Ok Gang, Project Speed (www.theprojectspeed.com)  is finally winding down for 2016 with Denise’s successful 147.7 mph women’s world speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats – now it’s official!
I’m back and will be doing a regular number of Blog posts, thanks for your patience.

Today was a 90 degree bash on the Wednesday–hard core unemployable ride– Denise and I rode it on our KHS racing tandem and if I do say so, we kicked ass, leading out the sprint at the end and distancing the pack several times.   We also nearly got spit off the back a few times when gaps opened in the 30+ tempo into a strong desert blown cross wind.   A little dehydrated after it was over, but great training overall for our tandem bash at El Tour de Tucson.  19th of November.
Come out and ride with us!  Parametercycling.org

As the Tour de France meanders into the climbs and descents of the Alps and Pyrenees in the next few days, a lot of us will be testing our own boundaries where gravity is concerned. The descent is your reward for the effort it takes to climb that hill or mountain, so learning the essential skills that will bring you down safely is an important rite of passage for a competent cyclist. The art of descending is all about skill, perceived then practiced. Let’s leave courage out of the equation for now because that implies taking risks as opposed to calculating them. It is to the subject of learned skills and the preservation of life and limb that I dedicate a few thoughts about cheating gravity and getting away with it.
Any discussion of the techniques involved in descending must start with getting to know the dynamics of a particular descent. Many of the best Tour riders scout the difficult sections of a race in advance, because it gives them an idea of what must be negotiated ahead of time. As you descend, you must feel the bike and connect with it so that you are a single unit. Get in tune with the pitch of the hill, the camber, and the way it banks, then climb back up that hill and ride it again. Skill and confidence improve with familiarity.

Also consider changing weather in the mountains, the potential for road hazards, sand, gravel, dirt, leaves, and freshly fallen rocks on sharp road cuts. If you are venturing into unfamiliar terrain, assume that the worst-case scenario awaits, and avoid speeds that compromise your personal skill level. Descending requires 100 percent of your attention, so do not allow yourself to become distracted and never take your eyes off the road in front of you.

If you know a skilled and experienced cyclist who will ride with you and enjoys playing the gravity game, join him or her. Follow his lead, though not with blind abandon, and attempt to duplicate his moves downhill. Ask questions, and wait for answers. As a rule, the best line through a downhill turn is outside, inside, outside, but the quickest way down may be completely inappropriate in traffic.
The manner in which you are set up on your bike is also a factor. Triathletes on steeply angled, forward-positioned time trial bikes, need to reduce speed exponentially, as these bikes may compromise a safe descent.

A fun way to learn descending techniques is to carve cones (water bottles) placed in an empty parking lot. You can safely learn how to control and balance your bike on the flats, which will make you more adept at controlling it on descents. In case you are wondering, practicing these techniques on a mountain bike on loose surfaces translates well to a road bike. For example, sliding your weight back on the saddle, reducing your center of gravity, light feathering of the brakes, and adjusting the brake bias are skills common to both road and off-road riding.

A less common, although potentially terrifying experience for an inexperienced cyclist generally occurs when one’s center of gravity is too high and the mechanical set up of the bike is not optimal. A very sudden loss of control, which is characterized by high-speed oscillation, can be corrected with a remarkably simple action: simply clamp the top tube with the knees. It also helps to drop your center of gravity by bending the elbows slightly and sliding to the rear of the saddle.

In case you think your discomfort with gravity is indicative of your cycling rank, consider the plight of a Gianni Bugno, who won two back-to-back world professional road-racing championships in the 90’s.  Supposedly, Gianni had difficulty with fast descents early in his professional career, but he resolved the problem by listening to classical music at a largo tempo while descending on his bike. The slow, melodic music had a calming effect. As you acquire your descending skills, don’t just practice, learn to enjoy the thrill of a controlled, safe descent.

Learn more about descending and other cycling techniques in my latest book, “Mastering Cycling,” available at John Howard Performance Sports.

One Way to Plan, Build and Execute a Championship Program

“The beauty of training is in the details”

Athlete and coach celebrate after a win in Ontario, CA in late April.

I have been involved in cycling as a competitor, coach, fitting specialist and idea-seeker for about half a century. As I reflect on the process and evolution, I can now state one thing with complete certainty: developing a champion has gotten much more complex in the 21st Century…and this is a very good thing.

