Riding Rollers Before Work?

travis200 said:

I suck right now with my fitness and weight. I am a 6'2" 190lb cat 4 that is just not seeing any gains only setbacks. I usually getting dropped or just getting in the way. I would like to be 175lbs where I feel I ride my best. I am thinking of doing 1 hour of easy (maybe tempo) riding on the rollers M-F before work. Then after work doing my regular outside rides with intervals, hills, etc.. (2 hours or so). Longer rides on weekends. Is this crazy thinking or will this help my fitness and maybe shed a couple pounds? My recovery days will be on the rollers then no ride after work.

wow-I am sorry no one answered you on this. Theres no reason why this plan is not beneficial. if you can keep your caloric input about where it was before starting the morning rides this will help you lose weight as you will up your Kcal significantly. Make sure you eat after your ride and keep drinking cold water all day. Just eat well enough that in no way do you compromise your muscles ability to rebuild after each day for the next days ride. Since you race, recovery is as important as weight loss.

travis200 said:

I suck right now with my fitness and weight. I am a 6'2" 190lb cat 4 that is just not seeing any gains only setbacks. I usually getting dropped or just getting in the way. I would like to be 175lbs where I feel I ride my best. I am thinking of doing 1 hour of easy (maybe tempo) riding on the rollers M-F before work. Then after work doing my regular outside rides with intervals, hills, etc.. (2 hours or so). Longer rides on weekends. Is this crazy thinking or will this help my fitness and maybe shed a couple pounds? My recovery days will be on the rollers then no ride after work.

If you're devoting two hrs a day to training (plus even more on weekends) and not seeing progress, then something is drastically wrong with your training plan and/or your health. Two hours a day done right should make you a very competitive Cat 4. As an aside, if you're riding two hrs a day and doing it right, I really don't see how you could have any trouble attaining race weight and eating just about anything you want.

I'm not a coach and I have nothing to sell on this forum, but I would strongly recommend that you have someone who knows what he's doing review your approach to training.

I am going to give the 2 hours a day after work a try again and skip the rollers before work. As much as I think it will help to ride in the AM I am afraid I might burn out too quickly . I just need to watch my caloric intake better.

How many hours a week are you riding? Are you following any plan? Do you take any rest weeks? To me it sounds like you might be overreached, which is good. But adding 5 hours per week at that stage is destructive. Or maybe you have the perfect plan and I misunderstand. You need to provide more details.

travis200 said:

I am going to give the 2 hours a day after work a try again and skip the rollers before work. As much as I think it will help to ride in the AM I am afraid I might burn out too quickly . I just need to watch my caloric intake better.

Now thinking more about this let me recommend two things. Hire a coach (local or online) and get a proffesional bike fit. i of course hav no idea if you have already done either, but those two things will make a huge difference in your performance.

Ray

I really have no plan when I get on the bike and I have no money for a coach which I do want one and would probably benefit from. My riding is roughly 8hrs a week right now give or take.

travis200 said:

I really have no plan when I get on the bike and I have no money for a coach which I do want one and would probably benefit from. My riding is roughly 8hrs a week right now give or take.

Any rest weeks in there at all? Or just go go go?

travis200 said:

I really have no plan when I get on the bike and I have no money for a coach which I do want one and would probably benefit from. My riding is roughly 8hrs a week right now give or take.

In that case, go buy Joe Friels "the Cyclist's Training Bible" and coach yourself into better performance!! I have a coach and hes really made a huge difference in how i train, but its not so different than what Friels says in his book. I train about 10 to 13 hours a week which helps a lot. But for sure you can do great things on 8 to 10 too. I dont know what you do,, but i can tell you its not 120% all the time-not even close!!

Ray

I have the book and read it but I just don't have the drive to do the workouts on the days he prescribes either time or job constraints. Then I get frustrated because I am not doing the workouts and I do my own thing which is most of the time just riding with no plan just basically junk miles IMO.

Thanks for the help though.

If you are spending 8 hours a week riding you just need to get in tha habit of putting some structure to the time you spend. I was in the same place last year. I found myself just "riding" not training. Sure I would have hard rides, usually with a group, but they were too hard in many cases. I got Friel's book as a place to start structuring my training.

Friel's book is pretty good and if you follow a program, even if it is not exact, you will see some big improvements. I have been trying to race on 5 hours a week of riding and am finding that if I do my best to follow a plan my fitness will increase. Don't worry about doing every workout exactly, try, but if you can't be sure to balance the harder days with the easier ones.

Good Luck!

travis200 said:

Then I get frustrated because I am not doing the workouts and I do my own thing which is most of the time just riding with no plan just basically junk miles IMO.

Haven't you just answered your own question? If you know you're putting in junk miles why are you frustrated at not making progress? Are you more concerned with losign weight or performance, and you're not allowed to answer both.

The one thing that an early workout might do for you is to jumpstart your metabolism so that you burn through breakfast fuel more quickly. I know of a several pro riders who swear by this as one of the keys for dropping weight. I applied it and it definitely does work well for me, at least in terms of peeling off that last few pounds of belly roll.