I used to be a heavy Trainerroad User and ambitious road cyclist. I used to train 15-20h per week, since my timeplan in university allowed me to do this. A lot has changed since then. I have kids now (5 and 3), graduated uni with a masters degree in mechanical engineering and work as a freelance mechanical engineer in the drone business now.
I have only sporadically trained in the last four years, but want to get back to training. I have set a few goals for myself, but I dont know if they are any good/achievable.
I want to improve my body composition. (I am predominantly working at the desk)
I want to establish a training routine.
I want to incooperate weight training into my routine.
In theory, everything is there. I have a good bike with a powermeter, a smart trainer for Trainerroad, some kettlebells for weight training and about 5-6 hours per week, that I can dedicate to training.
I am however struggling with motivation. I have the feeling, that the goals are not good enough /formulated adequately in order to get me to do sports regularly nad Additionally, beeing a freelancer requires me to be quite flexible with my hours. If there are folks in a similar situation, what do you do in order to motivate yourself to put in the work?
I am grateful for answers.
tldr: how to get motivation to get back into training?
Your only goal at this point should be to start riding your bike regularly again.
If adding structure helps with that motivation, then go for it. If it hinders motivation, then don’t include structure. Just ride your bike to the coffee shop, or along a fun scenic route instead.
You will progress rapidly no matter what you do for the next month or two.
Here’s your plan. Ride your bike for about an hour, 4-5d a week. Do whatever you feel like doing when you’re riding. If you’re tired or busy, feel free to skip a day. Do 1-2 day of weightlifting per week.
Your goal should be to make a habit out of riding and exercise again. Do whatever you feel like doing, just go do it.
You can never rely on motivation alone for most things. That’s true in most areas of life not just cycling. You need discipline - when you do something even though you’re not motivated to. Forming a habit is the big key to forging your discipline, which is what will let you ultimately achieve your other goals.
Thank you for that. As @FrankTuna said, the last paragraph definitively makes sense. I already st up the bike for this evening and will ride it. Right now, doesnt matter for how long, but just to get that feeling if routine again. Thanks
Lots of good stuff here. The only thing I’d add is to finish feeling like you could’ve done more for a while. Cooking yourself and being confronted with the loss of fitness can be fairly demoralizing (speaking from personal experience), so finishing on a high note helps build momentum.
This is absolutely true. The thing with trainer rides is that you can just shoot for 10-15 minutes at a stretch, then hop off at any time or stay on longer, depending on how you feel.
Join the local bike club’s Sat/Sun group ride. After you get spat out the back you’ll be motivated to get in shape.
I ride because I like to ride. I look forward to it.
Also, don’t develop an all or nothing attitude. I fear that your “goals”, whatever they are, might be too big. You were a 15-20 hour a week guy. That is not coming back in your current phase of life with kids and a job. I personally had a tough time transitioning from a single racer with unlimited free time to a fit recreational cyclist with more life responsibilities. It’s sad but you may never be 20 hour fit again.
With young kids, riding the trainer 30 minutes 3x per week and swinging some kettlebells around will be a good achievement.
It is like a savings account. The first few deposits seem worthless and unproductive. But if you stick with it for awhile, you see how much you build up in a relatively short amount of time (money or fitness). And that fuels the motivation to make more deposits.
Yes. I agree. So to summarise what everyone has been saying. It is worth it to just do it and from that I might be able to get some motivation, but the more important thing is to build discipline and a routine in order to not fall off the waggon.
I will give it a go and see how I feel. I have spend some time now just trying to ease in but that didnt work, so I will just need to build a training plan and stick to it. Sometimes it will be easy, sometimes it wont. What matters is to do the work. I will revisist this thread in half a year to see what I have accomplished until then.
Find a club or group of friends to meet up with and ride with - it could even be online, if that is easier to organise. It’s much easier to stick to a routine if there are others involved.
I want to add two minor things to the great stuff already mentioned:
When starting to train, don’t compare yourself to your old form. I’ve known this from a 20 year break I took from playing the drums. When I restarted, I still had the mental image of myself having great chops and fluidly playing anything I wanted to play. The first weeks and months were embarrassing and it frustrated me to no end. It only got better when I admitted to myself that I was starting fresh and only from then on I saw progress.
Time with kids is time that you don’t have for yourself. Everyone with kids is in the same boat and it’s ok. You need time for yourself to recharge but it’s perfectly fine to not focus on personal goals for a couple of years. Your kids will only grow up once and I can promise you won’t look back on this time thinking “had I only trained more”. But what you can do is get something like a Thule Chariot and ride with them. Mine fell asleep within 10 minutes of starting the ride, so if you time it well with the sleep cycle, you may just ride for 1-2h, enjoy ice cream with your kids and have another short ride back home.
Last but not least any time on the bike is better than none. Do LV at most or only use “Train Now” for a couple of weeks until you find a good rhythm. Since growing kids change their daily routine every once in a while, you just need to stay flexible.
What can help for work is to block time out of the day every day. It will take time for your work environment to adjust and not all blockers will work out, but eventually you can create enough empty slots to jump from your desk onto the trainer and right back after an hour or two.
I’d reassess what it is you enjoy about sports in general and cycling in particular. I, personally, get a lot of satisfaction from following the structure, having a routine and time for myself. But that’s me.
Managing a training routine with kids (we have three) and a demanding job is tough.
So I’d start humble and hop on the bike/trainer twice a week and hit the gym once per week. Do not start by training 4–5 days per week, adding strength training, etc. I know from first-hand experience that in practice, you’ll likely be limited by your other commitments and if a very ambitious training schedule will put a lot of strain on you. Plus, if you add bit-by-bit, you can make adjustments along the way as necessary. With kids you need to stay flexible in your schedule.
This is the only thing that motivates me to really train hard. If I don’t have a target event, I still enjoy getting out and riding my bike and doing the type of hard efforts I enjoy. But the only way I’m doing the serious “dirty work” training is if I have a high priority event on the calendar. I can be plenty fit enough for group rides and “fun” races without killing myself with intervals and trying to stay at race weight. Last year, it was really just a single race I trained properly for. But I had several good races during the lead up and several good races after on the residual fitness.
Thank you for the nice words. I totally agree with what you said, and especially the second point you made is really important. There are two things I should clarify on this. During my time off, in the first four years where we had our children, I also finished my masters degree, had a company and since everything was very desk oriented, I gained 30kg. This puts me right now at 112kg which is not morbidly obese, since I am also quite tall, but I just generally feel bad in my body. That’s especially hard for me since I was at that weight once and worked really hard to loose it and the slowly seeing it creep back was very painful.
Secondly I feel, that the time is right to get back to a routine. Yes Low volume and a masters plan is the way to go right now and I need to be flexible in my schedule, but I want to get back.
Sometimes it can be really hard to train, especially when there is a lot of stress in life and it is hard to balance between what is discipline and what is just too much. Anyways, enough of the wining.
My goal right now is to be strong enough to carry my three year old on 4-5 hour hikes. I have been able to do that this year during summer vacation, but he will only become heavier. So I better get to it