The development of cycling champions has always seemed to be shrouded in a murky haze of secrecy; what went on behind closed doors was sometimes known and talked about, but not fully understood until the public revelations in the last 15-20 years of doping and performance enhancement drug use. Out of this steady stream of bad publicity has come not only change in the form of testing and other regulations, but also a focus on both rider and coach to find new ways to optimize performance without the well-deserved stigma of performance enhancement being tied directly to drug use. It has forced our sport to once again be creative, this time within legal and ethical boundaries, in pursuit of winning. I am excited and renewed at this creative process, as it has been my focus for all these years to race clean, compete and win, without the ‘shortcuts’ of PEDs, etc. My approach is to use the best of Old World techniques with New World tools and technologies. So let’s explore the potential.

For the rider who has sights on the winner’s podium, ‘just getting on the bike and riding’ is no longer enough – not by a long shot.

Let me share a 2014 example of how it works, in my estimation, and how one athlete is progressing up the championship ladder:

The Athlete

Denise in the CVAC pod. It’s a great aid in recovery and enhance stamina and endurance.

Denise Mueller is a former downhill MTB racer as a junior. Denise and George Hincapie were chosen as USA Cycling’s the top junior cyclists in 1991, but shortly after this Denise retired from cycling. She is now a mother of 3, runs her own successful business, and has numerous outside interests including motor racing. Needless to say, time is a precious commodity, so our plan needed to be designed to make every minute count, while taking advantage of her strengths (explosive power and limitless desire to improve and achieve, to name a couple) and progressing her skill set as an aspiring road ace. It’s a coach’s dream to have an athlete who has such a combination of capability and desire.

The Plan

So how did we set about building a plan? First we set some goals –

• Win two National Championships in 2014:
  • Women’s 40-44 category
  • Mixed tandem in the 95 combined age category with yours truly.
• Move from Cat. 3 to Cat. 1-2/Pro by end of 2014 or early 2015

Our “how to” plan has included 8 steps –

1. Bike fit. Using my PowerFiTTE protocol, Denise’s KHS bike was set up to precisely optimize her body dimensions to allow greater leverage of power while enhancing comfort. Saddle choice, along with exact height, fore/aft and tilt adjustments were of utmost importance. Her setup has continued to evolve as she becomes leaner throughout the road season.
2. Off-bike exercise regime. Working with experts in physiology and biomechanics, I have developed a catalog of exercises that I call BodyFiTTE. Observing Denise’s individual set of biomechanics, I worked with her to equalize her left side/right side range of motion (ROM) and strength of various major and ancillary muscle groups. I noticed early on she was quickly fatiguing key major muscles and locking out her lower back (QL). Now we have all the muscles firing in perfect sequence and rely heavily on her new core strength for greater driving stability. This lowers Denise’s heart rate while increasing power output.
3. Body Work. Denise gets at least one deep tissue massage per week and more when she is racing multiple times. We also use the powerful Dynamic Motion Therapy (DMT) joint capsule technique on her weekly to break up muscle impingements.
4. A detailed training program of both on bike & off bike training. We utilized weekly track training at the San Diego Velodrome to bolster leg speed and indoor trainer work with a great performance aid called Bike Performance Reflexers to increase hip flexor firing. Think of them as resistance bands that you use while pedaling…on a trainer. (They can be used on the road, but I like the control factor of close monitoring these indoor workouts) Reflexors’ ingenious 3 tiered system of gradually increasing resistance triggers Denise’s explosive speed. We use them on one and sometimes two indoor sessions per week. Yes, even in San Diego, we train indoors for maximum power.
5. Power monitoring. This is important for determining our progress. To avoid staleness we don’t use it all the time, but it is vital in giving us our needed data which dictates precise progression of training.
6. CVAC – Cyclic Variations of Altitude Conditioning. Look it up (www.cvacsystems.com). This unique pod allows us to maximize altitude training gains with varied assents and descents only one hour per week. Since the nationals are in Ogden, Utah we will be ready with our own simulated altitude training.
7. Correct nutrition. All essential vitamins and minerals are ingested daily along with all essential amino acids, anti-oxidants, EFA’s. We use vitamin D-3 to safe guard Denise’s immune system as the training begins to ramp up. The key product in our nutrition kit is Phoenix Nutritionals’ LiquiDaily Supreme. It is a full-spectrum nutritional product that more than addresses our needs. It is available on our web site (www.johnhowardsports.com). Another critical nutrient for endurance athletes is magnesium, which is vital for helping in recovery and for the utilization of ATP. The product we use for this is Acid Check, a product that also helps buffer the effects of acids in the body caused by hard exercise. We also offer this product on our web site.
8. Hypnotherapy- In training and actually racing with Denise I noticed she had some performance anxieties that dated back to her junior racing days. Working with a local therapist we addressed these deep seated phobias and after a month of therapy I can report substantial improvement in mental fortitude and motivation.

