Fit for Life III: Improving Your Athletic Maturity

By Coach John Hughes

Mature is a much better word than old, senior, etc., don’t you think? Although my chronological age is 67, I’m on Medicare and I’m eligible for Social Security, I think of myself as having acquired 43 years of athletic maturity since I started riding in 1975. I’m not old! I’m athletically mature!

Athletic Maturity looks at total body fitness and is a way of gauging how well you’re taking care of yourself, slowing the inevitable physical decline that comes with chronological aging. How well are you Squaring the Geriatric Curve? (Click the link to read my first column in this series.)

Ken Bonner, age 74, is a great example. This year Bonner rode four 1,200 km (745 mi) randonnées (Cascade 1,290; Colorado High Country 1,200; Rocky Mountain 1,200 and the inaugural Manitoba 1,200). This gave him a lifetime total of 53 1,200+ km randonnées! Bonner has also run over 179 marathons!

Athletic Maturity (AM) also takes into account your athletic history. The more athletically mature you are, the less training you need and the faster you recover.

Bonner’s AM is so high that he doesn’t need to train a lot for all those 1,200 kms, and he recovers quickly enough to do four in one year!

In my second column in this series I suggested that you take the Athletic Maturity quiz. You can use your results to answer this week’s Question of the Week and compare yourself to other roadies.

RBR Contributors’ Athletic Maturities

Here’s how five RBR contributors rate our Athletic Maturities:

Athletic Maturity

Footnotes

* John Hughes: In 2015 I turned 66 so my goal was to climb at least 66,000 ft. of Colorado passes and other major climbs and I was only allowed to count the first ascent. Climbing during regular rides didn’t count. I actually rode 39 climbs totaling 80,100 ft.

• Total miles: I don’t log miles because I do so much climbing and mountain biking, both of which are low-mileage activities. I rode 108 days for 197:40 hours. I also XC skied 90 days for 146:15 hours. I gave myself half-credit for the skiing, so my total aerobic hours were 270:40
• Longest ride: Climbing Mt. Evans (14,265′) 30 miles and 3,470’ took 4:30.

** John Marsh: This wasn’t a normal year for John, owing primarily to an injury (a crash and clavicle surgery in April) that kept him off the bike for a lengthy period and still limits his ability to use the affected shoulder. Like me, his biggest day on the bike this year was a climbing day with about 6,500 feet of climbing that took 5:06. For the parts of the AM test he couldn’t complete, he dropped in numbers from his workouts in a normal year.

Improving Your Athletic Maturity

Here are five ways that you can improve your athletic maturity starting this winter:

Family First: When I was coaching John Marsh to come back from his broken collarbone he skipped a few workouts and shortened others to accommodate his family, which still includes a very busy teenager. Fred Matheny writes, “My wife, Deb, and I have been riding a tandem a lot the last dozen years and I put in almost half my yearly miles with her.” My wife, Carol, and I walk several mornings a week and XC ski together all winter.

Consistency: Year-round consistency is the biggest factor in improving your athletic maturity. In mid-November I chatted with Ken Bonner, who lives in Victoria, BC, Canada. Bonner’s annual mileage goal is to ride 30,000 km (18,641 mi.) with a total elevation gain of 250 km (820,209 ft.). He said then, “I am a little over 26,000 km (so that means a big push riding in bad weather to make the 30,000 km annual goal). The total elevation gain looks to be more achievable (currently 224 km.)” Bonner is working on a short article for RBR on what keeps him riding long at the ripe age of 74.

Each of the above RBR contributors exercises year-round. Jim Langley writes, “I’m working on my 23rd year of riding every day. Of course, it’s darn hard to find a good excuse to take a day off when you live in Santa Cruz, California. If the weather is really bad, a trainer ride counts for the streak.”

Fred Matheny, who lives in Montrose, Colorado, writes, “I still ride outside as much as possible, hike, walk and snowshoe.” Sheri Rosenbaum writes, “[My weekly] hours vary by season since in Chicago you can’t do long rides on the weekends in the winter, plus it gets dark early. So with that said, Spring-Fall 18+ hours. Winter 11 hours.”

