There is a fascinating paradox in the world of cycling: We are capable of accomplishing physically absurd things., like climbing a mountain pass for two hours while talking about gear ratios, but unable to eat a single square of chocolate without the whole bar mysteriously disappearing afterward..
By Jeff Tatard – 3Bikes.fr / Pictures @jefftatard
The thing is, the cyclist, this sensitive animal of the cardio-pulmonary-ego system, is a being of contrasts.
For him, nuance is an option, like mudguards on a 15k triathlon bike.
He only knows two positions: ON et OFF.
Total abstinence or absolute debauchery.
Prudent wisdom or the session "I almost saw God during the second rehearsal."
One might think it's passion.
It is primarily a mild, chronic deficiency of dosage, this somewhat dusty virtue which resembles a perfectly tuned old derailleur: we know it exists, but nobody has seen it recently.
The cyclist and his binary vision: a toxic love story
The cyclist lives in a world where everything is measured: watts, FTP, TSS, HRmax, percentagetagslope e, grams of body mass, crank length and number of coffees ingested before 10am.
And yet, despite all this instrumentation, He is unable to perceive the grey area, the famous progressivenessThis dubious concept was probably invented by a coach who wanted to sleep soundly.
For the cyclist, the logic is crystal clear:
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The cyclist has a very good relationship with excess: he understands it, he respects it, he cultivates it.
What he understands less is the middle ground, this mysterious zone where one progresses without getting shot.
Moderation: the superpower no one wants to train
Curiously, Total abstinence is easier than wisdom.
Not eating chocolate, well, that's strict but clear. However, eat un square. That's it. high levelIt's a tightrope walk. It's like doing a "tempo" session: not big enough to boast about, not gentle enough to be enjoyable.
Moderation requires a quality that cyclists traditionally lack: a sincere desire to think before acting.
And frankly, we're not equipped for that.
We have disproportionately large thighs, a decorative VO2max, but no built-in common sense sensor.
Gradual progress? We mostly talk about it when we don't respect it.
It's a bit like diplomacy: you only discover it when it blows up.
Why this lack of nuance? Very serious hypotheses, of course.
- The cyclist loves heroic narratives.
We don't tell "I rode for 55 minutes at an easy pace, as planned."
We are told "I went out for a short ride and by mistake, I ended up in the Wednesday peloton in Baillet at 50km/h on the Amblainville straight." - The cyclist believes in merit through suffering.
Deeply imbued with a vaguely monastic spirituality, he believes that the more it hurts, the more just it is.
The nuance isn't strong enough to be credible.. - The cyclist is afraid.
Fear of doing too little, fear of failing, fear of not being good enough.
So he compensates with excess, this elegant psychological mechanism that we scientifically call "Completely mess up your training plan." - The cyclist loves extremes.
Extreme equipment, extreme efforts, extreme slopes, extreme cafes.
In short, la progressiveness is not instagrammable.
And yet… nuance is the real performance
The key is knowing when to stop a session just as it starts to get a little too difficult.
It means accepting that progress is a staircase, not a springboard.
It's about understanding that sometimes, the square of chocolate for active recovery is better than the entire tablet of heroic intensity.
It's an art, almost a Zen wisdom: Do less today to do better tomorrow.
But rest assured: the cyclist will eventually understand. Usually after a good, silly injury (and guess why we're writing this article, LOL).
This is the natural pedagogy of sport: the tendon explains, calmly but firmly, what the head did not want to hear.
Conclusion: moderation, that Holy Grail both simple and unattainable
Moderation is to the cyclist what discretion is to a Y1Rs full black stickers included: very beautiful in theory, but nobody has actually come across one in nature.
But if one day you see a cyclist who truly respects the principle of gradual progression, who stops their session when necessary,
who eats a square and puts away the tablet…
… Don't worry.
He's probably just a beginner cyclist.
Others already know that life is better when you exaggerate a little.
=>For further, this article Dr. Cascua's approach perfectly summarizes how to progress without getting injured.
That's a real idiot!
But isn't it because we can't control ourselves that we fall into cycling? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? (Is it chocolate?)