- 2 days ago
Can you get fitter and faster on the bike after 40 years old? Whether you do road cycling or gravel cycling these top tips for cycling fitness from a cycling coach will help you reach your cycling and fitness goals.
Cycling training should change as you get older but what exactly should cyclists over 40 look out for and are there any training secrets that some older riders are missing?
Cycling training should change as you get older but what exactly should cyclists over 40 look out for and are there any training secrets that some older riders are missing?
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00:00This is Max, he's currently riding around Mallorca but I met him at a race earlier in
00:05the year and despite tipping over the ripe old age of 40 he is stronger, fitter and happier
00:10on the bike than I think you've ever been before. So what is the secret of performance in your 40s
00:17and beyond that? Is it really the age when your body starts slowing down or is it an opportunity
00:22to train smarter and make 2026 the year when you finally achieve that lifelong goal? Well to help
00:28out anyone who's looking to get stronger, fitter or healthier we've recruited pro coach Henry Latimer
00:34to run us through what changes you can make to be in the form of your life. Right I'm going
00:39to leave
00:39you boys to it, see you in a bit. So Henry before we get some of your expertise let me
00:46give you a little
00:47background on me as a cyclist as Jamie eloquently said I'm practically a fossil 43 years old but
00:55here's the interesting thing as a person I still feel like I'm in my 20s so maybe from a like
01:01high
01:02performance yeah and I've never been elite level cyclist or anywhere near yeah I still feel like
01:08I have more to give I have an FTP of round 300 310 watts I love riding my bike so
01:15enjoyment for me is a
01:16big part of it but I am in my 40s I do find it a little bit harder to find
01:21the time to get the benefits
01:24back from training. So have you done endurance sports before? So my background was endurance
01:29running I ended up breaking my leg I got a compression fracture in my right knee got two
01:34compression fractures which took a year to recover from and it meant I couldn't put any pressure
01:42through my leg when it was straight so I couldn't run so I cycled for a year and that's kind
01:46of what got
01:46me more passionately into cycling yeah so I feel like I've got through the stage of what some
01:53cyclists might refer to as like newbie games yeah and I'm in the mud point where your FTP goes yeah
01:59I'm in that muddy period where it's hard as you say there comes a point and it probably is 9
02:04to 12
02:05months where it will start to just plateau a little bit and then come like that two year period that
02:09you're at keep doing the same things and you're probably going to be on nothing changes if nothing
02:13changes right so we can start to bring in certain elements of structure and start to target different
02:17things be it strength training be a bit too max intervals that kind of stuff starts to just tick
02:22up that little progress curve again I'm also a bit of a stat geek so things like heart rate
02:27sport then yeah so I'm naturally gravitated towards a sport entirely based on statistics
02:34and numbers so I pay a huge amount of attention to things like heart rate average heart rate
02:39yeah watts average watts and and durability and repeatability I also have done some crit racing
02:46circuit racing in the last 12 months yeah very new to it but I get my excuse my language ass
02:52beaten
02:52yeah by 18 year olds regularly which I love but then their heart rate will be like 200 and mine
03:00will
03:00max out at 170. yeah yeah so your heart rate will naturally drop a little bit over time but in
03:06terms of
03:06how that relates to your power I guess there is obviously a correlation and if you can push your
03:09heart further you're going to be able to get more blood pumping around the body get more oxygen to
03:13the muscles but it shouldn't necessarily be a limit in terms of you comparing yourself to you and where
03:17you can get to with progress so the thing with 18 year olds they are a lot more open and
03:22easy to adapt
03:22to a lot more training load they don't have the stresses that we have in life I'm in my mid
03:2630s
03:27you're in your 40s there's a lot more to balance there's a lot more going on your body will adapt
03:30to
03:31training a lot more in a different way it will be a bit slower to recover so the 18 year
03:35olds might be able to hit
03:36certain efforts again and again and again whereas yourself as a 40 year old athlete it's going to
03:41take you a little bit longer to recover you're going to have to maybe give yourself an extra rest day
03:44you
