On Tour de France days, It is not uncommon to marvel at the many exhibitions that professional cyclists perform: great speeds in ports with large slopes, massive sprints, speed stockings in very long stages and the amount of kilometers they do for three weeks without hardly recovering. Idolize them/is allowed, however, Compare or try to imitate them/the is a mistake in which cyclists of different categories usually fall, And here we leave you some of the factors that differentiate us from each other:

1. Dedicate the 100% of your time to improve your performance. They have more time to train, more time to recover and also enjoy greater resources for this. The training of each cyclist must be adapted to their available time and also take into account the time and recovery means available before performing the following training, that are not the same as the amateur cyclist.
   
   
2. Competitions are different. We have a tendency to want to make great volumes, And we associate the maximum of "the more kms" to a better performance. But nothing is further from reality. Professionals carry out competitions of more than 200km and link several days in a row in stages of 5 y 6 hours a day. We must not try to imitate their training volumes, but to analyze the competition and the category we are preparing and train according to that objectiveor and taking into account the availability that we explained in point 1.
   
   
3. Training intensity will always be relative to our thresholds and therefore the main difference lies in the amount of intensity training that we are able to assimilate.. We are probably capable of doing a high-intensity workout similar to what a professional does., But we will have to see the cost it will have on our body and how many days we would need to do high intensity training again unlike them..
   
   
4. Precisely in recovery and other factors included within what we call “invisible training” we also find differences. In general, They have access to a masseuse whenever they need one, They plan their diet based on their objectives and have tools that help speed up recovery. And all this added to the rest, well as we said before, except the time they invest in training, The rest can be invested in rest., something that greatly differentiates the performance of one athlete or another.
   
   
5. And finally let's talk about talent. They are the best in the world and their capabilities are above average.. This helps them train and assimilate greater amounts of training at a lower cost.. The absolute intensity they tolerate and can produce will always be higher than that of the average cyclist..

Therefore and as a summary, A professional trains more hours (due to availability and the needs of his competition), at similar relative intensities (but with the ability to assimilate and repeat them more times) at higher absolute intensities (since they have better conditions at base) and all this accompanied by a context (that of the professional) that facilitates and allows them to live for and for cycling performance.