How Many Kilojoules?

This sounds like a job for...... Training Stress Score! 😄

Seriously, I'm not really sure how one would manage their training plan using kJ alone, but the Training Stress Score feature in the WKO+ software was tailor-made by Dr. Coggan for that sort of thing.

I'd suggest looking into WKO+ as a first step.

The magnitude and even type of physiological adaptations to exercise training are as much, if not more, dependent upon exercise intensity as they are upon total training volume (i.e., energy expenditure). I therefore don't see much point in keeping track of kilojoules of work performed - which totally ignores the intensity- unless perhaps one is attempting to lose weight.

i agree it is not really that important. if you already are training mostly L3/L4 then you are probably doing more than enough kJ. the only way to add in more would be to ride more(between sets or more days per week). this would most likely just make it more difficult to recover, which would hinder your FTP goals.

PS i've tried a bit of 3-4 hour rides, centered around my FTP work. you just end up getting really tired and the quality of that extra time is very low. also i didnt see much improvement, especially compared to focused roller/trainer workouts

acoggan said:

The magnitude and even type of physiological adaptations to exercise training are as much, if not more, dependent upon exercise intensity as they are upon total training volume (i.e., energy expenditure). I therefore don't see much point in keeping track of kilojoules of work performed - which totally ignores the intensity- unless perhaps one is attempting to lose weight.

Andy,

For the weight loss, would you recommened keeping the intensity down and riding for longer or keeping the effort fairly high and reduce the time accordingly?

The reason I ask is that I have no problem with losing weight if I keep the effort down and increase duration. Once I start to train hard I tend to eat more - it's like a appetite goes into overdrive. I noticed this even in my pre-teen years on the local swim team but if I ride reasonably hard for 90 to 180 minutes then I don't suffer from the same overwhelming desire to eat lots.

swampy1970 said:

Andy,

For the weight loss, would you recommened keeping the intensity down and riding for longer or keeping the effort fairly high and reduce the time accordingly?

The reason I ask is that I have no problem with losing weight if I keep the effort down and increase duration. Once I start to train hard I tend to eat more - it's like a appetite goes into overdrive. I noticed this even in my pre-teen years on the local swim team but if I ride reasonably hard for 90 to 180 minutes then I don't suffer from the same overwhelming desire to eat lots.

When training hard, the appetite goes into overdrive because metabolism goes into overdrive. Hint, hint. 😉 Eat often and just enough or less. IMO, doing big kJ (LSD) rides to lose weight are probably for those who refuse to incorporate intensity into their off-season training. I think someone linked to this on the Wattage list, so FWIW:

cbass.comFATBURN.HTMOpen ↗

swampy1970 said:

Andy,

For the weight loss, would you recommened keeping the intensity down and riding for longer or keeping the effort fairly high and reduce the time accordingly?

The reason I ask is that I have no problem with losing weight if I keep the effort down and increase duration. Once I start to train hard I tend to eat more - it's like a appetite goes into overdrive. I noticed this even in my pre-teen years on the local swim team but if I ride reasonably hard for 90 to 180 minutes then I don't suffer from the same overwhelming desire to eat lots.

Not an expert like Dr Andy, but have read that when we train hard, the anaerobic metabolic processes used burn a lot more glycogen from the muscles, blood and liver. As a result, after the workout, we need (and crave) carbs to raise blood sugar levels so that the working muscles and liver reserves can be quickly restored. OTOH, slower aerobic training uses carbs much more sparringly so the need and appetite for carbohydrates isn't triggered.

dhk2 said:

Not an expert like Dr Andy, but have read that when we train hard, the anaerobic metabolic processes used burn a lot more glycogen from the muscles, blood and liver. As a result, after the workout, we need (and crave) carbs to raise blood sugar levels so that the working muscles and liver reserves can be quickly restored. OTOH, slower aerobic training uses carbs much more sparringly so the need and appetite for carbohydrates isn't triggered.

I find the opposite. Long rides make me very hungry and always tend to overeat while short and intense sessions (hour of power type stuff) don't have the same effect and they tend to get into the level 5 territory if not level 6.

I also find recovery from long rides is in terms of days while I could effectively do intense 1 hr sessions every day and often do. This is where I get the best improvements in power and nice consistent fat loss. 15kg down and 15kg to go.

dhk2 said:

Not an expert like Dr Andy, but have read that when we train hard, the anaerobic metabolic processes used burn a lot more glycogen from the muscles, blood and liver. As a result, after the workout, we need (and crave) carbs to raise blood sugar levels so that the working muscles and liver reserves can be quickly restored. OTOH, slower aerobic training uses carbs much more sparringly so the need and appetite for carbohydrates isn't triggered.