03:44might have to do an extra easy ride as opposed to one of their extra interval rides I think one
03:48thing
03:48that a lot of riders do and it's not just athletes in their 40s but everyone can learn from this
03:52is we
03:52do a lot of riding that's just a bit too hard so when we talk about like flavor of the
03:56month for
03:56the last three years has been zone two right everyone talks about zone two that's saying to that but what
04:00does that mean like it means about let's do your easier rides at an actual easy conversational pace
04:06so that's all relative to what you've got so let's say you've got a 320 watt ftp your zone two
04:10is going
04:11to be 180 to 230 ish that kind of range I don't know off the top of my head but
04:15a lot of people will
04:16do that kind of riding at say 250 260 and then they're doing a bit more it might feel a
04:21bit more
04:21productive but what it does is it induces a lot more of that tiredness that then will mean you're not
04:25going to be able to hit that snap you're not going to have enough energy the next day to be
04:28able to hit a
04:29slightly higher power and if you do extrapolate that over weeks a month then suddenly you're
04:32talking about all of that accumulated fatigue that's going to just be deadening that top end
04:37if you took myself as a 40 year old and then you took someone who's younger in their 20s yep
04:42and you
04:43had your favorite session what would be the difference you know how would you hand that to
04:48me and then hand that to a 20 year old I think it's not necessarily a session by session basis
04:52it's
04:52more in the overall planning of how you bring structure to the whole program as a whole so it's not
04:57necessarily one via two max effort that's going to make someone go faster than someone else it's
05:02where would that be placed within a program so for yourself I might say let's do no more than two
05:07hard
05:07sessions a week let's make sure we're doing two real high intensity sessions so threshold
05:11be a two max and aerobic work those kind of sessions no more than two a week and then the
05:15other
05:15I don't know let's say you're training five days a week three days would be easy would be zone two
05:19would be zone one and then maybe we get a gym session in there as well whereas a younger athlete
05:24you might say okay well maybe we'll chuck another tempo session in there as well depending if they're
05:28building for a race season doing are we building base do we maybe do some longer efforts as part of
05:33their endurance rides they can just soak up a little bit more and still recover to hit those harder
05:37sessions the next day yeah so for me I don't mind training inside I quite enjoy it I like it
05:41I've got
05:41history of it is there a difference between riding indoor sessions and outdoor sessions or
05:47so something I've seen a lot of online is people talk about I see this thing from someone once where
05:53they
05:53said riding inside for an hour is worth an hour and a half outside it is not I hate to
05:58break
05:59everyone's bubble but it's not an hour is an hour right if you're pedaling here for an hour and you're
06:03pedaling for an hour outside yes you might stop at a set of lights you might freewheel around a corner
06:06but that's a matter of seconds it's not there's no difference from a physiological level your heart
06:11rate might not even drop outside it might just be a slight down tick a couple of beats and you're
06:15back
06:15on the power the other side of the lights what indoor training does bring is that ability to really
06:20dial in on structure right I can just lock in like you said get on the bars look at the
06:24ruby screen
06:24and just say look I'm going to be doing my effort here I can dial in and that's it all
06:28that matters
06:29is my effort what can someone that's in their 40s do maybe indoors or over the winter that's going to
06:37help them enjoy those summer because nothing's better than going out on a nice summer's day and
06:41being able to ride five six hours and this is why we get into it right everyone gets into cycling
06:45to
06:45begin with because they enjoy riding a bike and I think that often gets lost along the way especially if
06:49you're
06:49competitive or you're getting into racing it's just progress progress progress but actually
06:53progress can often just look like getting on the bike so the first thing is to make it easy and
06:57really repeatable for you to just get on the bike nice bike over and over again nice bike exactly
07:01with some little gold trims on it would be really really special I think but you want to enjoy it
07:05inside as well as outside right so that's maybe bringing like a group ride or you can do certain
07:10like structured intervals that are a little bit different inside that just keep your brain switched on
