someone like Marianne Vos could win the Giro Rosa while only training in the Netherlands. Nowadays, the standard has gone up drastically, and so, to be able to be competitive in the Giro Rosa (GC), you have to have spent ti﷽me in the mountains. If you don't live in an area where there are high mountains, you need to travel to a place where you can do training camps in the high mountains.

5. There's value in training indoors (after COVID-19)

This year has been a different one because of lockdꦉown and I was exposed to training on all the virtual platforms which has opened my eyes to new opportunities. I went from being someone who avoided training indoors at all costs to having a new appreciation for it. I see a lot of value in including one indoor session a week now, anꦡd specifically an interval session. 

Zwift is my favourite platform, if I'm 100 per cent honest, and what ๊I realised is that out on the road there are cheat mechanisms that we adopt without realising it. We find the most efficient way, most of the time, in getting the best out of our strengths. However, when you are on an indoor trainer there isn't really a way to cheat. You don't have the free-wheel and using high cadence isn't necessarily as efficient on an indoo𝕴r platform. 

It's definitely a valuable tool to work on your weaknesses, especially in my case because I'm ๊a climber, generally a high-cadence type of rider, and I use the bike a lot by getting out of the saddle and throwing the bike. On an indoor platform, you are forced to jus꧃t push power, and so, I've seen a lot of value in doing certain interval sets on the trainer because it forces you to push, there's no other way of producing the power.