Training a cycling newbie

Oh man…I’ve tried to give my GF advice forever and it never sticks. But the second she hears it from someone else she says “you know…I think I might try doing XYZ. I think it might be good for me.” It just makes me want to scream into a pillow haha

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Yeah, I think in some ways the 30-45min high-intensity workouts are more mentally doable than a bunch of z2 work for more “casual” exercisers- they’re kind of like a spin class, and you get results a lot quicker, which is pretty motivating!

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Exactly, and I think the one thing that is severely lacking in a newer cyclist is the muscle endurance. The ability to just constantly pedal for an hour is really hard. So doing 2-3 min on, then 3-4 min off is a lot harder than doing the constant Z2/3 rides with longer unrelenting intervals. And then there’s the mental aspect of seeing a time that just counts down from 12 min vs a constantly resetting goal post.

I nodded emphatically when reading the advice to not turn your wife off with too much structure in the beginning. And the group aspect of Zwift, which includes many women-only social rides sounds like it could be appealing.

However… your wife is an adult, and a team sport athlete already, not a high school student. Perhaps she is motivated by seeing her numbers go up and by the pure fitness aspect, as evidenced by taking interest in trainer rides in the first place. Also, her plans will be based on her FTP, and should thus be doable, i.e. the notion that there is no need to train up for a training plan.

Key point is, it’s really up to your wife. All you can do is explain what Trainerroad and/or Zwift programs are like based on your experience and let her choose. Have her read this thread. I’d love to hear what her goals are in her own words.

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Start with Zwift or Peloton, IMO.

If it turns out she likes the bike and wants more structure, then maybe introduce a training plan in one of those. I wouldn’t recommend structured training as intense as TR to anyone new to the sport with no aspirations. She’d be best off just getting into the habit of getting on the bike and enjoying it 3-4/week for a while. This isn’t the time to be aiming for “optimal” or “best” with her. It’s experimentation. It needs to be fun or it won’t take anyway. This is kind of like training a junior athlete, except obviously she’s experienced. A lot of the same “fun, engaging activity, and avoid too much too soon” from junior coaching applies here, IME.

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I read a really fascinating post on a women’s only cycling forum once, in which the author related her experience of being a woman in a cycling shop. In short, her point was: cycling was the only sport she’d ever experienced in which she was routinely ‘down sold.’ IE, going into a shop and saying, “I want a bike with Ultegra,” to be told things like “You don’t need that, Sora is fine.”

It was a pretty interesting reveal in how, in a male dominated sport, there can be bias that treats women as ‘not as serious’ about the sport as men.

Put another way: imagine this post was about a beginner male cyclist who came in and said, “I’m a brand new cyclist and looking to get into indoor cycling. I do team sports and I’m pretty active. I don’t really want to race, but I want to lose weight and get better. What should I do?” Would we give the same advice? Maybe, maybe not.

All that’s to say: if you’ve already got the gear for it, @nelsosi, why not put her on it and see what she thinks? She might love the challenge of following the blue line, and she might hate it, just like any other TR user. :slight_smile: Zwift does have great social rides, and if she decides that 60min of Z2 stuff is more up her alley, I like Zwift for that more than TR. TR on low effort stuff is pretty darn boring to me. But to each their own. Ultimately, whatever she chooses is more than she’s doing now, so it’ll improve in some aspects or another.

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Yes, thank you @JustinDoesTriathlon, you get it. I wasn’t going to go into all that, but the bike shop example is one of many in the industry. Things are improving a lot though!

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I mean, I’m not going to go line by line quote the words that I noticed in this thread. I’m certainly not here to advocate that this person drops straight into short power build HV. My broad point was that, in my reading of some of the replies, and my awareness that some women are pushed to things that are ‘fun’ and ‘entertaining’ instead of ‘intense’ and ‘challenging,’ my point was to provide perspective. You quoted me as rhetorically asking if we’d give the same advice, and I’d point out that my next words were “maybe, maybe not.” I use Zwift too; I’m not suggesting anyone things Zwift is only for women or that TR is only for men. I’m not a woman so I can’t share those experiences, but I’ve read about them, and at the least, I think it’s worth keeping in mind. Just my 2c.

More on topic so I feel like I’ve contributed rather than complained: @nelsosi, SSB LV1 would be my starting point if she wants to be in TR. Good return on time without jumping into too much volume right off the bat. I think your SSBI,II, Build, repeat plan is fine, but agree, that would be a bit boring without some longer goal in mind (to me.) If just cardio for general health is the goal, could honestly even just stay on SSBI on repeat; II gets a bit more stressful and isn’t really needed if she isn’t looking for progression.

