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2012. New resolution, new goals. It’s time again to get back on your bike and into some serious training. The long merrymaking of the year-end holidays has ended and the rush to get back in shape for the new racing season has begun says Coach Ramlan Abdul Latiff of Precision Cycling.

The new year is upon us and I have been receiving emails from my new clients with their race schedules for 2012.  I work with many different types of athletes involved in diverse disciplines including road cycling, cyclocross, triathlon, duathlon, marathon, and most of the major collegiate sports.  After reviewing my new client emails and filling in my calendar with their events I noticed that all of them wanted to improve on their performances from 2011.

Happy new year to all you xinqiwen.com readers, I hope that all of you have had an enjoyable festive season and are all geared up for the coming 2012 season. In this short article, I will be telling you what to look out for during this base training phase - most of you should be going through this now. If you haven't started your training, do not panic! Better late than never!

While many of us still dream of sprinting like Mark Cavendish or time-trialling like Fabian Cancellara, few realise that it's near impossible to achieve the  same level of elite performance as what these two produce (and what other top Pro's produce for that matter!). Unless seriously training to earn that elusive pro contract, it’s not feasible to follow a program that they use.

Eating the other guy's lunch: A good friend of mine recently told me that being a successful bike racer is all about eating the other guy's lunch (follow his quest to become a pro cyclo-cross racer on proorbust.com). We love cycling because it involves tactics along with supreme aerobic conditioning. In cycling the strongest guy doesn't always win but the smartest does. My buddy is right, you can be the fittest person in your race or group ride but do very poorly if you aren't thinking clearly while out there. That means exploiting the group dynamic in your favor.

Weeks have gone by and you are getting slaughtered in the local group ride. You feel more like a pawn than a real player in the game of the gladiators where only an attacking, cunning and ruthless cyclist wins out. You have had enough of that! Time to dig in, hunker down and get tough. But now what? Now that you are ready to start dishing it out, exactly what is the best way to prepare for the day of battle, the day when you can proclaim the field as your subjects, and not be subjected to what is dealt your way.

We're at that time of year when many riders are in the midst of racing season and are training hard. The key to continued high performance and success is not only training hard but having a recovery plan: the often neglected portion of training. We speak to Ramlan Abdul Latiff at Precision Sports Training to ensure you have the best advice to make sure you're back in the saddle and recovered as fast as possible.

After a hard day’s training ride, most people just want to get off their bikes and move on to their next to-do list for the day and forget the very important transitional process of recovering for their next training session. Unless you are riding purely for leisure, even so, doing the recovery processes will greatly aid your next training or racing session. I hope the three areas that I’ve selected will help improve your performance.

Our local coach Zhang chats with our readers and offers three ways to recover faster from injuries.

Are you training as hard or harder than your buddy, and not seeing the same gains in fitness? Is it that he or she knows something you don't? Perhaps they sleep longer and more thoroughly. Perhaps they know what and when to eat recuperative foods. The training stimulus is only 1/3 of the equation. Without the proper diet and plenty of sleep your training gains will be minimized. When we nail all three requirements we get maximum returns on our training investment.