Training & Nutrition - Ideal Workout?

edit: Meant for the title to say Ideal Warmup not workout.

Can someone tell me the essentials for a proper cycling warmup, including stretches and anything else necassary. I tend to bike around for 15 mins and consider that my "warm up" lol. I learned the hard way and now my knees are all messed up.

Any suggestions?

I do the same thing.
Stretches are for during or after.

I do the same thing.
Stretches are for during or after.I can't ignore my voices. At least they haven't yet told me to save France.

I bike for between 1/2 and 18 hours. A proper warmup is at least 30 minutes of riding. You're never even getting warmed up. Weight loss and conditioning doesn't really start until the 45 minute point. And don't stretch before riding.

But what you can do is this: start off in a fairly easy gear at a slowish cadence, maybe 75. Stay in that gear, while you gradually increase cadence, 1 bump/minute, until your cadence feels a bit faster than normal, so 3-4 minutes. Then shift up a gear and repeat. If at the end of 15 minutes you are beginning to sweat, you are warming up correctly. Then continue riding!

I think it really depends what you are warming up for: couple hour endurance ride, flat intervals, hill repeats, race (then of course what type/duration of the race). The "general" rule is shorter/more intense the session is the longer warm up should be. For example for a 45 minute Crit or TT I usually do 35-40 minute warm up with a mix of different intensities and some short high intensity intervals. For a 2hour+ rides I just take it easy first few miles and then pick up intensity based on how I feel.

UD

okay, maybe me knees are hurting do to overuse?

I think it really depends what you are warming up for: couple hour endurance ride, flat intervals, hill repeats, race (then of course what type/duration of the race). The "general" rule is shorter/more intense the session is the longer warm up should be. For example for a 45 minute Crit or TT I usually do 35-40 minute warm up with a mix of different intensities and some short high intensity intervals. For a 2hour+ rides I just take it easy first few miles and then pick up intensity based on how I feel.



This.


For an endurance paced climbing ride I often take a route which involves going up a 11% grade for a mile with no warmup. I'm not going hard and I have appropriate gearing, so it's not a problem to ride without warming up. If I was going to race up it, I'd warm up for an hour.

I don't think that stretching before a ride does anything useful and according to some studies it may actually be detrimental. I do stretch, just not before a ride.

okay, maybe me knees are hurting do to overuse?

there are so many posts on this forum about knee pain. i've had it myself for about 25 days now and over that time i've only been able to ride 2 miles on my bike... which aggrevated the pain further.

in the month before it started i'd increased the intensity of my rides, but not my warmup, and i had a really inadequet stretching routine. like you, i've learned the hard way, and hope i haven't done any long-term damage.

i'd suggest doing some knee strengthening exercises and reducing your mileage if you're in pain. do a bit of reading up on the leg muscles, (read up on Patella femoral pain syndrome) it will make you pretty paranoid.. but you won't rush through a warm up ever again.

okay, maybe me knees are hurting do to overuse?

How is your fit on the bike? Was it fitted to you? Knee issues are common when someone starts to ride more/higher intensity on poorly fitted bike.

UD

I consider the first few minutes/last few minutes of cycling warm up/cool down.
I don't stretch very often. Mind you I wouldn't say that I cycle very hard.
A reasonable speed on an MTB.

Always stretch after every ride, stretching before a ride will do you no good. It only takes 10-15 mins to do a stretch routine (if even that) so there should be no reason not to stretch, unless you like injury

thanks guys,
as usual your help is much appreciated

Much Love

I think it really depends what you are warming up for: couple hour endurance ride, flat intervals, hill repeats, race (then of course what type/duration of the race). The "general" rule is shorter/more intense the session is the longer warm up should be. For example for a 45 minute Crit or TT I usually do 35-40 minute warm up with a mix of different intensities and some short high intensity intervals. For a 2hour+ rides I just take it easy first few miles and then pick up intensity based on how I feel.

UD

+1000 :thumb: