5 of the Biggest Cycling Myths, DEBUNKED! 

We are on the same page my mate 😃

I agree

Bro, I ordered HyperGainBeastMode and now the watts are leaking out of my ears.

yes!Agree

I think the channels achieve different purposes, and both doing their thing quite well. Let's face it, GCN's reach is lightyears beyond Dylans and to achieve that they had to get much more casual that Dylan would ever want. This also means that GCN can reel people into the cycling world (as was the case for me, GCN played a huge role there) which Dylan for sure can't with his narrow field. And now that i gained more experience i can enjoy his content for what it is. Neither are better or worse than the other in my book.

We need a study to tell us what number of friends optimises performance. The evidence will be surprising, in any case. 😂

@@fkhan98 It seems to have an inverse proportion

@@fkhan98 "Less friends", is an always-optimal life-cadence. Everyone else is a stretchy protein-basher, anyway.

hmmm....I read a few months ago that the more intelligent people tend to have fewer friends...maybe this is why lol

@@tonysadler5290 technically correct, the best kind of correct

SAME

LOL

Yes, I was going to comment on the 'I Would' as well! I would vote for putting in more of these quick, snappy little comments/interjections from BHD

I was going to post this, thanks for doing so already 😉. 4:28, that‘s meme-material right there!

@Paul Wieringa I don't know, 330 ftp at 45 for a 140lbs guy ain't bad

👍😂😂😂😂🏴‍☠️

Which likely is only helpful or relevant when you're in the prison shower.

@@hobbs2005 dude calm down 😂

me to :D

Brilliant

I almost needed to pause the video from laughing too hard.

hahahah me too

Dylan is missing the point on this myth. He should say "if you went for a 1.5 ride and you only rode for 1 hour without coasting, and the other 30 minutes where spend sitting in traffic hardly raising your heart rate. Would you count that as 1 hour?" If I ride on the trainer for 1 hour I got 1 hour of focused work done. If I go outside for 1 hour, I loose at least 10 minutes both ways getting out of the city. And for many people its even more.

with a heavy stretching session before and after?

And wearing your hat backwards 😂

You guys don't stretch during the session? Pff. Amateurs.

I occasionally suffer from foot and toe cramps in bed at night.. a 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of salt under my toungue which is then gargled with a mouthful of warm water for 20-30 secs... and the cramps go almost immediately. Surprised if it does not also apply to marathon runners cramps..

Paul Hope I’ve read articles that support what you’ve said. Soy sauce is another easy hack. Apparently ‘just the taste of salt’ gets rid of the cramp, as this is faster than the body can process the intake of salt.

Totally agree with you! 👍

I've mentioned it before on one of his videos, but stretching has HUGE implications for my performance. I'm quite young (24), but I never really took stretching seriously when I got into exercising as an adult, as a result, I always struggled to put out peak performance because my legs consistently felt like rocks, equally, I started getting lower back pain after long rides, which while I didn't have constant pain, just lingering stiffness, it was amazing how much it saps my functional leg strength. Since I incorporated stretching into my routine (mostly focusing on stretching after rides as I find stretching before doesn't help as much, and its more about keeping generally loose and improving flexibility). While stretching itself didn't result in the gains, it enabled me to consistently train harder. What I used to think was muscle fatigue was quite often just tightness. I was amazing once I was able to tell the difference, doing back to back harder sessions and races, longer rides etc; My FTP went from 270w (4.0W/kg) to 308w (4.7W/kg) because I was actually able to train properly, with reduced tightness and pain. I still get bouts where my muscles get very tight, I guess i'm just more predisposed to it, but I certainly hate this culture of dismissing stretching. It's a rubbish feeling when you go out for a ride, try riding at threshold or up a hill, and the legs just turn to rocks and say no, despite your heart rate being fine, and otherwise being recovered.

I also want to add that stretching is different to warming up. Static stretching is also a myth and a hot topic in bro science. Warming up (like 10 minutes low intensity ride on a roller or before race, or lifting at lower weights on weight lifting) is beneficial for the muscle.

Correcting posture is more about strength training than stretching. Incorrect posture is the result of some muscles getting over utilized while the corresponding muscle is underutilized. So, strengthening the muscles that are underutilized should fix posture. Though, from your description, I think you may be talking more about mobility. I wouldn't mind seeing some studies on the effects of stretching on mobility. Intuitively, I think that's the real benefit of stretching.

​@@LockeLeviathan Thanks for your input. I am talking about mobility insofar as it results from correcting bad posture and is not a goal per se (like in gymnastics or swimming) - e.g. hunched back means that you need to turn most of your trunk if you want to look behind you (limited mobility) - and streching is basically trying to move to positions that your body will not want you to go easily (extending mobility in certain positions). But it is true that strenght training is just as important. Doing only one without the other can make the whole situation worse - streching can result in an injury since shortened muscles usually overcompensate for weakened muscle groups while strengthening shortened muscles might result in making the ovrcompensation worse. But I hope I am not misunderstood. I agree with the fact that static stretching to warm up can actually negatively affect your performance in the following training session. I remember all that streching before our running sessions when I was a kid. But even back than there was some intuition that doing a shorter dynamic streching before a session is ok while doing a longer static streching before running is a dubious activity. It also depends on the problem. While you might loosen you hip flexors by strenghtening your belly, and I would be worried about strenching them without strenghtening the abdominal msucles first, it would be very hard to fix hunched back just by strenghtening the muscles that keep your shoulder blades from being in a loosened position. The shortened muscle groups are just too big and too strong for that. Usually you get some mixture of streching and strengtening, that mixture might be different for different problems.

