Toolbox: Self-talk has been used very successfully by both scientists and athletes to improve their performance. However, does it matter HOW you talk to yourself? Is it better to keep your talk in the first person tense or distance yourself to the second person tense?

Toolbox: There are three things that impact how well you ride in training and races: your innate ability, the difficulty of the race (course, weather, field), and your motivation. Motivation is the only one of these that you can control, so that is where you should direct your focus and energy.

Pioneer’s brand-new SGY-PM900H79 cycling power meter offers new technology for real-time and very detailed pedal stroke analysis. So while pedaling may seem like the most natural motion to cyclists, and even I rarely gave it much thought, what I learned with Pioneer's pedaling analysis was an eye opener.

Whether training or stage racing, recovery is the name of the game. Many tools and tricks have been used to maximize recovery, including the chilly prospect of cold-water immersion. Does a post-ride dip really help with cycling recovery?

Marketing and advertising has been honed into an incredibly precise science through both trial and error along with psychological studies into what makes us tick. Why not use it to our advantage and adapt marketing ideas to make us better cyclists?

Some of you may have seen a recent commercial on television from an investment company that poses a question like “….what can a hula hoop teach us about investing…”. I want to take a page out of their book and ask a similar question, “What can the stock market teach us about training and competition?” One answer, of course, is to make a fortune on Wall Street, quit your job, retire, and train all the time. Unfortunately, although that may be a correct answer, it’s not exactly the answer I’m…

If music is the soundtrack of our lives, it is also the lifesaver for indoor training. While everybody grooves to their own drummer, is there an actual ergogenic effect from playing music during intense efforts? And what can studying music and exercise tell us about how we psychologically cope with intense efforts?

We have all been inspired over the years watching John Howard win championships and set records that demonstrated a seeming invincibility. In recent months, John has had a couple of setbacks that many of us face at some point – major injury. Something noticeable to those around John is that he carries the same fire and focus when dealing with an injury as when he trains and races.

Due to falls on the shoulder and relative high speed, a common injury in cycling is clavicle fractures. Although any part of the clavicle can be broken, they most commonly occur in the middle of the clavicle. What’s the typical diagnosis and prognosis for return to cycling?