The Results to Date

Denise’s results have so far exceeding my expectations. After a slow start in which she got popped off the back a few times racing with the top SOCAL women, Denise became more confident in close quarters pack racing. Working with her on the intricacies of team strategy with her new team took another month, but after a 10 day training camp in Mallorca she was finally on target and made her first podium finish in second place. At Dana Point, with girls crashing right and left just behind her, Denise won her first field sprint. This was the beginning of an unprecedented seven straight race wins including a successful solo in the Torrance criterium. I might add that she did this only a few hours after two long stints of driving in a 24 hour endurance motor race. At the Barry Wolf criterium in Woodland Hills she was promoted out of the Cat 3-4 class and will soon be racing Cat1-2/ Pro. As her coach, I’m very optimistic. Stay tuned for more.

Footnote: This past Sunday, June 15th, Denise entered her first Cat. 1/2/3 race in Chula Vista, CA and won it!! We are proud of what she’s accomplished and continues to strive for. The sky’s the limit!

Photo courtesy of the Stanford Center on Longevity

Every few years I test my ever-evolving training theories on myself and on a few of my local athletes.   Power, endurance, and recovery are the cornerstones of any athlete’s preparation, but the subtleties of how these basics are played out makes the difference between being competitive and just along for the ride.  Results don’t just happen; they happen with cutting-edge preparation.

To hit my peak, I use altitude acclimatization with my regular schedule of on-bike, flexibility and strength training sessions. As any altitude acclimatization junkie can tell you, the benefits include increased oxygen transport from the lungs to the bloodstream, an increased ability of the blood to carry oxygen, and an increased ability to unload oxygen from the blood. Sleeping in a chamber or stuffy tent, however, holds no appeal for me, and so I turned to the CVAC pod (Cyclic Variations in Altitude Conditioning – http://www.cvacsystems.com/). The results are profound in the real world of the peleton where no prisoners are taken and egos are regularly shredded.  My results, although antidotal, are backed up by independent scientific studies at both Stanford and the University of Hawaii.

 He who adapts quickest generally gets to the finish line first.

The CVAC process has more to offer athletes than altitude acclimatization alone because it’s more about adaptation. CVAC sessions evoke the body’s natural adaptation response—its ability and desire to adapt to a higher level of output—which has a lot to do with raw athletic per performance.

Adaptation is the common thread linking interval, circuit, and strength training. When muscles recover after the stress of hard training, they react by adapting. Frequent adaptations refine the body as it becomes increasingly able to cope with harder efforts, more wattage, and heavier loads. A CVAC uses dynamically cycled changes in pressure, temperature, and air to provide the body with multiple chances to adapt. Inside the CVAC Pod the process employs very short-duration exposures to hypoxia (contrary to other methods that use nitrogen titration, thus providing a constant hypoxic environment). The changes in pressure represent a very important part of the CVAC process, as they set up waves of tension and relaxation. This is important to us endurance athletes who must respond to sustained bouts of tension and resolution like hill climbs, attacks, or time trials. The faster you can resolve, the faster you’re going to be.

Competitive success comes from the ability to adapt, and those who adapt the fastest will generally get to the finish line first.

If you have questions or need pointers on how to get started with CVAC, contact me.

CVAC is also incredibly time efficient. When using nitrogen titration systems you can spend well over 50 hours per week; the weekly commitment for altitude adaptation is considerably compressed by a CVAC session. To prepare for the 2013 El Tour de Tucson I did 78, 20 minute CVAC sessions over a month long period.  Near the end of the month I was scaling 22, 800 feet before  plummeting  down to sea level in just minutes.  The sessions in the pod were generally relaxing and revitalizing and often I would fall asleep.  Although CVAC pods are scarce, they are finding homes outside Southern California and I encourage further investigation.   visit www.cvacsystems.com/index.php/locations.

