Cycling Training Books To Improve Race Performance

Whether you're looking for a great gift for a cyclist or simply wanting to read about ways to maximise your racing performance: Nothing beats a good cycling training book to help inspire you to better racing performances.

Featured below is a selection of fantastic books on cycling training principles and techniques to really help maximise endurance cycling performance.

The information below should help you find the right book whether you're looking for the best way to structure your racing season, an instruction manual for training with power or simply looking to maximise your cycling strength in the gym.

Periodization has long been a key word in a cyclist's training program and The Cyclist's Training Bible focuses on planning a riders training year to really maximise performance gains. Author Joe Friel has put together a comprehensive guide to planning your racing season, creating training schedules, as well as focus on recovery, resistance training and other contraindicative factors to help your next season be your best.

The Cyclist's Training Bible offers a self regulatory approach to endurance cycling with ample opportunities for performance and skills testing and an emphasis of planning the training year. A must have book for all road cyclists.

Power is a big training tool for many cyclists and has slowly made it's way from the upper professional echlelons of the sport and trickled down towards the competitive amateur levels. Bike racers want to do well no matter what their performance level.

Authors Andrew Coggan PhD and Hunter Allen have a supreme level of knowledge in the field of power training and have put together a comprehensive guide in the form of Training and Racing with a Power Meter to help cyclists and triathletes focus on race performance.

The authors provide great insight into both using a power meter and the important post training analysis. Power training is not just about the numbers you see on the screen while riding and with the assistance of this book you can really help to use your power meter to it's true potential to help you achieve yours.

If you're looking to get the maximum out of your gym workouts or are a Sports Science student looking for a great explanatory book on cycling muscles then Cycling Anatomy by Shannon Sovndal could be a great read for you.

Cycling anatomy showcases the muscles we use cycling and provides detailed illustration of the muscles used while sprinting, cornering, climbing and descending with breakdowns of the key exercises to help you get into key condition for racing performance.

Many cyclists find themselves baffled by science when they often simply wish to go out and ride their bike. However put in the right context you can use scientific advances to help your cycling training progress to higher levels.

Max Glaskin's Cycling Science: How Rider and Machine Work Together is a great text that helps to explain the wonders that account for speed and fitness. The book itself is written by answering a large number of cycling questions based on the subjects of the fundamentals of cycling, strength, stability, bicycle materials, the application of power, cycling aerodynamics, and the human factor involved in performance.

This is a great book for the curious cyclist that wants to expand their mind.

If you're a Sports Science student with a love for cycling it always makes sense to choose some cycling training books which are also applicable to other sports too and potentially do not have a cycling focus.

Sports Training Principles by Frank Dick is an excellent resource for any sports science student or budding multi-sports coach. It focuses on providing a detailed understanding of modern sports training principles while emphasising the anatomical, physiological and psychological aspects of peak performance.

Sports Training Principles goes into the athletes training year in depth with references which cover most sports from power related to endurance based and therefore provides an excellent source of reference for the developing athlete or budding coach.

Do you feel these cycling training books can further help you push forward your performance?

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Many thanks and happy reading

Liam Hallam (CyclingFitness)