Em dezembro foi lançado um dos livros de ciclismo mais esperados em muito tempo, o manual The Obree Way, escrito pelo Escocês Voador, Graeme Obree, que ficou famoso nos anos noventa por bater o recorde da hora usando bicicletas super inovadoras.
Obree tomou de assalto o mundo do ciclismo, de um ciclista praticamente desconhecido a projetor de bicicletas e depois recordista da hora em um piscar de olhos. A história do ciclista escocês foi cheia de revés e envolveu varias disputas com a UCI, que na época parecia fazer de tudo para boicotá-lo.
Se você conhece um pouco da história, sabe que na época seu principal adversário Chris Boardman a quase 20 anos, já usava monitores cardíacos e medidores de potência, para treinar para as provas da hora, enquanto Obreee treinava na Escócia praticamente sem recursos. O que incomodava muita gente. Como um ciclista com uma bicicleta feita com peças de um maquina de lavar roupa podia ganhar do melhor contra-relogista da época que pedalava com bicicletas de milhares de dólares e treinava com toda a tecnologia disponível na época?
No livro, que pode ser comprado em seu site, ele destaca algumas de suas idéias: “Eu digo às pessoas para não terem uma rotina de treinamento, porque não sabemos como o corpo irá reagir a cada sessão de treinamento. Então eu defendo, um treino baseado em como você está se sentindo, dietas mais sensíveis, coisas como isso, ao invés de programar todo um cronograma onde você tem hora para comer, para pedalar, para fazer massagem…”.
“(O manual) É para pessoas que tem empregos, famílias e compromissos sociais…e que tem pouco tempo para treinar. O manual irá mostrar como usar esse tempo de maneira mais eficiente, ao contrário de métodos de treinamento que tratam o atleta amador como se ele tivesse disponível o mesmo tempo que um ciclista profissional para treinar”.
O livro divide o treinamento em “pequenos bocadinhos” (bite size chunks), simplificando o que as vezes pode se tornar confuso demais para um atleta amador. Assim é possível que o atleta possa focar mo que realmente interessa, para a melhora do eu desempenho.
Os capítulos incluem A psicologia do treinamento, a psicologia da preparação, nutrição, ajuste da bicicleta, técnicas de pedala e um capitulo que é descrito como A revolucionária técnica de respiração do Obree.
O livro, que garante que após sua leitura “o ciclismo nunca mais será o mesmo”, custa £30 pode ser encontrado no site do ciclista.
Apesar de ser meio desconfiado de todos os métodos que se auto proclamam como revolucionários, já encomendei meu exemplar. Em todo caso para os mais ansiosos, Graeme Obree disponibilizou o primeiro capítulo que foi publicado no site britânico Road.cc.
Abaixo está o trecho disponibilizado no site inglês (tentarei traduzí-lo para o português, tão logo eu consiga).
“The Obree Way
Introduction
When I joined a cycling club at the age of fifteen I had no idea that I would go on to become a world champion and world hour record holder. At the start I would ride about in jeans and a padded jacket and had no interest in competitive riding, captivated instead, by the thought of the next horizon.
I was fortunate that I landed in a position where I would learn a lot from the start about the two main aspects of cycling – the equipment and the physical demands of the sport. Not having loads of cash to spend meant that I had to be very hands on with old, recycled or damaged equipment but that was an excellent way to learn what you do and do not do in regard to bike set-up. I ended up involved in racing pretty quickly but at the same time undertaking huge rides through the Scottish countryside with experienced riders and that kick-started a learning process that would only continue.
Using a pre- World War 2 track machine and a combination of (then) contemporary training ideas alongside my own ideas I became Scottish Junior champion in 1983. It was an era when the concept of getting in as many miles as possible was being challenged by new ideas about speed work, interval training, strength work etc. In a vacuum of real awareness I found it necessary to employ training methods that I felt worked for me and that survived the process of logical analysis.
In the following years it would become habit for me to question every aspect of bike set-up, riding technique, positioning, nutrition and training. This led to the development of the ski-tuck position in 1986 which I used when attacking the World Hour record on Old Faithful in 1993. Those intervening years were filled with analysis of many other aspects of racing and preparation that cumulatively have a large effect on the efficiency of the cyclist.
For me that meant not only using the tuck position but also employing a lot of additional knowledge, information gained through experience, experiment and in a lot of cases – failure. The day I broke The World Hour Record, I stepped up on a bike that is now famous for being partly constructed out of a piece of a washing machine, Old Faithful, but what people did not see was the pedalling technique that maximised efficiency as well as the breathing control as best as I knew it at that time. Also not seen is the belief in my own ability that did not come naturally from my own personality but from the realisation that without using the power of the mind then it is not possible to achieve optimal performance.
Having dabbled in other sports like speed-skating and triathlon in the eighties and having experimented with alternative training approaches I developed an almost obsessive need to drill into information sources in an effort to determine ‘best practice’. This meant analysing every detail of every system some traditional and some commercial, the commercial systems of course driven by the need to sell products and services. This manifested itself in the form of absorbing as much information as I could from text books and research while at the same time not losing touch with whether something ‘feels right’.
After gaining the World Hour record and winning the Individual Pursuit title in 1993, my tuck position was banned. I had no choice but to use these very same techniques of analysis to maximise the potential of the clip-on ‘tri-bars’ that the other riders had been using all the while. The result was the ‘Superman’ position with my arms stretched straight out in front. I regained my world title using this style and it was copied with great success by other riders but it was banned soon after.
I carried on riding conventionally and using my training knowledge I won the British Time-Trial Championship in 1997 as a point of proving athletic rather than technical advantage. I have raced sporadically over the years with reasonable success and since I do not possess a car I have maintained my interest in cycling performance. Further study allowed me to enhance my breathing technique and pedalling style and I have a body of knowledge that I wish I had possessed much earlier in my cycling career.
What I put forward in this book is in effect my own modus operandi. This is a time of great popularity in the sport of cycling and there can be a bewildering bombardment of advice to trawl through, especially for those new to the sport – and much of this advice being quite contradictory. You may or may not find every piece of advice in this book useful but what I offer up is the totality of my own ways, no more and no less. I have tried to be as objective as possible but where a statement is purely opinion I have tried to make that clear. I hope the advice is of use and can make a difference to readers in some small way.
Graeme Obree 2011”
Bons treinos!
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