What's best for getting into shape?

[William Crowell]

(1) a longer, harder ride every few days; or

(2) a shorter, hard ride done every day; or

(3) some other regimen?

[Lou Holtman]

Recover from the last ride before you do your next.

Lou

[Tom Kunich]

Longer moderate effort rides gets you into shape. Short, hard efforts does NOT improve shqpe but improves your ability to sustain hard efforts. I find that I get into century shape by simpy riding centuries a week and two before a century.

[Tim R]

You might look into the Furman plan for running marathons. My brother and I both used it successfully, he took an hour off his marathon time one year.
Injuries mean I can no longer run, and it's been a while. There's probably something more specific for biking anyway. But as i recall the Furman plan required one long run, one tempo run, and one speed workout per week. Ah, here it is:

https://www.furman.edu/first/wp-content/uploads/sites/168/2020/01/The-Less-is-More-Marathon-Plan.pdf

[AMuzi]

In his Competitive Cycling column, "Ask Captain America", my
roommate at the time, Rich Hammen was asked if it's better
to train with long slow distances or repeated all-out sprints.

His answer for the ages was, "To win, sprint long distances."


Riders are different and their expectations/goals are
different as well.
--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

[Tom Kunich]

Using long tempo rides you automatically increase your speed up to your normal physiological limits. Your upper limits cannot be increased because that is a genetic factor, All you can do is learn to ride harder for slightly longer before the physical limitations force you to slow and recover.

[Frank Krygowski]

It might help if you told us your objectives. There are various ways of
being "in shape."

And as I understand it, training tends to have fairly specific results.
As an example, training to improve your sprints won't necessarily
increase your ability to ride long distances comfortably.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[Mark Cleary]

On Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 1:25:51 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
> On 5/26/2022 9:52 AM, William Crowell wrote:
> > (1) a longer, harder ride every few days; or
> >
> > (2) a shorter, hard ride done every day; or
> >
> > (3) some other regimen?
> It might help if you told us your objectives. There are various ways of

> being "in shape." 't

>
> And as I understand it, training tends to have fairly specific results.
> As an example, training to improve your sprints won't necessarily
> increase your ability to ride long distances comfortably.
>
> --
> - Frank Krygowski

Mixing things up helps as one could get in a situation where just long distance riding and not able to red line if needed. I don't train for anything other than pizza, beer, ice cream, and ect but was once a marathoner with a goal. I ran my best doing longer intense runs but not long slow distance. However if I wanted to be a true 10k or 5k running I needed to stop running marathons they will take toll on the legs. My guess is cycling is probably not different. The exception will be if you do a lot of climbing in the mountains. That is a different animal and it helps to weight about 125 pounds. I am at 169 not horrible but way past the age of serious climbing goals.
Deacon Mark

[John B.]

What is "getting into shape"?

The ability to ride long distances? The ability to ride very fast for
short distances? Some combination of the two?
--
Cheers,

John B.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

Intensity, intensity, intensity. That gets you in the best shape fastest. Go as hard as you can. If you can only go hard for 10 miles, then do it and then stop. Repeat the next day. After awhile you will find yourself able to go hard for 20 miles. Then 30 miles, then 40 miles, then 50 miles. Intense hard efforts also increase endurance. And best of all, you can do the long endurance rides at a fast pace. Long, slow, medium rides, runs, etc. are a waste of time if your goal is to improve performance. They help burn a few calories. That is all they do. You have to push and stretch and force your muscles to do more than they did last time to improve. Improve meaning stronger, faster, quicker. If your goal is to be medium, mediocre, average shape, then sure do lots of medium long rides. 6-12-18-24 months you get into average shape. Congratulations. You're average.

[Rolf Mantel]

Yesterday, I did a ride together with my son, the watch said "now keep a
20 hour rest phase". this morning, I was going to work really slowly.

[Lou Holtman]

Just finished a 2,5 hr ride with an average power of 180 W. If I ride tomorrow it will be a recovery ride AKA ice cream ride.

Lou

[William Crowell]

Both Frank K. and our resident native American visionary John B. Slocum wrote: 'It might help if you told us your objectives. There are various ways of being "in shape."'

Answer: to be able to do a ride with Joerg and keep up with him.

Russell Seaton wrote: "intensity....". I think you are on to something there, Russell.

