Stretching Guidelines

• Use passive stretches unless you have been shown the correct method and have good reason to use another style of stretch.
• Focus on what you are doing and make sure you feel the stretch in the correct place.
• Increase the tension of the stretch
• You should only stretch warm muscles
• Do a short aerobic warm-up before beginning your stretches.
• After exercise your muscles are warm but stretching will be safer if you don't stay outside in cold conditions.
• Watch yourself in a mirror or practice with an expert to check your posture.

How to
The safest method of stretching is passively (don't force) placing a mild but steady force on your muscle. If the force continues to be applied, and providing it is applied slowly and always to a point before any pain in the muscle is felt, an inverse stretch reflex comes into play and the muscle relaxes and can be stretched further. It is not necessary to stretch further once the inverse stretch reflex has kicked in. Stretching should always feel mild and comfortable, this is an area where pain does not equal gain.
It usually takes about 10 seconds for the inverse reflex to be felt.

Normalising - stretches should be held for at least 10-15 sec's.
Development - stretches should be held for 30-40 sec's.
Development stretches increase your range of movement, R.O.M.

Caffeine

• Can help in the breakdown fat as it increases the rate that fat is used as a fuel during exercise.
• Caffeine has been shown to improve your fat metabolism towards the end of long steady ride rides.
• Keeping in your aerobic range is important so you don't start to use your glycogen store.
• A word of warning, as with a lot of things, more is not always better as over use can cause heart palpitaions and habitual use can reduce its effect.

Remember there are many more ways to loose body fat but the one constant is hard work.
Massage

Is considered an important element in a pros cyclist's/athlete's recovery programme. But does it realy help? To maximise performance you need to fully recover from the previouse training session before further stess can be placed upon the body's phyiological and mechanical systems. Over the past few years sports massage, different from remedial massage, has re-emerged as a recovery method intended to hasten recovery from exercise, enhance the feeling of relaxation, (mind and body), prevent post-exercise muscle soreness and subsiquent performance.

In a professional cycling team a massage therapist is seen as valuable a member of staff as a physio, nutritionist or medical doctor. It's not just massage either. Teams go to great lenths to ensure their riders can recover from the stresses and strains of each stage of a multi stage race, as well any knock and bumps they may recieve when involved in the countless tumbles that happen during a high speed race. Massage, one of a few legal ways of faclitating recovery.