Viewing 40 posts - 281 through 320 (of 567 total)
  • The training mega thread
  • Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    @sbtouring Alcohol is probably the only easy win in dieting, so knock the crazed lockdown booze sessions on the head if you can.
    Other than that IDK – the how of dieting is never that interesting, it’s the psychology of how we can flick the switch and commit to weight loss that is the big deal. Like it feels easy when you’re on it, impossible when you are not. So I think it’s more important to try and manouevre your mindset into this place then try and fight a diet if your head is not there at the moment. Don’t know how you’re dealing with lockdown but laying on weight loss goals might not be helpful if you’re finding it tough in general.

    If you’re being literal saying racing weight then 1 stone over this in winter would be normal for an amateur, so it’s more like you’re 1 stone overweight than 2.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    @ernie – when I was usign TR regualrly, I felt that the ramp test was quite inconsistant and much more reliant on mentality than the 8 minute test. I also found all their ‘encouraging’ text really annoying! On a dumb trainer I found that changes to cadence to match power messed me up too; probably not an issue if you have a smart trainer that is changing resistance for you.

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    I might try moving my Monday session to the Tuesday as 13thfloormonk recommends, not this week though as I don’t want 2 days off the bike. Yesterday’s exercise was sledging with the kids so not really the training I should be getting in 😋

    As for the singlespeeding for strength and endurance. I’ve been riding around where I live for years so should be able to pick the hills and trails I want to do so not to overdo it. I’ll have to see what that actually looks like though whilst using a heart rate monitor this week 😬.

    I’ve changed my rims on my road bike so that can come out to play once the snow is away and temperature is consistently above 4 degrees. 🤞

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    mark88
    Full Member

    Reducing food intake kind of helps at first, but then i always feel ran down, exhausted and prone to picking up a cold.

    Currently over 2 stone heavier than my racing weight. My power numbers have never been the greatest, and the extra weight is making it even harder than it should be.

    I know riding more will help, but don’t have the greatest amount of spare time to do so. Usually turbo trainer 3 times during week and get out on bike on Saturday morning and the occasional Sunday

    You’re doing plenty of exercise regardless of the sedentary job. I would advise having an honest look at your diet. Couple of beers a few nights a week, biscuits with your cuppa, friday night takeaway etc. It’s easy to think you’ve got a decent diet until you realise how much surplus calories these bad habits add to it.

    I really struggle resisting the cravings for chocolate or biscuits. I’m going to use lent to try and completely abstain for a while. Did the same with dry Jan (and haven’t had a drop since).

    13thfloormonk
    Full Member

    Reducing food intake kind of helps at first, but then i always feel ran down, exhausted and prone to picking up a cold.

    I struggle with the food intake, during the week I can keep it pretty honest, but annoyingly one bad day at the weekend or just having a miserable run at work makes it very easy to crumble and undo all the good work.

    Dylan Johnson (sorry, I’m becoming a fan-boi) talks about what SORT of food you’re eating, focus on low calorie density stuff e.g. fruit and veg. I’ve substituted chopped nuts in my morning Skyrr for chopped banana, same calories but more filling (nuts are shockingly calorific!).

    Lunch is quite often some mini-Carrots, sugarsnap peas, maybe some chicken breast or even just a weight watchers chicken cup-a-soup. If I’m really going for it, I’ll do courgetti-spaghetti instead of proper pasta, it gets less depressing the more often you have it, I can almost convince myself it’s as good as the real thing now! Lots of salad is good, especially if you have it as a starter or chop boiled eggs over it.

    Re: booze I’m just trimming it back, I’ll mix 0.0% beers with ‘real’ beers, and buy mini bottles of red instead of full size bottles, I found I was always having a large glass of red on a Monday just to finish the bottle.

    Am still struggling to get much below my normal weight of 85kg, I’ve been that weight for so long it feels like my body just doesn’t want to budge!

    sbtouring
    Free Member

    Thanks for the replies guys.

    I like a drink, but the drink doesn’t really like me. So nowadays its maybe one beer or a small glass of red wine a week if that. Find alcohol really affects my sleep, so don’t really bother these days. So can’t really blame that.

    Do like a cake and biscuit, but try not to go crazy. Maybe a food diary would help??

    Hardest part is, I can loose 2 to 3kg but it takes several weeks to do that. Then something gets in way of exercise like injury, work or just general life and all the hard work is gone in a few days. Weight goes back up and usually more, constantly feels like 1 step forward and 2 back.

    mark88
    Full Member

    My Fitness Pal app is great. Just scan the barcode and add the portion of everything you/eat drink.