I actually have given the same advice here to a guy saying a lot of the same things. No cycling experience but wanted to dive headlong into structured training with little experience on the bike and no intent to race.

As a coach, it’s about advising minimization of the investment of money and time up front to prevent burnout and buyer’s remorse from affecting their enjoyment of the sport. Most people without cycling experience should ride for a year or two or longer before buying the $5000 bike and $1000 trainer, etc., or before plunking in 7 hrs a week of intense structured interval training…

Then again, as a passionate cyclist, I appreciate the high end second hand market this creates. :blush:

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Ditto. Nothing gender related or down-rated in my recommendation. It is more about aiming to avoid turning someone off from a sport that can be any number of things to each rider. It was a caution and not a firm recommendation. The crux of my two main posts was to look at and discuss with the person in mind and get their goals in mind more than anything. There seems to be too much reading between the lines vs taking words as presented lately, and it’s off-putting.

I’ve made the mistake of putting people far too deep into any number of my different interests based on my thoughts, expectations and enthusiasm. It resulted in negative experiences that lead them away from the activities because they had very different goals than I predicted. Now, I try to take the small steps approach, and let them drive how much and how hard to push into any of my interests.

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Based off what little is shared here, I wouldn’t start her off with any TrainerRoad plan, even SSBI LV. The intent of those plans doesn’t marry up with the stated objective (no endurance sports background, no interest in racing, looking to get fit, etc.) The goal of the company is “Get Faster.” There are plenty of other appropriate outlets for this individual based on stated goals and desires. TR is probably not a good fit.

Gun to my head, Traditional Base is a better starting point, but I stand by what I said before. My advice would be to steer clear of TR for the time being.

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I would (and have) give the same advice no matter the gender. Structured cycling is just a plain crappy way to get into cycling for a number of reasons.

Im sure there are some personalities (no mayher the gender) may latch on to structure but it would be a small percentage. It would be an even smaller percentage of those people that latch on AND keep it going for any appreciable time.

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scratch the formal plan…get her to love the bike and riding. ride bike, have fun, get better, repeat. when the last step “get better” stops happening, then she mght think, “so, how do I get faster?” When someone wants that, send them into the TR training plan!!

Brendan

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OP here. Thanks for all this discussion. I wasn’t expecting this topic to generate so much interest :grinning:

Just to clarify a few things. Wife’s goals are to drop some pounds and get some dedicated cardio exercise. Zero interest in racing or doing a bike event (at this time, anyway). She has a desire to follow some sort of program though, as she’s a bit of a Type A and also because she thinks it will force her to follow through if she sees something scheduled. {I suspect she’s probably a bit biased as well, since she sees what my training (marathons and Oly/70.3 Tris) look like, and thinks thats what indoor riding should look like}.

My very first thought was throw her on Zwift, and just let her do a mix of casual group rides with maybe an occasional simple interval workout (which I could set up for her). But then I thought why not let her try a more structured training plan and see how she likes it (hence this thread). Reading all the discussion on here, I am now leaning back to my first thought, since it can still look structured even if it’s just ‘do a 45 min group ride’.

One huge plus for doing a plan is the basic just having a calendar with pre scheduled workouts on it. Lots of people (e.g. most of us . . .) respond very well to this little trick and it works for newbies too!

On another note, we’ve all been focusing on intervals or just riding but if the spin class vibe is the thing that’s going to get someone pedaling regularly, you can get a stand alone subscription to Peloton’s app without buying the bike. The app gives you access to the online spin classes and you can do the workouts on a regular bike/trainer set up. It also has running workouts and yoga and a bunch of other stuff.

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I would err on the side of caution for a new cyclist. I think SSB1 will be much too hard, and she won`t enjoy it.
But you could pick a short fairly easy one for her to try and see how she gets on.
You would need to adjust the percentage , or have a guess at her FTP! Not that that is relevant here.
She may find one or 2 sessions/ week enough.
Best of luck and hope she enjoys it!

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Zwift has training plans too. I don’t think they hold a candle to TR, but she might appreciate that interface, alongside a little bit more structure and the group rides/events a bit more than the Blue Boxes of Doom to start out. As Brendan said, when she comes to you and says, “I wish I was faster…” then you break out TR!

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I’ve skimmed through the discussion so might have missed something, but we’ve agreed to start her on Coach Chad’s vo2 block periodisation plan, then straight into 40k TT Specialty, right?

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All or nothing!!!

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…Only after completing her first 20 min FTP test protocol, determining that she feels like she underperformed by, say, 10%, and manually adjusting her FTP upwards accordingly before her first 3min VO2max interval repeats.

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