Alison Powers - Featured Blogger

"Preparing for the World Championships feels like preparing for any other race. Only this time I traveled to Europe about 4 weeks before and raced 2 stage races equaling in 10 race days over 11 days total. After that block was finished it was about some recovery and then back to work continuing to build over the remaining two weeks."

The most important aspect to riding and racing success is hard training. The second most important aspect to riding and racing success is recovery; for you can’t ride hard, unless you are rested and ready to do so.  But, how do you know when you are rested and ready to ride har

The art of being prepared comes down to one simple thing—no surprises on race day.

Preparing for race day is more than training and recovery.  Success on race day requires precise preparation. This means the things you can control should be dialed in, ready, and give you confidence to have the best performance possible.

“Fail to prepare and prepare to fail”—famous quote by someone who inspires people to get their sh*t together. 

If there was one magic training tool that you could do to become a better, faster, and more confident cyclist, would you do it? For most of us, the answer would be 'yes". Unfortunately, not very many people do this one thing. What is this one magic ticket? Improve your bike handling skills. While training, most people are focused on how many watts they are pushing instead of how many times they brake through a corner. Being able to carry speed through a corner or sit in the draft of a peloton is free speed. No intervals or recovery days are needed for free speed.

For most of us, we don’t have 15-25hrs each week to train and ride our bike. We have to make the most of what time to train we have. For this reason each training ride or workout session must be quality. The secret, then, is knowing if your ride or workout really was good quality, or if you were just going through the motions.

Over the past 4-6 months, many of us have spent time in the gym, or home gym, strength training. We're making our cycling bodies strong, well rounded, and ready to hammer out a strong and long lasting cycling season. However, no matter how strong you are in the gym, it doesn't necessarily translate into a fast bike rider. In order to make that strength transition to the bike, you need to transition those strong muscles to powerful and quick muscles.

After spending 4 hours re-creating our Off Season Strength Program last month, I was sore. My glutes, upper back, and hamstrings all had signs of DOMS. DOMS (Delayed onset muscle soreness) is a common result of physical activity that stresses the body...

Here in Colorado, our winter weather is sometimes not conducive for a big 'burn lots of calories' ride before eating a holiday dinner. For those that like to ski and/or play in the snow, winter weather is great for them. For those of us who prefer to ride our bikes over the holidays, snow and cold is not so great. The good news is you can have your pie and eat it too, thanks to a high quality trainer workout.

Here at ALP Cycles Coaching, we decided to use this opportunity to create a new workout. Just like President Elect Trump, this workout will take you by surprise, kick some butt, then leave you feeling mentally and physically drained.

As coaches, we continually look for ways to make our ALP athletes better, faster, stronger, and more knowledgable. We want them to be the best athletes they can possibly be. 

Personally, when I think back to my racing and training career, I wish I had known many of the things I now know as a coach. So, that lead me to think of ways we can teach our athletes this 'high performance'  knowledge so they can raise their game to the next level. With some brain storming we came up with a new training/learning/teaching camp. The ALP Cycles High Performance Camp.

Wednesday was our monthly ALP athlete ride and it was all about cyclocross (CX). In last week's Blog Post Friday, ALP Coach Alison Powers, wrote about how 50% of CX racing success (or lack thereof) is solid bike handling skills. We put that to practice, broke down individual skills, and worked on several important CX specific drills.

Our 4-day Climbing Challenge has come to an end. The Challenge was just that, it was challenging and hard. The 4 days of climbing over and over again, on top of our Saturday ALP Ride got people out of their comfort zones.

Bikes and equipment have been dialed in, training has been completed, and now it's time to race. Not so fast. Energy management and skill building must be thoughtfully planned out and constantly worked on to ensure an entire season of success.

As ALP coaches, we continually look for ways to make our ALP athletes (ALPletes) better, faster, and stronger. We want them to be the best they can possibly be. Personally, when I think back to my racing and training career, I wish I had known many of the things I now know as a coach. So, that lead me to think of ways we can teach our athletes this 'high performance'  knowledge so they can raise their game to the next level. With some brain storming we have come up with a new training/learning/teaching camp.

Two 45-minute interval sessions to fit into your busy life by Alison Powers, ALP Cycles Coaching Summer is here. The weather is good, the days are long, and we’re itching to ride our bikes. However, summer also means there is a lot of things going on, things to do, places to take people, etc. Because […]

“For me, my hard work, focus and sacrifice were 100% every day.” by Alison Powers, ALP Cycles Coaching While visiting my parents a few weeks ago, my Mom asked me to clean some of my old stuff from the closet. I found many notebooks of old training logs, on snow training plans, workout ideas, and […]

“DOMS means you are challenging your muscles to do something they are not used to doing – and that’s how you get stronger.” by Alison Powers, ALP Cycles Coaching After spending 4.5 hours re-creating our Off Season Strength Program last Saturday, I was sore. My gluten, upper back, and hamstrings all had signs of DOMS. […]

Quality over Quantity… by Alison Powers, ALP Cycles Coaching For most of us, we don’t have 15-25hrs each week to train and ride our bike. Between family, work, and life chores, it’s hard to find time each day to ride. We have to make the most of what time to train we have. We want […]

Rules to take into account to get stronger and profit from a training camp by Alison Powers, ALP Cycles Coaching It’s February and a lot of cyclists are keen to head for training camp. It is a very motivating thought to go somewhere and ride your bike in warm and nice conditions. There are a […]