Are You Tough Enough?

Military training is all about pushing to the limits of exhaustion while executing life-and-death decisions. Here, battle-ready riders break ranks to share their secrets with Dr Josephine Perry

- Josephine Perry

A VO2 max test takes us all the way to total exhaustion — in theory. But as soon as we’ve recovered, we find ourselves suspecting that there may have been a little more in the tank. Did we really need to stop? Well, there is one group of riders who never have any such doubts. They know with absolute certainty that they can and will push themselves to true exhaustion. They are military riders — and there is a huge amount we can learn from them.

Years of training in planning, decisionmaking and coping with psychological stress endow services athletes with the ability to push themselves to the limit. Here, we speak to navy, RAF and army personnel who share nine of the training secrets that have made them high achieving and super-gritty bike racers — all principles that we can put into practice. Are you tough enough? It’s time to find out.

1 TRAIN FOR RESILIENCE: MAKE IT HARDER

Coping with the tough stuff is what the military excel in. Operatives’ resilience is built up so that when they suffer a setback, they can find their way round it. This is essential for racing cyclists too.

Dominic Micklewright is a professor of sport and exercise psychology at the University of Essex who, prior to entering academic life, spent 10 years in the Metropolitan Police and seven years as a submariner and diver in the Royal Navy. He saw how the military develops resilience in their personnel through adversity training.