I am just starting to ride again after several years. I used to be able to ride for about 2 hours per day, and then swim for an hour or two per day. Now I am lucky to be able to ride even a stationary bike for 10 minutes! I would love to be able to get back on the road again but don't want to burn myself out. I've heard I should ride a few times a week and alternate with other forms of excercise to get my body fit. I have alot of lower body strength but have trouble with upper body strength. Does anyone have suggestions on what kind of excercise I should do on the days that I don't ride? (weight training?) My main focus will be on riding but I want to achieve total body fitness, not just build on my lower body fitness. Also, my stationary bike seems to be alot harder to ride than my actual road bike. (Legs start burning real fast) Is this a bad way to start out?

Ride offroad when you arent' riding on the road! :) Mountain biking works your upper body much more than road biking. However, constant offroad riding whips the tar out of your body. Oh, and i like crunches ... :beer:

Sprint

I have always included pushups in my work out. They seem to be good cross training for everything and you don't need any equipment, As in on a business trip. Pull ups are also good but require a bar to grab on to.

Is your stationary bike adjustable? If so is it set too hard? Other than that and it is boring compared to being out side actually going some where I don't know why it would be harder to ride than your real bike.

Also just build up your actual bike riding.

HTH
Joe

Well a few comments here.

On the wind trainer, you talk about your legs burning. That can be from a) setting the resistance too high or b) just hammering too hard. When you are on a bike, it is not hard to figure out that you are working hard because you are going fast. You don't have that feedback on a trainer and it can be easy to push too hard and go anaerobic. You might try getting a heart monitor. That way you will know how hard your workout is.

Bicycling will give you a good lower body workout. But work outs are highly specific. You can be a strong cyclist and not be able to walk well or run. If you do even a short walk and jog on your off days, that will make a big difference in that area.

I suppose the best training for would be swimming. Swimming is aerobic training and it is mostly upper body and that dovetails well with cycling that is aerobic and lower body.

Of course, weight training is good also and you can work mainly on upper body. For just general fitness, I would do relatively lighter weights and more reps and sets. Doing much in the way of strength training will produce more weight and weight is a bad thing for hill climbing.