Hey Dylan, great piece of comedic editing! On a serious note, I am a coach based in Sydney, Australia and often refer my riders and club mates to your videos. Thanks for sharing the information. A great mix of valuable information and entertainment. It must be a lot of work doing these so thanks for all your effort. Really appreciate it.

Thank you!

That almost made me spit out my coffee 🤣

@jcsrstsame here 🤣 bhd is a real gem, isn't he?

@@DylanJohnsonCycling You're using a paper that uses indoors 0m/s windspeed basing your videos. You're charlatan. Use real paper pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5553&context=open_access_etds

Someone is ALWAYS trying to sell you something, that's all you need to know.

Don't forget protein shakes!

its flawed research based. for example the indoor vs outdoor study is conducted with 0m/s airflow indoor vs 35kph full body ventilation outdoors. its just bad science.

It's youtube comment, you don't need to flex your status, or whatever. --Hanif Faris, PhD FHD 4K in Computer Monitor.

Plus it has backwards hat Dylan!

I hope one of the smart-aleck grad students reads that! ;)

How could you dis Backwards Hat Dylan without a mention? Not only are Dylan's coaching and overall cycling knowledge top-notch defying his years, he's got the smart-ass kung-fu covered strong with BHD. :)

not only traffic, teh study itself is flawed - the participans couldn't use fan indoors vs outdoors 35kph full body ventilation. its just bad science.

If that study truly included setup time, washing etc. then the myth isn’t actually a myth at all. Nothing is exact but interval training for 90 minutes is tougher for me than outdoors at 90 minutes unless the heat is super high and it’s matching the interval exactly, which is really tough to do outside with all the interferences.

" he looks like he came from puberty three days ago" 🤣

...ADROPISADROP! (drops mic)

Thank you for this! I remember learning tons about dynamic stretching and static stretching and the differences, but I started doubting myself after this video lmao.

I second that! Pls

I third that

If you just started cycling, try out all sorts of riding, to find which you enjoy the most now and which sorts you might enjoy more later, Riding regularly is the most important "training" a new rider can do and you're more likely to do things you enjoy. Otherwise ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H9SvLGv2c1E.html is a good place to start in Dylan's oéuvre. There's a lot of advice out there that worked for the person who gives it but maybe not for you - stick with Dylan, ride as much as you can, ask questions when you have them. It's a big sport, a lifelong sport, no need to rush.

If you just started, just have fun. And don't over do it, increase time on the bike bit by bit.

@@cyclingmilan Yes, Dylan has suggested that in a few videos. When you start cycling, every activity is very effective at increasing your fitness, he claims, It's only after a long period of increasing training volume and intensity - years in fact - that you need to tune your training as he coaches on this channel. In the meantime, keep training without overtraining, and improve your diet by eating more vegetables and wholegrains and reducing processed foods.

I think the stretching comments are very misleading. I've personally found huge benefits from stretching, but if I were to just stretch arbitrarily before a ride in an isolated case, it wouldn't make a difference. And I guess it also wouldn't make a difference or perhaps hinder if you are otherwise fine, though if you've been sat at a desk all day for months on end and do hard cycling, I find I become stiff as a board, and its not something that just resolves itself magically in a warm-up, or goes away with recovery..

I've wondered about this too -- stretching not for performance, but as therapy for bad posture or stress-based muscle tension.

Hi Jan, I never stretched and had a major IT band issue, worst thing ever, i'm ok now but still not stretching Can you maybe post a link to the stretch /yoga you are doing?

Stretching helps with pain. in particular if you are older and have stiff joints, it has also reduced cramping for me. I get lazy and skip the stretch before running in my case and the amount of pain in the first mile is a lot higher and the chance of a night calf cramp goes up if I skip the stretch.

ExMachina it’s called Pigeon Pose. The wikihow article is surprisingly good! www.wikihow.fitness/Do-the-Yoga-Pigeon-Pose

You need to work on your gluteus medius. It is the cause of ITBS.

hopfully you have a decent fan. I have known a few people who go crazy and didnt have a fan for indoor rides tht defintely would make them feel alot harder

They are same difficulty. The research he uses uses no Fan i.e. ventilation at all in the lab test. Read the paper. this dylan is charlatan

@@888899999888 I feel the zero coasting aspect for the trainer also can give the illusion of it being harder. but its just diffrenet vs higher power outside but coasting here and there.

@@Demon09-_- dude it's not about coasting. It's that they did not use any body ventilation in the lab. Like you know those fans, wahoo headwind, anything pops when you hear it?

@@888899999888 I think its never so cut and dry as its only ventilation making people feel like indoor is harder. But if you have zero ventilation its defintely a huge factor. And the wahoo headwind is quite the overpriced unit for what it is. But it has some nifty features

In my younger days I stretched to improve flexibility. Seems weird people not using stretching for this when, to me, it's the primary reason TO stretch.

I would have thought this also - I am a triathlete and running can leave me super stiff. If I don't stretch I'm like a hobble lady the next day and the biking is definitely impacted. I used to never stretch when I was younger but now I'm well into my 40s I find it makes a big difference to whether I am shuffling or not the next day.

Primoz Roglic in the TJV documentary for Vuelta 2019 can be seen standing straight and bending forward, keeping the legs straight, and getting his head essentially to the knees.