Hello, I’m a college-aged cyclist (looking to start racing this year) and I’m having trouble deciding where to start
I’ve been going to the gym and using their bikes. I know they’re not very accurate power results but it seems precise enough for me to use as a training metric. I have 6 to 7 hours to work with per week at best and have access to loads of other fitness equipment. Seeing as im starting Base1, I see it best to do three-two hour work outs primarily focusing on sweetspot work and with that 7th hour i can either do HIIT or weightlifting.
Any suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated!!
Third year engineering student here!
Without knowing all of your limitations or if it would be possible for you to get your own equipment to train on, I do have a piece of general advice.
Make sure you have a plan for when time starts to get tight, I have 10-12 subjects a semester and when things start to converge, like multiple labs and tests in a week, I need to be reasonable about my training expectations. It’s better to dial down training on a busy, stressful week and pick it up again later than push through it all and lose sleep, get off track, and get sick or burnt out.
Missing one workout, or having an easier week is far better than needing to take time off completely. Consistency is King
Issac, I see nowhere in your plan where you actually get on a bike and pile on the miles. That is what you will need to do if you want to race. Get a bike, start doing group rides. I’m sure the college team has a group ride.
Piling on the mile would be nice to do, but i’m somewhat time constrained and I cant afford cold weather gear to go out riding at this time of year. I figure with my restricted time and with it being as cold as it is here in MD it would be best for me to do indoor trainer work and weightlifting.
Thanks a lot! I sadly don’t have access to an indoor trainer nor a set of rollers so that limits me to a somewhat mediocre gym bike (reads power and is plenty adjustable its just in a very hot gym) but ill take what i can get!
You can probably find a trainer on craigslist for $50. I’ve know people that couldn’t give a way a old school non-smart trainer. And you can do a lot of effective training with just a HR monitor.
I looked at the weather in MD (highs from 41 to 50 over the next ten days). That is not cold! You don’t need much in the way of gear for those temperatures. Just put on three jerseys and an old pair of ski gloves. One of those stupid rules is to HTFU (you can google it).
Anyway, I don’t want to be a buzz kill on your racing aspirations. If you can prepare on a gym bike then the more power to you. I will tell you that training 10+ hours a week and traveling to races is extremely time consuming. As a student you may need to master the skill of zone 2 rides while reading your text books or watching reruns of your lectures on video.
Yeah, this is often a bot/spammer type revival, especially with the rather minimal reply from the new member. Could be legit, but I will be watching to be sure and handle appropriately.
Yeah, I saw the reply above and flagged it for review later. As I mentioned to another user in a similar case earlier this week, I do this tracking when I see a questionable post thats seems to be headed towards spam territory.
Often, the offending party returns later to edit the innocent (but sometimes odd) post and add whatever spam garbage they have. At that point, I review and usually nuke them from the forum entirely.
We will see if this turns into yet another example of that in the near future.
