Best training path

Hi,

This has probably been addressed before, but i have some question on which path i should take on in terms of training plans.

For the past 3 years i’ve spent a lot of time on spin classes at the gym. I went down from 105Kg to 67Kg. I got to a point where the training didn’t seem to do much results. The structure was always the same (more of a HITT training style), and i was stuck to the classes schedule provided by the gym.

So i decided to buy a smart trainer and train at home. Question: I don’t plan on doing any race at all (i don’t even know how to ride a bike outside :slight_smile: ), and most of the structure at this website is based on preparing to a race.

What would be the best strategy for me? Doing SSB + Build and repeat?

Thank you.

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Some additional information that i forgot to mention.

My current objective is to mainly improve my fitness and how my body looks. I would like to in the long term transform some fat that i still have (even though i’m down to 67kg i’m extremely week in terms of muscle, and i still carry some fat) to muscle.

My current FTP is 223.

Lots of trainer road users have never raced and have no intention of racing, so please don’t think you are alone! Indoor training is a great way to get fit even if you don’t have any real ‘bike’ goals, especially if you mix in a bit of strength work (there’s a good trainerroad youtube video on strength training).
Sweet spot base followed by general build is always a good place to start. You can then see the sorts of workouts that you enjoyed and perhaps pick a speciality on the back of that.
Personally, I tend to do the base and the build phase, but then not the specialty phase as the amount of indoor training I do in summer months is usually limited to just the one session a week (with outdoor riding taking priority) - I train during the winter so that I can enjoy the summer months more, where I ride but don’t really ‘train’

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Fat doesn’t turn into muscle. You can lose fat and gain muscle if that is what you meant. Also, cycling is great at burning calories, but not great at building muscles, unless your goal is quads and calfs which I doubt. If your goal is body image, you must work in strength training 2-3 times a week at minimum. Otherwise, you’re likely to just look skinnier but without muscle tone in your upper body.

Chapeau!

If you are purely riding for fitness rather than other goals you can train however motivates you to keep training. I’d follow the progressions of the TR plans Base-Build-Speciality but what you choose is entirely up to you based on what you like the look of to keep your motivation going.

You could leave out the Speciality plans if you want and repeat Base and Build but with no external race goals the choice is entirely yours and some of those Speciality plans have a great deal of variety to keep things changing up.

Regardless it sounds like you’ve made huge improvements to get to where you are now so big congratulations - whatever motivates you to keep those improvements going - do that! :+1:

I’d still recommend you do base->build->specialty just for the variety that will provide both to your body and to your brain

Stick with low volume plans and hit the gym for some weight work as you’ll need to do that if you are focused on how your body looks (I think of this as the Kevin Spacey in American Beauty problem - you want to look good naked) more than overall cycling performance

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Thank you for the tips and for the kind words.

Seems like doing the specialty or skipping it varies from person to person, i guess i’ll evaluate at the time if i need more variety or if going back to base at that point is the best.

Regarding weight training, it’s been on my todo list, but i’m having some problems motivating myself to start doing it. But i do agree that the best path for what i want is probably a mix of both weight training and cycling.

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