Hey I just wanted to reach out here to start a discussion with those of us who work in the trades while trying to train up our ftps and be competitive.
I was steadily training up to ten hours a week with TR for about a year and a half as an electrician, I was working regular 8 hour shifts doing pretty normal tenant work in offices. Things changed a couple of months ago when I picked up some industrial work doing five ten hour shifts a week, at a much higher physical load than before. The change, has thrown a big wrench into how Iāve been training just because of how depleted I am at the end of each day. I still take the time for big rides on the weekends, but doing threshold and VO2 work during the week is a high RPE struggle. Ive tried eating more to keep up with demand but Iām still crushed at the end of a day.
I do wish there was more information out there on how to work around this kind of lifestyle. Iām pretty jealous of people who can basically use their work day to recover and go smash in the mornings or evenings without much penalty.
Let me know what you guys do to stay on top of energy or any tips from the TR team would be amazing as well.
Edit: for reference Iām 36 currently at a 3.3W/kg trying to hit that 4W/kg
Ahh this is such a good question. Luckily for me, as Iāve got older Iāve fallen into a much more office based management role, however, I do still have to do site work and travel a lot at certain times of the year. I really miss the site work as it has a different kind of stress and, for me, often the mental stress of a huge, ever increasing, workload and responsibility does more damage to my physical capacity to train than being tired ever did. I also find now, when I do have hard site work, it hits me much harder than it used to in recovery terms.
However, for me, I tend to do various things when I am doing physical work.
starting work later and finishing later if possible. Oftentimes, site work has to start as some stupidly early hour but if I am lone working then I push the day back and train before work without getting up at a ridiculously early time. Its easier than trying to drag myself through a workout after a long physical day
using annual leave tactically at busy times if I am training for an event. If I have something big coming up, either a race or a trip, I pre book individual days to break the week up. I actually need to do this less now as I dropped to a 4 day week and officially have a Wednesday offā¦.although I pretty much always work a Wednesday its on my terms and I can put the workout as a priority, or work half my hours Wednesday and half at the weekend if I do need to earn extra money.
I take the bike with me when I am working away on site and ride immediately after site before even sitting down really, whilst the others head to the pub, or do it first thing straight from the hotel.
A good week for me would be to make sure the weekend is a big one with structured intervals Saturday and a long endurance Sunday, then rest Monday and, if necessary, Tuesday, before hitting intervals/hard social ride Wednesday and endurance again Thursday. Rest Friday and repeat.
Oh boy do i understand! For context I have a varying schedule. I work as a provider in the ER and we are contracted on an annual basis so my schedule is varying. I can be on days and nights in the same week and typically do 12 hr shifts, sometime s 6 in a row. I also train for the stupid endurance things (ironman/marathon mtb)
I have found that if i want a quality work I HAVE to do it before i go in. If I plan to do it after i dont hit my numbers. (LOAD IS LOAD!!!) I can do Z2/endurance rides/strength after but anything with power requires less fatigue. this means setting the alarm and getting up early.
Also I cannot reiterate enough, load IS load. Your work does add load.
Yeah exactly: Load is load. Itās just so hard to quantify how much load Iām under during the day, even with my garmin watch I still find it hard. Mornings would be amazing, if I can I do it. But often site work starts at 630/7 which would put my wake up and train time probably near 3 am lol
Great question and topic. In a former life before moving into IT, I worked at a ski resort in terrain parks building features you see on the hill. In the summer I was on my feet non stop, welding, fabricating, painting, putting up fence - you name it. Winter I was on my feet digging out snow, raking snow, and fixing all the features you saw on the hill. Probably 20,000 steps a day, easy. We worked 4x10s and usually during the Winter Dew Tour, we were working 80-90 hours for a few weeks. For two years, I was in a snowcat working swings, but we were still doing a ton of manual labor outside. I donāt think I touched my bike or trainer from December to sometime in January. It was a nice break.
Summer was easy as Iād get on the bike after work and ride. Winter Iād get on the trainer.
I did this for over 12 years. Five or so included me being āseriousā about cycling/racing.
Back then I was super fit and probably 10-15% body fat. I could eat whatever. I had to eat a lot or I wouldnāt be able to do the workouts after work.