07:13that just keep you ticking along and then really focusing in on those structured sessions so like I said
07:18that vo2 session or whether you've got a threshold session on a monday and a vo2 session on a thursday
07:23make those the kind of focal point of your week maybe get something where you can get an online
07:29platform that you can run a session through so you've got plenty of those that can just show you
07:33take you through the workout they can give you maybe some gamification on screen or some like
07:36landscapes on screen that make it a little bit more interesting I think the biggest thing is knowing
07:41that it's part of a bigger plan right so you've got a goal next year whether that's racing whether
07:45that's riding majorca 312 whether that's just going out to keep up with the club ride on the weekend
07:49I think it's important to have something in those winter months that goes right why am I training what
07:53am I doing this for and something in the summer is going to be fun and enjoyable and having a
07:58bit
07:58of discipline now and a little bit of consistency now that's going to get me to that point where I
08:02can
08:02beat my mate up box hill I can get to the group I want to be in in majorca whatever
08:06that looks like
08:07for you as a rider that's going to give you that drive through winter right to be able to push
08:10on and
08:11not everyone's going to enjoy every indoor session it just doesn't happen but what you can do is know
08:15it has a purpose and it's forming part of that plan towards that bigger goal where does strength
08:20training fit in and I mean I love a good bit strength training but how do I structure it where
08:26does it
08:26typically in the past it was just ride your bike ride your bike ride your bike if you go to
08:29the gym
08:30it's something to do in the winter whereas now like there's a lot of research that shows this should be
08:34an all-year-round thing but when you think of it as the perspective of an aging athlete it serves
08:39more
08:39purpose as well you've got things like that sort of muscle wastage that starts to happen as you go
08:43over maybe more into your 50s but even so there's going to come a point where you're not necessarily
08:47looking for progress progress progress you're looking for can I maintain where I'm at and can
08:52I actually do this I think there's still progress for you training age of two we've got more there's
08:56more in the tank we're looking at 350 ftp that's what I want to hear yeah so let's do it
09:01but I think
09:02that maintenance piece is all about keeping muscle density bone density from a sort of aging
09:08perspective as well like we've referred to it earlier you got into cycling because there's lower
09:11impact there's not as much strain on the legs that's great for you coming into it from an injury
09:17but what does it do for you from a sort of longevity perspective we need to be having some impact
09:22through
09:22our body just to grow muscles to keep bones nice and strong and cycling doesn't give that on its own
09:27so strength training brings that element into it in terms of structuring it so people used to think
09:31oh it's cycling I'm strength training for cycling I need to do lots of reps I need to do low
09:35weight
09:35the reality is that does very little for you the point of strength training is to
09:39push the body into places that it doesn't normally get to in order to support your performance on the
09:44bike right so that means doing heavier weights that means doing lower reps and obviously the first
09:49port of call I always say to people is do it safely so if you're doing a squat learn how
09:52to do a squat
09:53do it body weight do it with just a bar progress from there but once you've got that nailed and
09:57you maybe
09:57worked with a personal trainer to get that right start to add weight and start to push your body to
10:02I don't know one or two reps in reserve or 90% of one rep max where we can really
10:06feel like you're
10:07really pushing to get that weight back up and then you're going to develop more more muscle fibers
10:11more strength to be able to use on the bike I think another thing that is always worth thinking about
10:16is
10:16that kind of maybe pre and post workout just getting a bit of mobility into your routine so like
10:22resistance bands stretching that kind of stuff just to get muscles that naturally will spend a lot of
10:27time in this hunched over position where hip flexors are tight there's a bit of pressure through sort of
10:31thoracic in the back getting that stretch doing some kind of maybe two or three little exercises on
10:37a five-minute routine every day are we literally talking about just like touching my toes and just
10:41like like anything like that yeah yeah on your back sort of moving your knees side to side getting a
