Adiankur

Im not really training to compete in anything, but mainly to extend my ride distance and speed for my personal enjoyment. I started riding, just under 3 weeks ago. Started off with 15 miles and have worked up to 70 as of yesterday. I normally lift three times a week, but havent been because I have enjoyed cycling so much. I will be starting again shortly, with short rides couple with lifting on a particular day, though I plan on not riding on days when I do legs. I have a few questions.

1. should I have a day that I take a break from everything? Just plain rest so that my body gets a day off. currently, I have had one day off a week just by accident, but wouldnt if things hadnt gotten in the way.

2. Should I only push myself on rides once or twice a week? 50+ miles with a solid pace

3. How does recovery work with cycling. Im used to lifting, running, and elliptical in gym. I often do a rather bad job of recovery. Its one of my biggest weak spots in my workouts.

4. Does it matter when you eat after workouts?

5. anyone have a link to some good articles or advice?

Agabinet

At 48, I've been lifting and training for years and years. I won't bore you with my personal stats, I'm in good shape, I studied this stuff for a long time (from an amateur standpoint) and finally gave up heavy lifting 'cause I refused to eat enough to get big anyway, and the research says that training is specific, so it's great for vanity and not much else (trained cyclists who do leg workouts don't improve their cycling, according to the research, for example).

Anyway, just my two cents, but:

1. should I have a day that I take a break from everything? Just plain rest so that my body gets a day off. currently, I have had one day off a week just by accident, but wouldnt if things hadnt gotten in the way.

--your muscles grow when you sleep (HGH is secreted in deep sleep). Recovery is very necessary after truly intense weight workouts, if you don't give the tissue a chance to rebuild, you won't grow. If you get your muscles to the point of failure in a workout (necessary to stimulate growth) they usually need 48 hours to recover. I used to do two a day workouts, but even then only six days a week! I overtrained.

2. Should I only push myself on rides once or twice a week? 50+ miles with a solid pace

-- no opinion -- I'm not experienced enough of a cyclist. Track your performance, though, I'd say. Keep track, and alter one variable at a time. Hold everything the same, do the same rides, same pace, keep track of speed, heartrate, average cadence, energy consumption. Record for a week. Then do the same thing, but take a day off -- record everything, try this for several weeks and see what happens. Then alter a different variable and see what happens.

3. How does recovery work with cycling. Im used to lifting, running, and elliptical in gym. I often do a rather bad job of recovery. Its one of my biggest weak spots in my workouts.

-- I think every exercize requires recovery time, but how much and when is very individual.

4. Does it matter when you eat after workouts?

-- immediately after a weight workout the optimum menu (or so I read recently) is simple carbs (even jelly beans) and protein. The sugar is needed to transport proteins to where they're needed (I don't remember the physiology exactly any more); protein uptake is also optimized during what "they" call the "golden hour" -- one hour after your workout.

5. anyone have a link to some good articles or advice?[/QUOTE]

-- there's tons of literature out there on this subject.

Ari

late

I would take a day off after you do leg work in the gym. You only do one really tough ride a week. Recovery rides are just gentle ambles through the countryside.
There is a glycogen window that lasts 20 min after exercise. Your body will replace glycogen 3x the normal rate. Eat something that has starch and protein.

Adiankur

calorie wise, gram wise, what is a good amount in that 20 minutes? grams of protein, grams of carbohydrate, total calories?

normZurawski

My answers - remember this is just one guy's perspective:

I think you should break 2 days from everything, or at least ride *really* easy 1 day and 1 day off.

I would mildly push yourself every week, and push yourself a lot more once every 3 weeks.

You need to recover. You can do back-to-back hard days but then you need ample recovery. If you do medium/relaxed riding then not much recovery needed more than sleeping well.

It matters a lot when you eat. High GI carbs with some protein in the 2 hour window after a workout helps for me. Note that this is for longer work, not a Wednesday night hour long ride. Baseline is 1g carb/lb body weight. Try to spread that over the 2 hours. General aim is 4:1 carb: protein though I'm not sold on that ratio, personall. I eat Endurox, plain bagel, corn flakes, grape nuts, rice milk, breads, pasta, rice in various combinations. Endurox always immediately after though. I tend to eat about half my target in the first half hour, then top off from there. At the 2 hour mark I eat a solid meal, being health aware about it.

Plenty of articles online. More than can be reasonably linked.

Also, weight lifting has not been shown to help cycling. But if you're not balls-to-the-wall focused on an event, it might be for you.

Adiankur

Yeah, I have no plans to be a world class cyclist. I enjoy it, and want to get better, but still want to lift at regular intervals. I may, at some point, become a cycling maniac, but working up to a 100 miles and feeling confident about it, is enough for me. I just want to do it right by knowing the best recovery methods and such. No point in wasting hard work by doing a lousy job of recovering.

ericgu

1. I think it's much better to work harder a fewer number of days and rest/recovery ride on the others. Your body gets better during recovery, and you need to have it that chance. It also helps mentally.

2. Most pros train with periodicalization, which is a fancy way of saying "increase load for 3 weeks, then back off for a week, then start again but at a higher initial level" (I left a lot of details out there). They also have different phases of the year, where they do different things. You need a training book like "the ultimate ride" to explain this in more detail.

3. Recovery will make a huge difference, simply because you cycle for longer than most other activities (few people run three hours in a row, but many people here do that multiple times in a week). Food for fitness is a pretty good reference book.

4. Yes. And during workouts.

5. Well, the books I referenced are a good start.

late

Basically, we are talking a snack. They make overpriced drinks that wil do the trick.
But you could make a fruit shake easily (cup or two of soy milk, banana, mixed frozen fruit, maybe some protein powder. It could be a sandwich, pretty much anything that you can wolf down quickly.

Ericgu meant to say Periodisation. It's tough to pull off if you've never done it before. Actually, if you follow a training schedule designed for you the results can
be really, really good.