Weirdly, I am finding that the more weight I lose; the stronger I seem to feel; and the more training effect that I feel: the LESS RESOLVE I have to stay in the saddle when climbing steep hills, without getting off to rest! I wonder what that is all about? I am getting tired of this "getting off to rest" baloney, and am hoping that it is just a training phase I am going through.

[William Crowell]

P.S.: My granny gear is 35 inches. I am strongly of the opinion that that is low enough, and that it would be a Terrible Thing Indeed if I had to get a lower one.

[Tom Kunich]

If you did 180 watts I shiver to think about what I did. I averaged a meager 12.6 mpjh though half of the way was into a strong headwind.

[Tom Kunich]

Back wnen I could climb fast it was NEVER out of the saddle. All that does is tire your out and keeps you from spinning circles on the hard parts. Riding out of the saddle usually means you're carrying too large a gear or have too low a cadence.

[Tim R]

I interpreted "getting into shape" to mean basic health, rather than specific performance on the bike.
Is the goal to use the bike to maintain fitness (that's what I do) or to get really fit so you can ride better?

[Tom Kunich]

On Friday, May 27, 2022 at 5:51:38 AM UTC-7, William Crowell wrote:
> P.S.: My granny gear is 35 inches. I am strongly of the opinion that that is low enough, and that it would be a Terrible Thing Indeed if I had to get a lower one.

The low gear I've been running is about 37" and I actually prefer a 42 or so because the low gear makes it nearly impossible to start again and clip in if you have to stop. ( the crank moves too far in the time it takes to move your foot over to the pedal) While my cadence in a climb is normally pretty low I occassionally kick it and carrying a 42 have moved to a cadence of 60. On the flats my normal cadence is now 80 or so.

[Tom Kunich]

I ride to maintain a level of fitness in whicH i can do a 37 mile ride with 3300 feet of cimbing in 3 hours or less. At the moment I would take closer to 4 hours.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 5/27/2022 11:11 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
> On Friday, May 27, 2022 at 5:51:38 AM UTC-7, William Crowell wrote:
>> P.S.: My granny gear is 35 inches. I am strongly of the opinion that that is low enough, and that it would be a Terrible Thing Indeed if I had to get a lower one.

> The low gear I've been running is about 37" and I actually prefer a 42 or so because the low gear makes it nearly impossible to start again and clip in if you have to stop. ( the crank moves too far in the time it takes to move your foot over to the pedal)...

Wouldn't the solution be to upshift a bit just before you stop?

--
- Frank Krygowski

[Roger Merriman]

My Gravel bike is 26in which will is certainly handy for steep off road
climbs and so on, though my my vestibular system is significantly damaged,
I always did have good balance so setting off on a hill etc is fine, to set
off.

Certainly very handy last Sunday for a few miles of steep road climb,
followed by arguably MTB rocky roads to the summit, where line choice and
well applied torque, with body position matter!

Roger Merriman.

[ritzann...@gmail.com]

On Friday, May 27, 2022 at 7:51:38 AM UTC-5, William Crowell wrote:
> P.S.: My granny gear is 35 inches. I am strongly of the opinion that that is low enough, and that it would be a Terrible Thing Indeed if I had to get a lower one.

The gear, gear inches, you use is irrelevant. The only way to measure is speed. How long it takes you to ride X distance. Or climb Y height over Z distance. Your gear choice is simply about efficiency. The human body is most efficient at certain leg rpm. Use a gear that allows you to maintain a good rpm up the climb. Whether that is higher or lower than your current 35 gear inches is irrelevant.

[William Crowell]

The human body is most efficient at certain leg rpm. Use a gear that allows you to maintain a good rpm up the climb. Whether that is higher or lower than your current 35 gear inches is irrelevant.

Right. I intend to get in good enough shape that I can really spin that damned 35 up the steep hills!

[Roger Merriman]

Unless your very sensitive, to gaps in cassettes I’m assuming you have a
fairly small/tight cassette. Very little to loose by having a wide cassette
my Gravel bike has 11-34 cassette which with a 32/48 chainrings will get me
up road climbs well into the 30% mark, plus the gears to pedal the down
generally.

Roger Merriman

[Sir Ridesalot]

One of my MTBs has been converted to a drop-bar dirt road bike with bar-end shifters, a 28-38-48 crankset and a 9-speed 11-19 teeth cog-set. I find it very nice to ride on the gently rolling hills where I can shift into the ideal gear.