John Marsh lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where the weather allows year-round riding. He writes: “Winter is our rainy season, though, and it does get cold and nasty enough at times to keep us inside. I take advantage of those days to do non-bike exercise. I prefer my elliptical machine to a trainer, and I like to do core and some plyometrics on those days, too. Hiking on occasion with my wife is another enjoyable year-round exercise.”

I live in Boulder, Colorado, and ride on the road year-round. Depending on the season, I also mountain bike, hike, XC ski and snowshoe. My goal is at least 10 hours every week.

Full-body workouts: We also do full-body workouts. Coach Fred: “I’m currently transitioning from my spring through fall lifting routine of once or twice a week of light weights or bodyweight and a few exercises like pushups, bench rows, etc. Now I’m starting my winter routine of deadlifts, weighted dips, squats, bent rows and a few other movements as the spirit moves me.”

Like Fred, I also lift weights year-round. Right now I’m doing ski conditioning and transitioning to XC skiing, and in the spring I’ll do exercises to transition from XC skiing to riding. During my main XC season and riding season, like Fred, I do lighter exercises to maintain strength. We live in the country and I also fell trees, haul logs and chop and carry firewood — darn good full-body exercise.

Variety adds fun: I started as a roadie in 1975 and have ridden consistently since then including very high volume years racing ultra-distance and leading cycling tours. I get bored just riding on the road — that’s why I love mountain biking as a challenging different way to have fun (not to “work out”).

Half of Jim’s weekly “workouts” are coaching a table tennis team 10 hours a week. John walks his dog nearly every day and enjoys hiking. He continued his mini-golf dominance over his teenage sons in two rounds last week on Thanksgiving break!

Variety keeps us having fun. Having fun keeps us motivated to stay active. And staying active keeps us healthy and fit.

Healthy lifestyle: We each live a fairly healthy lifestyle, as you can see from each of our Body Mass Indices. We still give ourselves permission to enjoy holiday food and other indulgences, within reason!

New Winter Cycling Bundle & Additional Resources

Now is the time to practice consistency, work on full body fitness and living a healthy lifestyle. To help you do this, we are releasing a new Winter Cycling Bundle today, which includes:

1. Year-Round Cycling, 15 pages covering 1) goal-setting and planning; 2) training; 3) clothing and equipment; 4) nutrition; 5) technique; and 6) motivation.
2. Productive Off-Season Training, 27 pages, which include two different 12-week programs. The article includes six types of workouts, all of which contribute to improving your athletic maturity: 1) endurance; 2) cross-training; 3) intensity; 4) trainer; 5) strength and 6) flexibility workouts.
3. Gaining a Mental Edge, 17 pages. Winter is the time to start dreaming and planning for 2017. The article covers how to select events, set goals, define objectives and plan for events. The article also teaches you in more detail the specific mental skills I’m covering in my On the Rivet series of columns (part 2 is next week: Titled “Don’t Choke,” it’s about using the skills of focusing and relaxing to perform well instead of the opposite).

Don’t overlook nutrition and its vital role in your daily life. By eating a healthy diet you’ll have more energy and vitality and slow the normal processes of aging. My 31-page eArticle Healthy Nutrition Past 50 (which also applies to younger roadies) covers daily nutrition (carbs, protein and fat) and micro-nutrients (vitamins, minerals and supplements) and describes what to eat for weight management.

This holiday season, practice the five points above, especially Family First and Variety (having fun)!

John Hughes

Coach John Hughes earned coaching certifications from USA Cycling and the National Strength and Conditioning Association. John’s cycling career includes course records in the Boston-Montreal-Boston 1200-km randonnée and the Furnace Creek 508, a Race Across AMerica (RAAM) qualifier. He has ridden solo RAAM twice and is a 5-time finisher of the 1200-km Paris-Brest-Paris. He has written nearly 30 eBooks and eArticles on cycling training and nutrition, available in RBR’s eBookstore at Coach John Hughes. Click to read John's full bio.