    I don’t bother trying to adjust calories to compensate for exercise etc, I just try to be mindful and keep an eye on the scales. I’m 2 weeks into a training plan but scales haven’t moved so I clearly need to reduce my food to start moving some of this winter weight.

    I used to do it every now and again to check I was on track. Now I’ve got a good idea of what my calorie intake on a standard day looks like I don’t bother tracking.

    sbtouring
    Free Member

    Just tried that my fitness pal app. Maybe I do eat a bit more than I thought I did 😳 always thought I was pretty healthy and not eating too much.

    Also need to cut down on the amount of coffee I drink. 2 sugars in each cup doesn’t help! Only had 2 cups so far, but usually have a few more in the afternoon.

    longdog
    Free Member

    MyFitnessPal is the key for me, you really see where you are ‘wasting’ calories too. 2 packs of crisps that add up to 260cals could be 3 bananas or apples, a good omelette, or some cooked chicken and veg for example.

    Also if you can look at less calorific versions of the foods you do like to eat ( maybe less fat/sugar) then psychologically you’re eating what you like, not changing your whole eating preferences, to say quinoa and crudites! I can’t tolerate sweeteners at all, so I’ve pretty much cult out any sweet stuff other than the odd treat or drink mix on a ride.

    As said above substitute or add lower calorie bulky food to fill you up and give fibre to slow the stomach emptying.

    You’re always going to find cutting the calories will leave you a bit empty, but if you’re feeling as bad as you suggest then maybe you’re just cutting out too much?

    If you’re not too far from your ‘ideal’ weight you probably only want to be losing 1lb a week max, may be less as you get there (if we are actually talking racing weight bf levels). If like me you’ve got a long long way to go then a couple of pounds is fine initially, but will need to slow down as you approach your goal.

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    Another vote for MyFitnessPal here.

    It can also show you where you have gaps in your calorie intake. For example, when I used to commute on the bike I never realised how many calories I was using so was under eating during the day which meant I was hungry in the evenings so eating before going to bed.

    Also when I do endurance cycling 3-4+ hours I sometimes don’t feel too hungry after. Which is when I should be getting the good food in.

    Edit:- Apps like Strava, Garmin Connect and pacer auto synch to it so it means I sometimes get extra calories for dessert 😋

    13thfloormonk
    Full Member

    You’re always going to find cutting the calories will leave you a bit empty, but if you’re feeling as bad as you suggest then maybe you’re just cutting out too much?

    I felt a bit manky for the first couple of weeks when I really started watching what I was eating, by which I mean cutting out the daily junk a bit, basically the body going cold turkey on vast amounts of sugars and processed carbs.

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    Sugar and processed carbs 🤤

    longdog
    Free Member

    Fair point on the cold turkey! I was thinking of the amount of coffee and sugar mentioned too.

    I have a friend who’s trying to kick his 2l a day diet coke habit and he said the first week was awful.

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    What training for a 40+ bloke who has a habit of obsessing over things and has zero patience 🤔

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    VO2 interval session tonight

    Did this one:

    As this one is only 20 minutes, I might do it tomorrow.

    boxelder
    Full Member

    What training for a 40+ bloke who has a habit of obsessing over things and has zero patience 🤔

    Free FTP Builder plan on RGT would be a good start. One of the flat courses, Canary Wharf or Borrego Springs is always free to ride for the intervals and the longer sustained efforts can be done up a hill, if you’re planning training indoors.

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    Cheers boxelder, I’ll take a look.

    mark88
    Full Member

    FYI if anyone is interested, Chris Kilmurray (coach to Reece Wilson, the Seagraves, Greg Callaghan etc) has answered a Q&A on his instagram story which I’ve found useful.

    Keep in mind he coaches DH and enduro athletes, following key points I took from it.

    – “What’s best” is determined by goals, strengths, weaknesses. If you’re not sure then a straight forward polarised approach is best.
    – Virtual trainers are great for consistency and high intensity sessions but “be aware that as a mountain biker home trainer sessions won’t prepare you for all of the pedalling demands of your discipline”.
    – Following the online training templates are better than nothing but not optimal

    For turbo training
    – Regular low intensity sessions (45 mins+, 4/10 effort). Progress time and frequency, not effort
    – 1-2 high intensity sessions per week. Something like 20s hard, 40s spin x4-6. “Add reps to sets before adding more sets and aim to get to a point where you recover fast between max efforts and aren’t afraid of multiple sets”. Work up to 9-12 mins total time at high intensity.
    – Warm up well. Drink. Be mindful of breathing and posture.