July 28, 2011

I know, here comes a topic you already know about, but unless you have read my book Mastering Cycling, you may not know that a major limiting factor in performance tuning is your own level of nutrition, especially in hot weather.    No matter how well you have trained, your body’s engine will not run properly without correctly formulated and dosed fuel.  What you eat and drink prior to, during, and following a major expenditure of energy has a profound effect on your strength, speed, and endurance. It also greatly affects the speed and efficiency of your recovery after intense exercise.

Let me offer a personal vignette about how things can go horribly wrong.  During the first Race Across America in 1982 I thought I had everything under control.  The mistake I made was equating feeling good with being properly hydrated.  I neglected to fuel adequately and literally lost the race on the first day with moderate to severe dehydration.  Ever been there?  It’s not a happy place.  To this day I recall the extreme conditions that led to my unquenchable thirst, dry mouth and lips, the sunken eyes, the headache, no availability of urine, severe muscle cramping and most memorable, cold hands and feet in 100+ degree heat!

Please keep in mind that everyone is different, and your food and fluid intake before, during, and after a race should reflect what works best for you personally. Don’t wait until the day of the race to figure it out.  Some athletes prefer “sports” foods, such as gels and bars, while others like to munch on pretzels, gummy bears, or fig bars.  Above all, establish a plan for fluid replacement. Experiment with these strategies during training, so that you know how your body will respond.

The Week Before Competition

The week before a long competition, eat foods you are used to. Avoid new foods and those you think might cause gastrointestinal distress. While tapering your training before the event, eat carbohydrates and proteins in a 4:1 ratio, and don’t limit your carbs to pasta and rice. Fruit, yogurt, and chocolate milk will add to your glycogen stores and will provide needed vitamins and minerals. You may gain weight, but don’t be alarmed! A full reserve of glycogen weighs more than a pound, and 3 to 4 pounds (about 1.5 kg) of water are added during the conversion process.  For a short criterium this glycogen loading plan is probably unnecessary.

Two Days Before Competition

Two days before competition, be sure to hydrate well. I cannot stress this enough. Increase your liquid intake gradually by sipping small amount of liquids frequently throughout this period. Continue to eat as before, but include other electrolyte sources, including my favorite, liquid colloidal trace minerals including calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium.  You are probably not going to find these, or the nearly 60 trace minerals that stabilize the primary electrolytes in the usual sports drinks.  Do some research, especially if your race will last more than a few hours, and you are expecting hot conditions. Performance tends to fall off when the electrolytes diminish in the body, so lace the liquids in your favorite sports drink and sip your way to success.

One Day Before Competition

The day before competition, eat a good breakfast and a bigger lunch. These are your most important meals prior to race time, since they will top off your glycogen stores in time for your race. Eat familiar foods, and consume the same amount of fiber you did while you were training. Eat a good dinner, but don’t overeat or eat too late. Continue hydrating.  On the flip side of dehydration, we have hyponatremia in which it is possible to over-hydrate with pure water and literally wash the minerals right through your system.  For this reason, I stress small doses of mineral-laced liquids.  Another of my personal favorites is product called Acid Zapper, an alkalizing agent that assists the body in maintaining optimal pH levels. It improves endurance, shortens recovery, and buffers exercise-induced acid as it is generated.  It will also greatly assist in preventing cramps during your event.

Three to Four Hours Before Competition

Three to four hours before competition, people who suffer from prerace jitters may struggle to get food down.  Eat whatever works for you for breakfast: cold cereal, oatmeal, energy bars, energy drinks, or small amounts of water along with copious amounts of acid zapper.  Anyone who has ever ridden a 100+ mile event or stage of a tour with a full bladder will understand the necessity of finding the perfect mix of just enough fluid without overdoing it.   It is common for athletes to experience some intestinal issues associated with pre-race anxiety in the hours before the scheduled start.  While I have gone on record as advising consumption of around 17-20 ounces two to three hours prior to your event and 7-10 ounces 10-20 minutes before your start, my current thinking is that while this may be the ideal way to hydrate, it probably may be excessive if the peloton has no plans of stopping for you.   Find your own balance in training to avoid this problem!   The expected temperatures during the race and the length of the race will dictate how much you need to drink. If it is very hot, consuming a small amount of fluid or energy drink immediately before the start may create a need to hit the bathroom, which is OK, because  you will begin to lose fluids soon after you begin.

