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Cycling
Many people
enjoy cycling as a hobby and these people are in very good company
because some of the world’s best cyclists got their start from cycling
as a hobby. Cycling is an activity that can be enjoyed by amateurs and
professionals alike and because of that it is one of the most popular
forms of exercise in the world.
It is a
sport that utilizes the whole body; when you are cycling every one of
your muscles is doing something. Your leg muscles are pumping furiously
to keep you going at a very fast speed (regardless of whether it is a
sprint race or a distance race) and your arms and body are swaying along
with them in an effort to give you the most aerodynamic push possible.
Even your back muscles are being stretched out in a static stretch by
the way that you angle yourself on the bicycle. It is one of those
sports that really do exercise everything and because of that it is also
one of the most difficult sports to get good at.
Cycling
techniques and exercises are going to be used widely by people that are
involved in cycling races. Cycling races have a diverse nature that is
similar to running races and in cycling just as in running there are
short sprint races as well as longer distance races. These types of
athletes will work for hours a day on their cycling technique and will
want to make sure that it is as close to perfect as they can get it.
On the
other hand, there are many non-cyclists that also use cycling within
their workout. The reason for this is that cycling itself as a
discipline is a great way for an athlete to get their cardio work in and
for this reason many athletes of many other sports will use cycling as a
mechanism to get themselves the cardio work out that they need.
Essentially the cycling methods and techniques listed in the next
section are for people that are actually sports cyclists but the
activity itself can be used by almost any athlete that does cardio
workouts on a regular basis.
Techniques
Techniques
for cycling vary greatly between different athletes depending on the
type of cycling involved. For this reason it is virtually impossible to
pin down a specific style of cycling that serves as the optimal
technique to use. One of the things that make an athlete good at their
sport is their ability to identify what is working at the time and
emulate their play after that. To that end budding cyclists should
examine the style and technique of the top cyclists at their distance
and speed and try to emulate their styles as closely as possible. While
it is impossible to discuss in detail a perfect technique the next two
paragraphs will deal with some things to keep in mind for both sprint
and distance cyclists.
Sprint
cycling is a lot like sprint running and a lot of the muscles involved
in the activities are the same. Therefore the same principles can be
applied. Athletes that are looking to become very good at sprint cycling
need to have very powerful leg and thigh muscles that are capable of
exerting a very large amount of torque on the bicycle pedals to get them
going at a very fast rate. While muscle endurance is not particularly
important in sprint races what is important is power as well as
technique. Every one hundredth of a second is precious in sprint races
and for this reason it is important to have good cycling techniques.
For
distance cycling, the nature of the beast is slightly different. Power
is not as important and neither is technique, although the importance of
power diminishes far more than the importance of technique. The most
important quality for a distance cyclist to possess however is endurance
and for this reason many top class distance cyclists spend multiple
hours each day doing endurance leg exercises.
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