10:46bit of a stretch going through areas that wouldn't normally because there's always just an element of
10:49tightness in cycling we're all in this crouched tight position one other thing that's worth mentioning
10:54as well from a strength perspective is we talk about big weights and moving heavy weights the other
11:00element to it is moving fast so cycling you talk about that snap like one way to really bring a
11:05good
11:05snap into your cycling is to move fast with weights right so when you're doing a squat it's really
11:09tempting to just push up as hard as you can and get that weight but if you can get a
11:13weight that's maybe a
11:14little bit lighter than that and you go down slowly and you push up quick and you that rate of
11:18force
11:18production is a lot quicker then that's going to sort of improve how quickly you can access power
11:23and how quickly power is like is strength of speed right so let's access it quickly let's move quickly
11:29and that's going to hit that health perspective as well that for longevity perspective a bit more impact
11:33maybe some plyometric work that kind of stuff and it's going to help you on the bike and off the
11:38bike
11:38so let's say i have one day a week that i can push a little bit harder yep is is
11:45there like a
11:47ideal session i should be doing or something that can just help me get a bit fitter
11:50i think it's it's all relative to where you are and what you're trying to do right and maybe what
11:54you've done the week before so one of the big principles of sport and training is progression
11:58so make sure it's a little bit harder than the previous week but if we were talking about one
12:02really strong session that could really give you what you need to let's say a vo2 max session maybe
12:07you're currently doing like i said earlier four lots of five minutes or four lots of six minutes
12:11is a typical vo2 max session it gets you up close to vo2 max and working there for a while
12:15let's mix
12:16it up let's do something like a tabata style effort with 30 15s let's do 10 sets of 30 seconds
12:22on 15
12:22seconds maybe a little bit well it's a little bit easier but not completely off so 30 seconds 120 of
12:28ftp and then drop down to maybe zone two in the 15 seconds and you do that that's over the
12:34course of
12:3410 reps of that that's going to be getting close to seven or eight minutes right and that's going to
12:38maybe hold you at vo2 max a little bit longer
12:43so as i just finish up on my little route around mallorca what are the top five like ways that
12:52you
12:52would or key aspects you'd say are important to someone that's 40 plus okay so we've spoken about
12:58recovery that's my number one like we spoke about training happens that creates the potential for
13:04change recovery is where that change happens so prioritize your recovery make sure you're rested
13:08enough getting enough sleep eating and drinking all that stuff number two i would say strength
13:12make sure you've got a good strength program as part of your overall cycling program one maybe two
13:17sessions a week push hard move fast make sure it's working to support your cycling okay work in a
13:23different way you would on the bike number three is polarize your training so make sure your easy days
13:27are easy make sure that you are sticking sort of sub zone to you're giving your body a chance to
13:31keep
13:31getting those training benefits but you're not pushing too hard you're not accumulating too much extra
13:35fatigue which then allows you on the hard days to push a lot harder make those breakthrough sessions
13:39that vo2 max session we spoke about that would be on that harder day number four i would say is
13:43mobility so obviously as we're getting a bit older uh we're spending more time in that tuck position
13:47on the bike we're going to need to spend a bit of time just looking after our bodies five minute
13:51mobility every day or as much as you can fit in get that as part of your schedule it's super
13:54important
13:55and i think finally it brings together everything i've just mentioned but number five would be
13:59consistency so make sure that you're consistently executing on your plan it's all about bigger
14:04picture and doing stuff week to week month to month year to year and you're going to get that
14:08350 ftp if you do that that's my 100 takeaway as someone in their 40s just find what you love
14:15about it
14:16yep keep doing it keep pushing and then the rest of the stuff can build around it exactly we talk
14:21about training right but the main thing is you're doing it because it's fun you got into cycling because
14:25you enjoyed it keep that in there and the training can support that you'll go faster you'll go longer
14:30and you do it for many many more years to come
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