During Competition

What and how much you consume during a race depends on the length of the event and the weather conditions. Try to take in enough fluids to match what you lose; don’t wait until you are thirsty. Many athletes try to consume between 500 and 1000 milligrams of sodium for every hour they are on the bike, but excessive amounts of any electrolyte can cause nausea and vomiting. If you eat a gel or an energy bar, make sure that you also take in an appropriate amount of liquid. If the race is long, check the sodium content of your carbohydrates; some gels have insufficient amounts of sodium, so you may need to alternate your gel consumption with a sports drink or pretzels.  As before, you should already know what works best for you from your training experience. Above all do not try anything new during the race!

After Competition

After your event start eating and drinking within the first few minutes if possible, preferably in the first 30 minutes to maximize absorption. Carbohydrate will replenish your blood sugar and glycogen stores. Protein is necessary for your body to repair any cellular damage to your muscles and to shorten your recovery time. Nut bars plus fruit, smoothies, and chocolate milk will provide carbohydrate and protein. Post-race recovery drinks are commercially available that replenish small amounts of electrolytes, carbohydrate, and protein. Carbohydrate consumption should be at least one gram for each kilogram of body weight (pounds/2.2). Usually 10-20 grams of protein is enough for most cyclists. Drink fluids for the next few hours either until your weight returns to its prerace value or your urine is pale and not deeply colored.

Summary

Good nutrition is mandatory to help you exhibit your highest levels of athleticism and enjoy overall good health.  Like your mom always told you, eat a balanced diet that includes carbohydrate, protein, and fat. As you get closer to your competition, the majority of your calories should come from carbohydrates (50-65%), much of which should consist of fruits and vegetables. Limit your protein consumption (12 to 18 percent of calories) to lean meats, nuts, and low-fat dairy products. Avoid saturated fats, and include healthy fats in your diet, keeping overall fat consumption to 20 to 30 percent of your daily calories. Nutrition and hydration before, during, and following an event are very personal requirements; if you stick to my 3 simple rules, you will be “ready to rock.”

1.    Experiment during training. Try a variety of sports drinks, gels, energy bars, or other high carbohydrate food to find out what helps you kick ass, thus maximizing your performance and endurance.
2.       Establish a nutritional plan and stick to it.
3.       Don’t ever try anything new during your “A” race.

For specific product information described above, or more reading check out my new book Mastering Cycling available at book stores or request a personally autographed copy from:  www.johnhowardsports.com

I was pleased to find that some questions have been asked about me on Slowtwitch, so my JHPS team went in to provide the answers.  Posters JHPSmidatlantic and GinaSport are two of my FiTTE specialists who chimed in with some history and info.  You will also find some great stories and comments from fellow posters.  Enjoy the thread, and I welcome your comments.

~John Howard
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/john_howard_at_kona_P3143113

As theTour de France meanders into the climbs and descents of the Alps and Pyrenees in the next few days, a lot of us will be testing our own boundaries where gravity is concerned. The descent is your reward for the effort it takes to climb that hill or mountain, so learning the essential skills that will bring you down safely is an important rite of passage for a competent cyclist. The art of descending is all about skill, perceived then practiced. Let’s leave courage out of the equation for now because that implies taking risks as opposed to calculating them. It is to the subject of learned skills and the preservation of life and limb that I dedicate a few thoughts about cheating gravity and getting away with it.
Any discussion of the techniques involved in descending must start with getting to know the dynamics of a particular descent. Many of the best Tour riders scout the difficult sections of a race in advance, because it gives them an idea of what must be negotiated ahead of time. As you descend, you must feel the bike and connect with it so that you are a single unit. Get in tune with the pitch of the hill, the camber, and the way it banks, then climb back up that hill and ride it again. Skill and confidence improve with familiarity.

Also consider changing weather in the mountains, the potential for road hazards, sand, gravel, dirt, leaves, and freshly fallen rocks on sharp road cuts. If you are venturing into unfamiliar terrain, assume that the worst-case scenario awaits, and avoid speeds that compromise your personal skill level. Descending requires 100 percent of your attention, so do not allow yourself to become distracted and never take your eyes off the road in front of you.

