Anatomy of Speed: Strength & Endurance Evaluation
Anatomy of Speed Series
In this series, I am going to break down the key elements to obtaining top levels of speed without becoming fatigued: strength, flexibility, endurance, nutrition & hydration. In addition to identifying physical limiters within your strength, endurance & lactate tolerance, I am going to provide you the opportunity to receive a FREE 10 Week Training Program to eliminate these physical & mental barriers. This 10 week training program will outline what to do both on and off of the track to improve both your strength & endurance on the track, so let’s get started!
If you have read my last two articles, you how completed my 14 Day Clean Eating Challenge along with begun to create your personalized eating & hydration plans. In addition to removing your dependency on simple, processed sugars and starches, you have jump started a very important component of your racing fitness: your strength to weight ratios.
Importance of Determining your Strength to Weight Ratios
There is a mindset that lighter is better and though this can be helpful, being lighter is not always better. I have worked with thousands of riders who thought they would have better speed & endurance if they decreased their body weight by 5-10 pounds only to find that they had less speed & endurance than when they were a bit heavier. The reason for this is directly related to where the 10 pounds were lost: muscle or fat.
Body Composition
To identify your current body measurements, please email me and I will send you my Body Measurements Spreadsheet so that you can capture your actual lean muscle and true body fat numbers. In the future, this will help you determine if you are actually building new muscle and burning body fat or whether you are tearing down muscle tissue for energy. I will prompt you when to re-capture your body measurements so that you can determine that you are NOT tearing down your muscle tissue for energy (a common issue amongst competitive racers).
How Strong Are You?
For those of you that have completed Steps 1 & 2, you are in a position to now test your strength & endurance both on & off the track. After getting prior approval from your doctor open the Baseline Assessment (strength, row, bicycle) document located on the right side of this resource page. Print & review this seven day testing schedule; over the course of seven days, these protocols will test your muscular strength, lactate tolerance and endurance.
In the next article, I will help you interpret your testing results and provide you specific training schedules to address your physical & mental barriers to eliminate any identifiable weaknesses on the track. If you have any questions or need anything clarified, please feel free to email me directly.