How to get back to riding faster.

When it comes to getting better and faster on the bike, there are two important parts: the workout and the recovery. What you might not know, though, is that you actually get better during the rest time after your workout.

As athletes and busy people, most of us don’t have a hard time getting that part of the workout done. Instead, we could do a better job of making sure we get enough rest and are disciplined during our healing.

So, here are some real ways to speed up your recovery after cycling, which will help you train more regularly and, in the end, perform better.

Don’t forget to drink water

When a biker is dehydrated, their blood volume goes down, their digestive system doesn’t work as well, and they can’t sweat as much as they should. Staying wet during your workout and after your workout is very important for a good recovery.

Take a sip or two from your water bottle or hydration pack every 10 to 15 minutes while you’re riding to stay hydrated. Start drinking as soon as you get on the bike, and try to keep it up for most of the ride. Using an alert on your bike computer can help a lot with this, and most GPS devices let you set an alarm to go off at certain times to remind you to drink.

Even though your ride is over, it’s still important to drink fluids, especially if you lost fluids during the ride. Keep drinking water or a drink with electrolytes in the hours after long or hot rides to help your body heal as quickly as possible.

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Getting on the scales before and after your ride is a quick and easy way to figure out how much fluid you’ve lost during your workout and how much you need to put back in.

Slow your ride down

If you’ve ever seen a great cyclist after a long race or training ride, you’ll know that they often cool down by spinning their legs on a turbo trainer. This is for a good reason…

When you stop riding too quickly after a long or hard workout, your muscles and blood can still have a lot of metabolic waste. This waste stays in your muscles and blood after you stop riding, slowing your rate of recovery. A good way to avoid this is to slowly bring the body back to a state of rest in the last 10 to 15 minutes of a real workout.

You could do this by getting on the turbo trainer as soon as you walk in the door, or you could just spin for a few minutes at the end of your ride while you are still on the road or trail.

Studies have shown that finishing a hard workout at a low intensity helps you heal better and also changes how hard you think the ride was as a whole. This makes you mentally ready for another hard ride sooner.

Use the magic window to your advantage

If you eat as soon as you can after a long or hard training practice, you can speed up your recovery by a lot. The study shows that there’s a magic window of about 20 to 40 minutes after a workout when your body is most open to and good at taking in those calories.

This is important because you need the food to replace the glycogen stores in your muscles that you used up when you worked out and to give your muscles the protein they need to heal from the damage you did to them. Even though you’ll often see bikers and other endurance athletes drinking a shake after a workout, this isn’t always necessary. Regular food will also work.

If you choose solid food for your immediate healing meal, though, try to make sure you get a good mix of carbs and protein (ideally in a 3:1 ratio) and drink some water. Choosing carbohydrates with a high glycemic index (i.e., those that enter the blood quickly) right after you eat will help speed up this absorption. In the hours that follow, you can switch back to eating foods with a lower glycemic index.

Using a shake can be very helpful if you know you won’t be able to get a good meal right after your workout.

Use tools for recovery

There are a lot of tools and devices out there that were made just to help people get better.

One of the best and most popular of these is a foam roller, which is a quick and easy way to get rid of muscle tightness and knots in the quads, hamstrings, calf muscles, and lower back. They are light, easy to carry, and simple to use, so having one on hand is a good idea.

You can also use muscle stimulators after you work out. Even though stims are mostly used to help people recover from injuries by recruiting new muscle fibers, many of them also have a recovery mode that sends light electrical signals to the muscles to make them slowly pulse, like when you go for a light bike ride or get a massage.

Compression is a method that isn’t fully backed by science but has been shown to help people recover. Compression works by improving blood flow, which, in theory, helps to reduce muscle soreness and get rid of metabolic waste products that build up during hard training. There are a lot of compression clothes on the market, so it makes sense to grab a pair of tights and see if they work for you.

Optimise your sleep

Lastly, good sleep goes hand in hand with good healing and is the basis for how quickly you can get back to normal after a hard workout.

If you don’t get enough sleep, your stress hormone Cortisol will rise, which will hurt both your workout ability and your recovery after a ride. You’ll also be more likely to get sick and find that your brain abilities aren’t as good as they should be.

Some of the best things you can do as a cyclist to get a good night’s sleep are:

making sure you have a regular bedtime and sticking to it;
avoiding caffeine and other stimulants in the second half of the day;
trying to finish your training well before you go to bed;
making sure your bedroom is set up right for you (e.g., a cool temperature, a bed you like, etc.); and making sure your bed is comfortable.

Even though it might be tempting to sit in bed after a hard ride, try not to use your bedroom as a place to hang out. Instead, only think of it as a place to sleep.

If you can, taking a nap in the middle of the day can also help you recover, but you should try it out to see if it affects your nighttime sleep.