Yes, higher end but still sustainable workouts require more glycogen and yes, those glycogen stores need to be replenished if you want to workout on subsequent days. But you still burn more total calories per hour at higher workout intensities and in the end that's the goal if you're interested in weight loss. The specific nutritional substrate isn't the question, the total caloric expenditure vs. intake is what leads to weight gain or loss.

The "fat burning zone for weight loss" myth has been debunked countless times. Yes you burn a higher percentage of fat at lower intensities, but you burn a higher total number of calories at higher intensities and that's what it's all about. Add to that the fitness benefits of higher end work and it's a win-win situation. Workout at the higher end of your sustainable range, burn more calories per hour today but also increase fitness so your burn rate continues to climb for the same perceived exertion. Yep, you've gotta replenish the carbs after your workouts and critical half hour refueling is key, but you don't have to replenish everything your burn. As long as you maintain a caloric deficit over the long haul you'll drop weight.

Another way to think of this is that if you ride for 2 hours every day you're still spending 22 hours per day in the "fat burning zone". If you replenish spent glycogen after workouts but still maintain a caloric deficit your body has to find the calories to survive somewhere. Well most of the day and all night your body is working at a level where fat is the preferred fuel source. When it needs to find the calories to keep functioning your fat stores is where it's gonna get them.

BTW, I'm with Fergie. I find myself awfully hungry with limited self control after a six hour ride. I have a much easier time refueling without overfueling after a two hour L4 or SST session.

-Dave
P.S. Here's some links that debunk the fat burning zone myth:
myfooddiary.comfat burning zone myth.aspOpen ↗
livingthefitlife.blogspot.comfat burning zone myth.htmlOpen ↗
active.comThe Myth of the Fat burning Zone.htmOpen ↗

swampy1970 said:

For the weight loss, would you recommened keeping the intensity down and riding for longer or keeping the effort fairly high and reduce the time accordingly?

Depends whether you want to spend a lot of time, or just a little, accomplishing the same thing. For sedentary folks I suggest the former (because the discomfort and sweat are demotivating), but for athletes in training I'd suggest the latter.

fergie said:

Long rides make me very hungry and always tend to overeat while short and intense sessions (hour of power type stuff) don't have the same effect and they tend to get into the level 5 territory if not level 6.

Yep. I actually find that I lose my appetite from a short, hard session. Afterwards I'll typically drink a glass of chocolate milk and take a bowl of ice cream upstairs to download my power file, and find that I'm good until the next meal.

fergie said:

I find the opposite. Long rides make me very hungry and always tend to overeat while short and intense sessions (hour of power type stuff) don't have the same effect and they tend to get into the level 5 territory if not level 6.

I also find recovery from long rides is in terms of days while I could effectively do intense 1 hr sessions every day and often do. This is where I get the best improvements in power and nice consistent fat loss. 15kg down and 15kg to go.

Congrats on your weight loss program. I'm just starting a diet program here; want to drop 7-8 kg over the winter season. Will try to up the intensity on my regular short solo training rides of 60-75 minutes; sounds like that's really working for you.

My problem is just eating too much, and snacking at night. Was down to 78 kg five years ago; just where I wanted to be, and starting relaxing the diet progressively, adding more carbs in "for energy". Unfortunately, went a bit overboard, as the 8 kg have crept on steadily since then.

frenchyge said:

Yep. I actually find that I lose my appetite from a short, hard session. Afterwards I'll typically drink a glass of chocolate milk and take a bowl of ice cream upstairs to download my power file, and find that I'm good until the next meal.

Can I? Can I really? 😄 :p

daveryanwyoming said:

Yes, higher end but still sustainable workouts require more glycogen and yes, those glycogen stores need to be replenished if you want to workout on subsequent days. But you still burn more total calories per hour at higher workout intensities and in the end that's the goal if you're interested in weight loss. The specific nutritional substrate isn't the question, the total caloric expenditure vs. intake is what leads to weight gain or loss.

The "fat burning zone for weight loss" myth has been debunked countless times. Yes you burn a higher percentage of fat at lower intensities, but you burn a higher total number of calories at higher intensities and that's what it's all about. Add to that the fitness benefits of higher end work and it's a win-win situation. Workout at the higher end of your sustainable range, burn more calories per hour today but also increase fitness so your burn rate continues to climb for the same perceived exertion. Yep, you've gotta replenish the carbs after your workouts and critical half hour refueling is key, but you don't have to replenish everything your burn. As long as you maintain a caloric deficit over the long haul you'll drop weight.

Another way to think of this is that if you ride for 2 hours every day you're still spending 22 hours per day in the "fat burning zone". If you replenish spent glycogen after workouts but still maintain a caloric deficit your body has to find the calories to survive somewhere. Well most of the day and all night your body is working at a level where fat is the preferred fuel source. When it needs to find the calories to keep functioning your fat stores is where it's gonna get them.

BTW, I'm with Fergie. I find myself awfully hungry with limited self control after a six hour ride. I have a much easier time refueling without overfueling after a two hour L4 or SST session.

-Dave
P.S. Here's some links that debunk the fat burning zone myth:
myfooddiary.comfat burning zone myth.aspOpen ↗
livingthefitlife.blogspot.comfat burning zone myth.htmlOpen ↗
active.comThe Myth of the Fat burning Zone.htmOpen ↗

6 hours is all I sometime spend on the bike in a week - unless I get up at 5.45am at the weekend and go out for a ride. That's perfect between March and Sept but at this time of the year, heading off into the lane upto the back of beyond (unlit and narrow) is just asking for trouble.

Here's my issue: I'm not hanging around when doing my 90 minute rides then past couple of weeks. Monod calculated that my average wattage for 90 minutes should be ~305watts. I'm riding at ~80% of that (~ 240 to 250) something that's made harder right now with the PowerCranks. Based on doing a similar (percieved) effort at the start of last year and the training now (the only thing that's changed is the cranks) I know that I can lose lots of weight this way but I'm also gaining a fair bit of extra muscle on my thighs - I'm wondering if the extra work that I'm doing with the PC's is what's doing it or whether, as I'm now monitoring the effort using power and letting the heart rate creep upwards (where before I was keeping the heart rate steady and the speed would drop ever so slightly) means that I'm just doing a bit of extra work - maybe a little too much.

Either way - by the time I've finished training and all the post ride gubbin's (carb 'snack', shower, stretch, download stuff from PT) I'm about ready to eat myself out of house and home - even a 2 week old racid hog carcass sounds almost tasty.

OK, so through a generous benefactor back in the US, I was able to get WKO!!!

I've been reading my [censored] off about how to use it the past few days. And of course, I'm used to seeing the lingo floating around here. Hell, I had thought that TSB stood for tablespoon before!!! :p

OK, so I guess I should re-ask my initial question, but this time with TSS/CTL.

So for the 10-day stage race....Assuming that my training takes place at the specific intensities I will need to be competitive at this race, what type of TSS/CTL should I try to build up to?

Or is it just a matter of doing as much as I can (stage race specific, mind you) until I feel like I'm starting to crack, then recover and race?

As you can guess, I don't want to just show up, win a stage, and then suck for the rest of the time....

daveryanwyoming said:

Another way to think of this is that if you ride for 2 hours every day you're still spending 22 hours per day in the "fat burning zone".
-Dave

Sorry me no understand that...I do not believe in fat burning zones.

A calorie is a calorie so why the big deal of how too loose weight. More out and less in equals loose weight. If you want to argue about either burning high or burning less and replenishing in either scenario less but you can eat more in the first scenario I can understand. Here are some studies...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7961258?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7872209?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15240648?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Also the make up of the calories can ofcourse effect your bodyfat. fat/carbs/protein.

-js

daveryanwyoming said:

Add to that the fitness benefits of higher end work and it's a win-win situation. Workout at the higher end of your sustainable range, burn more calories per hour today but also increase fitness so your burn rate continues to climb for the same perceived exertion.

This, I think is an excellent and often forgotten notion. Raising FTP from say 200 to 300w (not very uncommon from a beginner after few years of training) means that you burn the same amount of calories in low L2 "conversation pace" that used to be the full TT effort.

Piotr said:

When training hard, the appetite goes into overdrive because metabolism goes into overdrive. Hint, hint. 😉 Eat often and just enough or less. IMO, doing big kJ (LSD) rides to lose weight are probably for those who refuse to incorporate intensity into their off-season training.

I used to do interval sessions that would make most on here think "[censored] that for a game of soldiers" during the late winter months... so no worries about doing high intensity work when needed at any time of the year from me.