I do have another drop-bar MTB that has a 32 teeth cog along with a 24 teeth chain-ring for the steeper hills.

Cheers

[Roger Merriman]

My old MTB is a 1-9 set up as london is largely flat! And the triple just
annoyed me on the commute. As it’s often quite heavy do sometimes get
between gears and I have pondered maybe tighter cassette but then I do use
the lowest cog to grind up over the flyover etc.

Or possibly reduce the chain ring but then I do occasionally use the higher
cogs so on the whole left it be as it’s a minor compromise for what it is.

Roger Merriman.

[Sir Ridesalot]

Yes, it can be quite challenging creating the best gears cogs/chain-rings combinations to get the best gears for certain terrains but also for best shifting.

When I bought my Campagnolo Veloce 9-speed compatible crank-set, I decided to get the triple as I figured that possibly later in life I might really wish I had the lower gears that the inner 30 teeth chain-ring gives.

Cheers

[Roger Merriman]

My gravel bike has fairly decent low gearing 32/34 the MTB is slightly tall
geared with 26/36, the old MTB well london is flat so no worries really
with hills bar bridges!

Roger Merriman

[funkma...@hotmail.com]

On Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 9:52:27 AM UTC-4, William Crowell wrote:
> (1) a longer, harder ride every few days; or
>
> (2) a shorter, hard ride done every day; or
>
> (3) some other regimen?

It depends on your goals, "getting into shape" is a bit nebulous. Much of it depends on your specific physiology as well. Some people respond well to shorter interval-style work, whereas others respond better to long steady* distance (aka LSD) rides.

If it's simple weight loss and/or overall health, A balance of long steady rides with some intensity works for most people, thought there is a great deal of research that shows focusing on intensity (HIIT, Tabita, etc) gives nearly the same benefits without the time commitment, especially for a 'recreational' athlete. However, interval-style workouts do require a couple of things: you need to have a healthy heart, and you should have some level of decent base fitness since intense workouts like Tabitas can result in muscle injury if there isn't already some strength involved. IOW, a 60+ couch potato shouldn't be doing hill repeats until they have a decent amount of aerobic base in their legs.

If the point of the regimen is to become competitive, or even just to keep up with a weekend warrior ride, consider using what's knows as a "polarized" approach, which involves ~ 80-90% of ride time in the low aerobic range (~70% LT) with the balance being interval training (over LT). There's also a lot of data showing a "pyramidal" plan works just as well, which throws in some LT work, though the vast majority is still done well below LT.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/does-polarized-training-really-work/

The point of polarized or pyramidal training is to coerce the metabolic pathways to burn fat at higher intensities instead of glycogen. The typical human has generally 60-90 minutes worth of glycogen but many many hours of fat (even really skinny people). While concentrating on intensity may get you fitter quicker, it will also plateau quicker. The aerobic base work is critical for getting past that hump. Bear in mind that the intensity will burn your glycogen stores faster which leads to exhaustion quicker, therefore if you haven't trained the fat-burning pathway to provide energy for higher intensity levels, you won't last nearly as long on those group rides (If that is your goal).

Given the age demographic of this forum, it would be remiss to overlook the importance of rest and recovery. Your point 2) above might not be achievable given the recovery requirements as we age. I used to be able to commute to and from work everyday. As I've gotten older, I've taken to leaving my car at work and riding home, then riding in the next day. Rest and recovery are _just_ as critical to developing fitness as a regular training regimen.

However, the biggest point of all here is to enjoy the activity. If long steady distance bores the shit out of you, it probably wouldn't be very beneficial and would see more gains in both fitness and attitude by concentrating on intensity. To the extreme, if cycling in general isn't very motivating and you'd rather play Raquetball, then play Raquetball instead. Not only will your fitness improve, but you'll have a better attitude about getting on the bike when the mood strikes you.

*Notice I wrote 'steady' and not 'slow'. "slow" is a relative term, meaning slow for _you_, but it's more important that you maintain a steady pace for these long endurance rides.

[Tim R]

On Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at 10:18:17 AM UTC-4, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
attitude about getting on the bike when the mood strikes you.
>
> *Notice I wrote 'steady' and not 'slow'. "slow" is a relative term, meaning slow for _you_, but it's more important that you maintain a steady pace for these long endurance rides.

Like jogging vs running.
Jogging is your speed or slower. Running is my speed or faster.

Thanks for that link.