    Gym work
    – “Training off the bike should fill buckets your on bike training can’t”
    – Avoid things (e.g. instability or using bike parts) that claim to make an exercise more specific. In reality it reduces ability to overload the exercise to drive the adaptations you want.

    whitestone
    Free Member

    @yanboss – is that study the same as the one that appeared on this forum a week or so ago asking for subjects to participate in an intervals study? Couldn’t follow that one up as the link they provided didn’t work. A good start!


    @ferrals
    – the ramp test is weird and like you say probably more mental than physical, I’ve done maybe eight and only really felt I’ve done it properly twice. Go back a page or two and I noted that I had a 20% drop in FTP just because my head wasn’t in it and I bailed way too early. I’m “meant” to have one today but I’m fairly certain that I’ve not changed since my last successful one so I’ll be doing a VO2max workout instead. I’ve a few workouts that I know how I perform on and use to tweak my ramp test results anyway.

    sbtouring
    Free Member

    Always remember doing ramp tests in uni labs. Much easier to get to end and push yourself as much as possible as others were there watching, so always wanted to go as long as possible and do the best effort.

    However when trying it on turbo by myself, I just find I bail out early. Get to a point and think whats the point of suffering so much. Very mentally difficult.

    Think that is one of the reasons I have poor ftp results. Just don’t seem to like suffering on turbo. But put me in a road race and I can go very deep suffering all race and then come out with a good result

    ferrals
    Free Member

    @sbtouring – exactly same as me re the ramp test, I kind of get to a point that my brain says ‘well your more or less there, may as well stop’ and its really hard to push past that. It’s why I’m going for the zwift races at the moment, I don’t have motivation otherwise and I can start thinking of structured training in a couple of months when I’ve ‘raced’ myself out of a bit of a lockdown related funk and have an idea of whether there will be a cx season.


    @whitestone
    , I’ve not done one ramp test when I haven’t thought I could have maybe gone a bit harder – I normally end up editing my ftp by a few watts to compensate. Don’t remember having that feeling when it was the 8 minute test!

    sbtouring
    Free Member

    @ferrals thats probably what I need to do to push myself. I have an old turbo with powermeter, but its not a smart one so can’t get onto zwift (or similar). Been after one but getting hold of one is difficult and the price increases have put me off as I can’t really justify buying one.

    ferrals
    Free Member

    I don’t have a fancy turbo, just a really old basic one, and just use my power meter for zwift. I can imagine the experiance is better if zwift is changing the resistance based on gradient, but in terms of a good blast, just trying to keep up on a crit style race is fun

    r8jimbob88
    Free Member

    Does anyone have any advice on fuelling for early morning rides?

    I currently ride pretty much every day, straight out the door at 16:00 and back around 18:00 during the week.

    Last year I mostly used to ride before work each day from 6:30 – 8:30 and eat breakfast when I got back and I’m thinking about doing the same again. The difference this time is that I’m following a training plan and a couple of these early morning rides are pretty intense interval sessions.

    I’m planning on a having a quick espresso when I get up (to wake me up a bit….) and then take a carb heavy energy drink with me and maybe an emergency gel. Does this sound sufficient? I’ll then have a proper breakfast when I get back.

    I’m worried I’ll suffer death by bonk…? I don’t fancy eating anything substantial before I go out as I won’t have time to digest it enough.

    Any pros / cons to this approach?

    robbo1234biking
    Full Member

    Pack of clif bloks or similar with one between each interval? I use this for pre-breakfast workouts on the trainer so should also help you (and an emergency gel as well!)

    ferrals
    Free Member

    I tend to go for a bowl of muesli just before bed then a coffee and a banana first thing as I head out

    whitestone
    Free Member

    Changing tack slightly – here’s a couple of videos from Trainerroad, they are starting a series chatting to various researchers and experts, firstly on the effect of heat on performance

    If you don’t want to watch the whole video (it’s 1hr16mins long) there’s a set of links in the expanded description to all the sub topics. The discussion about rectal probes at 26:30 is interesting!

    Second video concerns recovery and carb intake, not listened to this one yet:

    speedstar
    Full Member

    Without even watching the video I can state that starting to cook on the way up the Col D’Izoard in the Etape du Tour meant my power output just went down and down and down. Very difficult to hydrate in 35C+ heat! Also you can’t really train for that in Scotland or you wouldn’t want to anyway!

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    Snap!

    I live in Scotland as well and really struggled climbing the Croix de fer on the lower slopes as it was 30+ degrees. As the heat subsided a bit as I climbed, I then had the altitude to deal with, again, hard to train for in the UK.

