Best bang for buck to increase volume: increase number of workouts or increase duration of workouts?

Training
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I used to ride Monday through Friday for 1 hour, then one 3-4hr on the weekend. I switched to riding 1.5hr four times during the weekdays and 3hr on the weekend. I personally feel like it makes a difference. I was fit in both cases, but the extra half hour per ride felt like it gave a lot of bang for the buck. Schedule didn’t permit it when I was doing the 1hr weekday spins but I shuffled stuff around and been going strong for a while. Goodluck

5 Likes
22

This kind of depends on where you’re coming from and your ability to recover.

If you’re 20, unemployed, and riding only 3 days a week right now, then sure add in two extra days or more to increase your volume. If you’re 50, working full time, and already riding 5-6 days a week, then it’s probably better to extend your rides on the days you’re already riding, rather than just riding everyday.

You can ride as many days a week as you want, as long as you can recover from them. If you’re not recovering from your training, then you’re basically not training so much as flagellating yourself for fun. There’s individual variation in this, but on average people seem to do best with 1-2 rest days a week.

This ignores scheduling constrictions and other logistical issues.

2 Likes
23

Thanks, all for the thoughts. My main objective/hypothesis is that I’ll break out of my plateau by adding volume to my plan – either adding to my LV, going MV, and/or increasing some duration.

It looks like there’s a variety of ways to add volume but no “ideal” way other than to make sure I have enough recovery time and that I can fit it in my schedule. I’m going to try MV but replace the added workouts with outdoor rides where possible so I can reap the enjoyment of the cycling, not overdose on indoor training and reap the additional training stimulus of being out on the bike.

1 Like
24

As others have said you need to look at your time constraints, and based on that see what options best suit your own preferences. More than one way to get the extra volume in. Just make to avoid training monotony where every workout morphs to become virtually the same.