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Wenzel Coaching Newsletter Late Winter 2010
Greetings!

Ever wondered if an ice bath might enhance your recovery? Check out Coach Nitish Nag's article this month on Cryotherapy and see if this recovery technique might work for you. This month we also feature a primer on off-road cornering by dirt specialist Coach Martin Baker. Read for dirt cornering speed!

As always there are the Tip of the Month, Resource and Quote of the Month as well as Client Successes. We welcome your email input always. 

Happy training and racing!
~ Kendra Wenzel, Scott Saifer, and the Staff of Wenzel Coaching
In This Issue
Cornering on Dirt
Training Tip of the Month: Eliminate Heart Rate Monitor Spikes
Quote of the Month
Resource of the Month: Wenzel Coaching Lifting Exercises on YouTube
Featured Article: The Benefits of Cryotherapy
Beginner Cycling Skills and Fitness Class
Cornering on Dirt
by Coach Martin Baker
With cyclocross and short-track mountain biking increasing in popularity, many riders new to off-road riding are entering races relatively unfamiliar with cornering on dirt, mud, and other slippery surfaces. (Snow and ice, anyone?) Some come from a road background, while some come with no experience in a competitive, high-performance cycling environment. What they have in common is being uncomfortable with the sensation of bicycle tires moving around and sliding under them. This is quite understandable, because those who have experienced tire slid, or "drift," on the road, probably recognize it as that feeling they had right before they crashed. Road tires don't like to slide, and when they do, a crash is almost a given. New dirt racers may also have difficulty selecting the best line through a slippery corner or be unwilling to try new lines as the course evolves during a race. And they can find using the brakes effectively on a slippery surface to be daunting. For many riders, this adds up to tentative cornering, slow exit speeds, and wasted energy re-accelerating out of the corner.

Training Tip of the Month: Eliminate Heart Monitor Spikes
If your heart rate monitor strap is not in extremely good electrical contact with your chest, it will generate spurious measurements as it rubs or bounces against your chest, giving artificially high readings on most monitors, or causing the monitor to "hold" on the last good number it had, even while your heart rate has risen or fallen. This is particularly a problem on cool, dry days when you won't make enough sweat to establish the contact, and on windy days when a loose jacket flaps against the strap, making it bounce against your chest. The solution is to improve the chest-strap contact, first by making sure the strap is tight enough and then by adding a contact enhancer. At the doctors office they use "contact jelly" with ekg machines. "Personal lubricant" (one popular brand is "KY Jelly") from the pharmacy aisle of the super market or drug store is essentially the same stuff. Put a good sized dab on each contact patch of the strap and the strap will maintain contact even as it shifts around or bounces a bit. Rinse the strap after each training session to avoid a messy build up.
Quote of the Month
"Everyday before you go to sleep, ask yourself one question. Did you do you every single thing you could today to make sure that you did your best?  It's hard to answer yes every single day."

~Apolo Anton Ohno,
Six Time Olympic Medal Winner
Resource Repost: Wenzel Coaching Lifting Exercises on YouTube
We receive many inquiries about the form of the weight training exercises each month. This is just a reminder that Wenzel Coaching has posted videos of the weight lifting exercises on YouTube.  This is a great resource to check out your form and make sure you are doing the exercises correctly. As always, if you have a question about a specific exercise ask your Wenzel Coach. When you check out the link, you'll also notice that the videos are posted on the Wenzel Coaching Channel on YouTube. New Wenzel Coaching videos will be posted here in the future.

The websites found in the "Resource of the Month" are in no way associated with Wenzel Coaching and we are not responsible for any information they contain.

Client Successes

Wenzel Clients had 7 victories and 15 top 3 finishes this month


Ian Hacker
-1st at the TBF Racing XC Opener, Junior Sport Men

 

Leia Tyrrell

-1st at the Cherry Pie Road Race, Women Cat 1/2/3

 

Erica Mikesh

-1st in the CA Cyclocross Series, Women Cat B

 

Caitlin Scheder-Bieschin
-1st at the Cherry Pie Junior Series Race, Junior Women

 

Dylan Drummond
-1st at the Cherry Pie Criterium, Junior Men 13-14

Cara Bussell

-1st at the ASU Sun Devil Criterium, Women Pro/1/2

-1st at the Avondale Criterium, Women Pro/1/2

-2nd at the 4th Annual UA Criterium, Women Pro/1/2/3

-2nd at the Flapjack Flats 20K TT, Women Cat 1/2

 

Gabe Varela

-2nd in the criterium at Valley of the Sun, Men Cat 2

 

Leigh Lewis

-2nd at the Cherry Pie Road Race, Women Cat 4

 

Emily Breslin

-2nd at the TBF Racing XC Opener, Junior Women


Ryan Potter
-2nd at the TBF Racing XC Opener,Junior  Expert Men



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Featured Article: Enhancing Recovery with Cryotherapy
by Coach Nitish Nag

The ice-bath recovery technique has been in the culture of performance sports for many years. Few up and coming racers use this technique, and professional athletes that use this technique do not know the scientific efficacy of the technique. Here is a review on the subject with the latest information and what you should be doing to ensure maximum recovery following race days or extremely hard workouts.

In the more recent studies conducted on acute cryotherapy (acute meaning between sets of a single exercise session), there seems to be a distinction between the type of exercise task given and the performance benefits of the cold water immersion. For power tasks like rock climbing and endurance tasks like cycling there is a statistically significant benefit of the treatment, while in a speed application such as a 30 second maximal cycling effort, there is a negative effect on performance from the treatment. Generally speaking, it is not completely conclusive whether or not the ice bath is guaranteed to improve performance in exercise circumstances. Basically, you will not be taking an ice bath in the middle of your century, so this does not really apply for most endurance athletes.

Quick Links
 
Beginners Cycling Skills and Fitness class starts March 15
 Have a friend or significant other who wants to learn to ride but you don't have the patience to teach them? Send them to Coach Scott Saifer's Beginners Cycling Skills and Fitness class.

More Client Successes

Steve Banta
-3rd at the Vulture Mine TT,
 Senior Men 5

Matt Dion
-3rd at the CCCX MTB #1,
 Expert Men Under 18


Coach Nitish Nag
-5th at the TBF Racing XC
 Opener, Pro Men
-Leads 4 clients to the
 podium at TBF Racing XC
 Opener

Ian Pierce
-At 18 years old gets his
 first top 5 in an Elite race

David Thorton
-Upgrades to Cat 3 in
 CycloCross


 

Missing your results?
We do our best to publish all the results we receive, but if we don't know what you did, we can't tell the world about it. Did you have recent results that we didn't publish already? If so, please send them to our newsletter editors. We publish top-3 in any event, completion of endurance events, top-5 in national events, any substantial goal reached (weight lost, training pace increased, personal best for a course...)