I'm not talking about LSD rides, which many do by spinning away in 42x17 or something twiddly for 5 to 8 hours on a Sunday... I'm talking steady state at 80 to 85% of FTP for 80 to 90mins with maybe a break around the hour mark just to take the weight off the 'wedding tackle' as it were.

It seems as though if I start hitting around 90 to 95% of FTP on a regular basis then weight loss aint on the cards. It's almost like you're a "food junkie" that's being denied a fix. :eek:

The sad thing is that I expend more KJ on the steady state ride ( 80 to 90 mins of 80somthing% FTP Vs 3x20 90% FTP) yet there's no desire to eat afterwards. I have to remember to eat... But given that I really do need to lose a [censored] load of weight (I haven't put on a whole bunch of muscle in 10 years since I raced and I now weigh 189lbs and I weighed mid 140's) and I have a gut that somewhat impedes pedalling...

swampy1970 said:

I used to do interval sessions that would make most on here think "[censored] that for a game of soldiers" during the late winter months... so no worries about doing high intensity work when needed at any time of the year from me.

Stop posting and start doing, will loose more weight that way...but than I would not get all these wonderful little saying I can use in the office and impress my British friends...🙂

swampy1970 said:

I'm not talking about LSD rides, which many do by spinning away in 42x17 or something twiddly for 5 to 8 hours on a Sunday...

Try it before you knock it...lets say you are doing a twiddly 120 watts per hour for 5 hours...that according to my math is about 2400 calories. Now a guy at your weight probably has an RMR (if you have an office life) of about 2,000 calories that means you have to eat 4,400 calories that day just to break even.

Have you ever tried to eat clean food of 4,400 calories?

I am on a weight gain diet now and I have trouble eating 3,500 calories a day and I eat about a 1lb of meat usually just at dinner. I do not get how you can not be loosing weight especially if you are a cyclist and do little more than 90 minutes a day. You have to be eating junk food pretty much all the time. My diet yesterday for me and I could barely get it all down eating every 2-3 hours.

Based upon the way you post I would think loosing weight should be pretty easy swampy for a guy with your tenacity...so how many pounds of ice did you carry up how many flights of stairs when you were growing up?

-js

jsirabella said:

Stop posting and start doing, will loose more weight that way...but than I would not get all these wonderful little saying I can use in the office and impress my British friends...🙂

Hey, I'm a couple of kilo's less than I was when I posted the last FTP in the 2008 FTP thread a few weeks ago. I'm doing...

jsirabella said:

Try it before you knock it...lets say you are doing a twiddly 120 watts per hour for 5 hours...that according to my math is about 2400 calories. Now a guy at your weight probably has an RMR (if you have an office life) of about 2,000 calories that means you have to eat 4,400 calories that day just to break even.

Have you ever tried to eat clean food of 4,400 calories?

I am on a weight gain diet now and I have trouble eating 3,500 calories a day and I eat about a 1lb of meat usually just at dinner. I do not get how you can not be loosing weight especially if you are a cyclist and do little more than 90 minutes a day. You have to be eating junk food pretty much all the time. My diet yesterday for me and I could barely get it all down eating every 2-3 hours.

Based upon the way you post I would think loosing weight should be pretty easy swampy for a guy with your tenacity...so how many pounds of ice did you carry up how many flights of stairs when you were growing up?

-js

I tried it - for years I did the 3 hours on Saturday and 5 to 8 hours on the Sunday club run. All at 18mph or there abouts and yes, I was always slower coming into the new year than I was at the end of the old. The last year I raced that changed to 2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday going hard. For the first time ever I started the year faster and without the need for intervals...

... now, I'm the greedy type. I know that I can lose weight and gain some power by doing what I did before - but I want even more power and I want it now damnit. 😄

I lived in England... no need for anyone to have ice upstairs 🙂 but I do work on the 4th floor and I use the stairs 90% of the time. :p

swampy1970 said:

Hey, I'm a couple of kilo's less than I was when I posted the last FTP in the 2008 FTP thread a few weeks ago. I'm doing...

Very nice....those watts/kg will be coming up nicely soon enough....🙂...hope you are keeping the junk food far enough away.

I did not know you were doing so much racing on the weekends...glad to hear all those other troubles are behind you.

-js

On a side note my Hungarian friend started to talk about spin scan on the CT and your power cranks and how I need to start using the spin scan exclusively on the CT as I will see big power gain. I will be checking it out as I never heard of this spin scan mode...

Also I never knew but he had some machine which I do not remember the name but it looks like a breathing machine that will emulate riding in high altitude. I never heard of it and looks like something out of Space 1999....