I'VE GOT YER FECKIN' CROSS-TRAINING RIGHT HERE!
Cross-training: words that strikes fear and boredom into my heart. My cycling library is contaminated with training books I’ve collected over the years. Each one is purchased knowing, yes, this is the one. Each one has a chapter on off-the-bike training. I recently bought Tom Danielson’s cross-training book, read some of it, have not done any of it. I’ve looked on Craig’s List for weights to set up a squatting station, none have met my strict requirements for some reason. I don’t run, period. I mostly hate walking and hiking. That’s why I ride a bike, FFS. Zumba, line-dancing, tai-chi…shoot me in the face, I’d rather develop a proper drug habit.
When I lived in a university town, despite their half-assed football program, they had a big stadium. Running those stadium steps was as close to enjoying cross-training as I will ever get. A full on boogie up to the top of the stadium, lope back down to the bottom, repeat until nauseous, repeat more. The top third of the steps were steeper, just to make it fun. It mimicked the mindless suffering and exhaustion us cyclists savor. It was intense enough that each session was over in under an hour. One would leave the stadium totally blown out and relaxed, again, like one would feel after a proper ride.
I used to go in the gym during the cold, unridable winter and do some horrid step treadmill and lift weights. Oh right, that was called youth and an over abundance of hormones. Now, that is just not going to happen. Shouldn’t living in Hawaii mean you never have to enter a gym again? Yes it does. I like to think my ineptitude in water-sports and the resultant near-drownings should provide some cross-training: elevated heart rate, thrashing of arms, seeing the all-embracing light at the end of the tunnel.
I could actually join CrossFit™. No, that would be unwise. Running seems to be an integral part of the regime, tattoos might be required and all that tractor tire wrestling would either ruin my back or bulk me up.
Aren’t we slighty proud of our chicken-chested scrawny upper bodies? Too much CrossFit could ruin a lifetime of chicken-chest development. And if we get good at running and swimming we might get crazy ideas.
Obviously, these are the complaints of a lazy cyclist who likes to ride his bike, end of discussion. There are no Rules to be quoted for off season cross-training except Rule #5. It is a universal Rule. There is no off season for Rule #5, but now it’s March, Milano-Sanremo looms. The off-season is off. I can safely put away my Tommy D book for another year.
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View Comments
@Gianni
I use the same line to describe why Im slower on climbs than my fellow riders. i.e. " Im too tired to climb as hard as you cause last night I @$#@# your Wife/girlfriend/mother"
Us Aussies may not be the sharpest tools in the shed but we've got the sarcasm gene nailed.
@Gianni
Welcome to Scotland...
@Gianni
Can understand how you might have missed an education in sledging, it's what happens when you come from a country where the inhabitants don't settle every argument with gunfire.
@Gianni
and just for shits & giggles, an Aussie view on US gun control
@Mikael Liddy
If that were actually true of the USofAFuckYeah, there would be very few Republicans left among us, and we would have more of the amenities that you civilized folk elsewhere have.
This is a great article, between a full time job, a full time riding addiction, a full time family and a tendency to drink too much beer, there really isn't time for cross training - other than my Pilates classes twice a week which of course are made easier by being the only male in a class of lycra clad, flexible females. Does that make me a creep? Or just Australian?
@Gianni, I also have a shelf full of "training" books we should do a swap sometime - I'm looking for just the right one to stop the table wobbling.
@Mikael Liddy
Yes, it was said to Glenn McGrath. Bit close to the bone.
My favourite is Botham's line to Rodney Marsh.
Botham. What a legend.
@ChrisO
They generally happen only to that population because the general population doesn't generally slip from your height-on-a-bike and speed-on-a-bike, and statistically speaking the elderly fall a lot more and catch themselves a lot worse than younger folks. If the average stumble involved a direct impact to a hip that fell from ~150cm at considerable speed, we'd see a lot more hip fractures.
@tessar
If we'd been going at @ChrisO's normal speed he'd have made it into the hedge and mud and missed the tarmac...............
Wait,
Do you mean to suggest that cross training is something besides doing hill repeats one day, and flat intervals on the next? I suppose it could also be construed as mixing mountain biking in from time to time. What is all this talk of walking/running/lifting?