The NFR Cycling Podcast NFR Cycling

This episode starts with a quick reminder that the NFR Cycling Shop is open! Check out the new NFR t-shirts and accessories. The focus of this episode it about things to consider as you start to prepare for the 2022 cycling season. We reflect on 2021, reframing why we do what we do, and how to use that to guide goals for this year.







Topics include reflecting on your 2021 goals and how you might think about adjusting those in 2022. We touch on making sure you don’t burn yourself out and carving out time to “play bikes“.







Overall, we’re starting off the year looking to carry what we learned in 2021 and keep growing as cyclists, athletes, and competitors.

In this closing episode of the year, we want to thank all the listeners for their time and attention this year. We’ll be taking a bit of an off-season from the podcast over the holidays but we’ll be back on January 16th with a new episode and a new Podcast season.







As we close out the year, we’ve launched the NFR Shop and we’ll be adding some great new videos to YouTube.







Have a great end of the year, get some rest, enjoy some time with loved ones and we’ll see you in 2022 ready to ride. Until then, keep going!

Performance can be hard to break down and work with. How do you know what you should do to increase your overall performance? In this episode we talk about the NFR four pillars of performance framework. By breaking down performance into the specific categories of mental, physical, nutrition, and equipment you can understand where your strengths and weaknesses are and develop a plan of attack to improve performance across the categories.







Rob explains how the framework is set up. He identifies each category as a leg supporting performance. Think of your overall performance as a cyclist as a table top, each pillar is a leg supporting that table. If one of those legs isn’t getting the right amount of attention, the table starts to dip and become unstable.

In this episode, Rob and I talk about how breathing with more intent and focusing on your breathing can help improve performance and endurance.







We typically breathe more heavily as a result of the load we put on our bodies during exercise. There are ways to train your breathing and pulmonary systems more directly, we highlight and discuss a few of the ways to do that.







Equipment







AirofitThe worlds first smart breathing trainer.







Resources and Links







Respiratory Muscle TrainingSpecific science validated, cycling focused exercises. The mind behind the PowerBreathe device.







Breathing For Warriors  – Belisssa VranichTargeted breathing exercises and the benefits of “circumferential” breathing for athletes and high performance individuals.







Breath – Belissa Vranich Belissa’s first book with an introduction to circumferential breathing. She also references a lot of other breathing modalities







The Oxygen Advantage – Patrick McKeown  







The Breathing Cure – Patrick McKeown







Conscious Breathing – Anders Olssen







Breath – James Nestor







Breath to Perform – Jay Bidler







Breathology – Stigg  Severinsen

Rob recently went out and rode the Grizzly 100 Mountain Bike race. In this episode Rob breaks down the race, his performance, and his result. We talk about how his preparation worked and a few surprises thrown his way on race day.







In the news, we talk briefly about Wahoo SYSTM and the evolution from Sufferfest to SYSTM. Stay tuned for a deeper dive into SYSTM in future episodes.

Rob recently had a thought provoking experience around some of his own beliefs after seeing some data from other riders compared to his own data. What we think and believe about ourself shapes and influences our actions and performance. It’s important realize your biases and not let them limit you. Using objective and empirical data can help break you out of a self limiting narrative. In this episode Rob and I discuss our internal narratives and techniques to break out of self limiting beliefs.