My desk job is still 4x10s. 7-5:30. I donāt have the drive to get out and ride at 5:30 am (dark and like 35*)or sit on the trainer. Iāll ride on my lunch break or after. I try to commute but itās starting to get cold at 6 am again and Iām not ready for that shock quite yet.
I get that. my day shifts are 6a-6p. in theory i should be able to ride after. in practice it doesnt work that way. I come home mentally and physically done. what has worked best is working with a coach who will adjust my training schedule based on my work schedule. I was on trainer road for awhile but i found it didnt really work as well for me due to this. Now mind you I also do not do well with my own scheduling so that probably was a portion of it. mostly on those earlier shifts i only get an hour or so, because as you pointed out 3A wake up is hard!
Not a lot of advice to add. Probably racing and riding with friends was the best motivation for me.
12 hour days including riding was about average.
I used to ride back and forth to work 2-3 days a week. 50 miles round trip. At lunch I would run 45 min, almost every day. Some days the run was not possible because of where I was. I āprobablyā over used caffeine. (Understatement)
It was not very fun. But i had to get in the training if I wanted to race. I remember that some days just walking up stairs would hurt and take my breath away. Time to take a week off.
Iām now retired with all the time in the world to train but the body is to broken to be competitive.
Thatās a bit of a bummer, sorry to hear that. It may be idealistic, but Iām hoping if I stay committed to the fitness Iāll be able to mitigate some of that brokenness.
My body started breaking in my 60ās. Iām now mid 70ās. Still trying to keep up with those young kids. Iām still pretty strong on hills. Canāt fit into my Sea Otter jersey with out looking like a whaleš¤£
You should have no issues til late in life. With the right genes you could be racing into your 80ās.
Iām lucky right now that work stress has slowed down, at least for now, in my HVACR job. It sucks a lot some days, but not like it was 10-15 years ago.
I was a runner 15 years ago. I did most of my running straight after work before I went home. I packed my running gear and either ran at the last job site, or went somewhere nearby to run instead of sitting in traffic.
As a guy who HATES mornings and already started work at 7am (at a new location every day), I wasnāt working out in the mornings. I now clock in at 6:30, but I can bike commute because I work at a factory. Still 100Ā° outside at work, but Iām not physically working AS hard ALL day.
I was definitely burning the candle at both ends 10 years ago.
I work in a trade myself 8.5hrs a day 5 days a week that involves heavy lifting most days and averaging around 17000 steps on a slow day. Every opportunity to sit down for 5/10 minutes outside of scheduled breaks times I take it.
Currently at 4.2w/kg at 65kg 32yrs of age averaging around 7-8hrs a week. I have a big back ground of just riding for fun for around 5 consistent years and started structured training at the start of this year where I went from a 250 to 277 watt ftp.
A long ride at the weekend between 3-4hrs with a full day of rest on a Sunday. And 3 1hr interval sessions and a 1hr easy ride midweek with a recovery week every 4 weeks.
Thinking of changing this up to 2 1.5hr interval sessions and a 30min recovery ride midweek.
I do all my workouts midweek after work at 6pm and get to bed at 10pm at the latest to average 8hrs of sleep per night. Mornings just donāt work for me.
Sleep is number one along with nutrition I find I donāt eat enough some days and it shows in the workouts if Iāve under fuelled.
Being single is also a massive help And donāt expect to have much of a social life. 8hrs seems to be my limit any more and I struggle to recover for the following week.
I do tactically book holidays to get some extra hours and recovery in leading up to a big goals or events and this has worked in the past.
I did a more physical job (working in a furnace) after years of being an academic.
I could not get my performance to match the year before when I was office based.
I lost the ability to cycle to work, long hours, hard, poisonous and demanding job plus a 2 hour car commute really sucked the strength out of me. I was slower (only about 15 watts ftp) but I also lost a lot of family time trying to make it up training both weekend days and doing late night sessions when I got home from work.
Covid happened and straight back to being fit when put on furlough, knew I had to get out and looked for an office job, even took a paycut to get out.
The money needs to be worth it.
And donāt expect to have much of a social life. 8hrs seems to be my limit any more and I struggle to recover for the following week.