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    I find my turbo in the garage at the moment to be rather warm, not sure I’m going to like doing it in the summer. 😓

    13thfloormonk
    Full Member

    I did a few turbo sessions with a fleece on in the summer in preparation for a trip to Girona. I think it is accepted that you can train (a little bit) for heat adaptation.

    whitestone
    Free Member

    @didnthurt – do you have decent fans as part of your setup? By decent I mean something that will blow medium sized towels around.


    @13thfloormonk
    – part of the discussion concerns how long adaptation lasts, seems like you get 2 days’ acclimatisation for every day training for it though I assume there’s a minimum number of days. They talk of riders having done ten days’ training and seeing the benefits up to twenty days later.

    The other point they make is that there’s a big difference between heat and humidity.

    longdog
    Free Member

    After the great melt up here in Shetland the shed is getting a bit warm even with door open and no top on. I was sweating last night with associated hr rise on an hours z2 session. 5c today!

    I do have a big office fan I usually put on for intervals over Z2 as I seem to be particularly acclimated to the cold, probably partly due to my winter swimming as much as anything, but when the summer temperature get to 13-15c here it’s top off weather. Bikepacking trips sooth to mainland Scotland in 2018 had me and my mate feeling like we were in the Sahara LOL!

    whitestone
    Free Member

    @longdog – you need a fan like one of these – https://www.cleva-uk.com/products/vacmaster-air-mover

    Ideally you should have this sort of airflow:

    dog

    longdog
    Free Member

    Cheers. Tbh mine does do when its on and the shed door is open. It’s only arms reach away and directed to my torso. Had thought of cutting a couple of vents into the shed, to help through flow as the one window doesn’t open

    didnthurt
    Full Member

    I’m too tight to buy one so will just either:
    a. Embrace the heat
    b. Strip to my pants
    C. Ride outdoors

    I’m totally new to this properly structured training with strength, recovery, HIIT and sweet spot sessions along with proper stretching/yoga post ride. I’m quite excited to see how I progress. I’m really feeling good in myself this week so fingers crossed it’ll carry on.

    I would love to have a proper coach along with lab work, nutritionist etc but the cost is way above what I can afford and what my meagre power output deserve.

    whitestone
    Free Member

    Embracing the heat isn’t a good idea, it makes bearable workouts unbearable and the ones that are normally on the limit of being unbearable completely impossible. After a bike and a turbo, a (good) fan is the no1 item for indoor training, I reckon my figures would be 15-20% lower if I didn’t have the fan I linked to.

    Proper coach? Yeah! I’d like one too but it would probably involve selling off body parts. There’s a big thread on the TR forums about the Dylan Johnson video I posted above and the comparison between a generic plan and one provided by a coach is made. (It also discusses ad nauseum the merits or otherwise of polarised vs threshold/ss plans) The main thing you’ll get from a coach is the conversation based on your feedback of the provided plan: a good coach will adjust things based on your strengths and weaknesses, speed up or slow down the progression, etc. With generic plans you’ve pretty much got to do that by yourself.

    Basically, and to be brutally honest, most of us are trying to do this on the cheap!

    longdog
    Free Member

    Just measured my pedestal office fan that I’m ‘looking after’;16″ 💪 and eyeing up the shed wall with the jig saw 😁

    I usually keep zwift going through the summer to some degree so I might as well get prepared now.

    13thfloormonk
    Full Member

    I’ve largely managed without a fan (good thing too, it’s tiny and the accumulated grime on the blades is probably slowing it down a fair bit) but I do my turbo sessions just inside the garage with the door wide open. Not unusual to be in all my best summer riding gear but with thick merino socks and gloves!

    Felt great on a completely unstructured ride outdoors this evening, had been pretty low all week with some low grade back pain which I couldn’t decide if I should ride through or just cosset.

    In the end I took a couple of doses Iburprofen + paracetemol to take my mind off the back pain and then had a great ride, got quite a few PRs on punchy wee climbs despite being on the winter bike. Might just have been the extra slice of cake I had before going out, or the fact I’d left the water bottle at home…

    What is the consensus on Ibuprofen vs. training? I’d read and been told that it would negate the benefits and adaptations of a good session, which has been as good a reason as any for me to wean myself off painkillers, but then if it snaps me out of a chronic-back-pain funk then overall there has to be a benefit…

    longdog
    Free Member

    Vitamin I during training is a no no really from everything I’ve read and heard. Your body/kidneys are already under stress when doing endurance work (think rhabdo) and it just puts more stress on them. Apparently patches or gels are best applied directly to the area of issue.

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