If you know a skilled and experienced cyclist who will ride with you and enjoys playing the gravity game, join him or her. Follow his lead, though not with blind abandon, and attempt to duplicate his moves downhill. Ask questions, and wait for answers. As a rule, the best line through a downhill turn is outside, inside, outside, but the quickest way down may be completely inappropriate in traffic.
The manner in which you are set up on your bike is also a factor. Triathletes on steeply angled, forward-positioned time trial bikes, need to reduce speed exponentially, as these bikes may compromise a safe descent.

A fun way to learn descending techniques is to carve cones (water bottles) placed in an empty parking lot. You can safely learn how to control and balance your bike on the flats, which will make you more adept at controlling it on descents. In case you are wondering, practicing these techniques on a mountain bike on loose surfaces translates well to a road bike. For example, sliding your weight back on the saddle, reducing your center of gravity, light feathering of the brakes, and adjusting the brake bias are skills common to both road and off-road riding.

A less common, although potentially terrifying experience for an inexperienced cyclist generally occurs when one’s center of gravity is too high and the mechanical set up of the bike is not optimal. A very sudden loss of control, which is characterized by high-speed oscillation, can be corrected with a remarkably simple action: simply clamp the top tube with the knees. It also helps to drop your center of gravity by bending the elbows slightly and sliding to the rear of the saddle.

In case you think your discomfort with gravity is indicative of your cycling rank, consider the plight of a Gianni Bugno, who won two back-to-back world professional road-racing championships in the 90’s.  Supposedly, Gianni had difficulty with fast descents early in his professional career, but he resolved the problem by listening to classical music at a largo tempo while descending on his bike. The slow, melodic music had a calming effect. As you acquire your descending skills, don’t just practice, learn to enjoy the thrill of a controlled, safe descent.

Learn more about descending and other cycling techniques in my latest book, “Mastering Cycling,” available at John Howard Performance Sports.

I was a member of the U.S. National cycling team in the mid-1970s when I staged my first bike fitting clinic. The curriculum for that clinic was a performance-based, hands-on fitting concept that evolved into a holistic solution for riders known as FiTTE.
The acronym for Fitness, Training, Technique and Equipment relies on the simple elements of functional anatomy, a contribution of our partner, Dr. Ernie Ferrel. Dr. Ferrel, an avid racer in the 1980s, used the elements of biomechanics to treat his cycling-focused chiropractic patients. FiTTE essentially addresses two critical areas of cycling: Performance tuning and injury prevention.

Kansas City-based FiTTE System practitioner Gina Poertner comments, “John and I see a lot of frustrated people who are not comfortable on their bikes. When you are looking for solutions, you need to find the most experienced practitioners. A very common problem for cyclists are knee issues, often times due to weak VMO (Vastus Medialis Obliques, a key cycling muscle in the quads), tight rotators, and issues with pronation or supination of the foot. Before this problem becomes chronic, we need to nip it in the bud quickly, and that’s exactly what we do with FiTTE every day.”

In addition to my work, based out of Coastal Health and Wellness Center in San Diego and Santa Barbara, California, FiTTE has now grown into a fully certified system with practitioners around the globe and is the world’s longest operating bicycle positioning system, established in 1982.

FiTTE clients have captured 173 national titles, 18 world titles and two Olympic gold medals. According to Ralph Walker, CEO of John Howard Performance Sports, “We are extremely proud of our accomplishments as a cycling services-based company; we can help any cyclist improve his/her performance and comfort, we lower the risk of repetitive-use injury, and we document those results for each and every client. We optimize the cyclist then adjust the bike accordingly, not the other way around.”

The PowerFiTTE Process

A two to 2.5-hour procedure, the PowerFiTTE process includes:

1. Full mechanical performance/comfort tuning based on the elements of functional anatomy.
2. Biomechanical analysis and soft tissue mobilization of key muscle groups for improved power.
3. Full user-friendly written documentation of all critical performance, efficiency and set-up data, before and after.
4. A prioritized demonstration of your key-need cycling specific stretches and/or strength exercises for improved training.
5. Full assessment and recommendations for injury patterns. Can include adjustments to bike and rider or cleat positions to accommodate.

In upcoming articles on Active.com, I will explain key elements of a successful bike fit and how the FiTTE System can help you ride pain free.

Learn more about proper positioning and other cycling techniques in my latest book, “Mastering Cycling” available at John Howard Performance Sports.