# Hitting a wall with my cycling fitness



## 41ants (Jul 24, 2007)

I am trying to dial my nutrition and training ( i am using this loosely) in because it seems that I am just hitting a wall and am not improving. I have been riding trails for the past 4 years and road for the past 2, but have not really noticed any improvements year-over-year. Avg speed on the same routes that I ride ranges between 18-20mph and my avg heart rate is basically the same. 

I keep hearing that in order to increase performance, one could always lose weight, but I don't know where the weight loss is going to come from? Is it possible to increase performance without stripping away muscle? I guess it comes down to what my fitness goals are, but I would like to be faster, but also have a little bit of lean mass on my frame.

38 years old 6'1" and my weight has been ranging between 200-207lbs my BF fluctuates between 6-9% right now. I guess I could try to drop my BF down to 4-6%, but everything is probably just going to hurt (knees and other joints).

I typically can only manage 3 days a week of riding max with avg rides between 20-45 miles with the longer one being on the weekend. So, I typically ride Sat, Mon, & Thr. Monday, is normally an easy ride and my Thr ride is 25-30 miles with some intervals (heartrate & cadence monitored), and Sat is the faster paced 30-40 mile group ride. 

I am also in the gym 3 days a week doing compound movements (squats, deads, rows, presses) and zero isolation and natural body type is more of an ectomorph.

Now, I have modified my diet a bit because I was bonking pretty badly on the weekend group/hammer fest rides, so I am now doing a bit more carbs throughout the week with all my meals except for dinner. Previously, I was really only doing carbs pre/post workout... Typically eat 5-7 meals/day at approximately 3,200 cal. I can break it down to the gram if needed.

I just don't know if I need to tweak my diet, ride more, or what? My gut feeling is that I am simply not riding enough and need a more structured riding plan, but at the same time I don't want to lose more lean muscle mass/strength.


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## pretender (Sep 18, 2007)

Ride more, lift less. The gym wastes time; you can do pullups, pushups, chinups, planks, etc, at home or in the park during a ride.


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## 41ants (Jul 24, 2007)

I cut back quite a bit on my strength training intensity already, but I am thinking about dropping for 30 days to see what happens when I allocate that time to cycling. Again, I just don't want to waste away...LOL


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## Poncharelli (May 7, 2006)

Try adding that fourth day in a week. Apparently there is a big difference going from 3 to 4 days a week, and not as much going from 4 to 6. 

Cycling is one of the most time intensive sports there is. More time on the bike is always better it seems.


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## 41ants (Jul 24, 2007)

Time to hookup some lights and hit it in the AM, as evenings are tough as is... 1yr old, 
3yr old, wife, and trying to build a new business....


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## jmorgan (Apr 13, 2012)

Sprints. Interval training. HTFU

You need to push harder on the bike, suffer.


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## Newnan3 (Jul 8, 2011)

Instead of going to the gym just do calisthenics to maintain strength. You probably wont dwindle into a Schleck and you'll have more time to put on the bike.


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## Alex_Simmons/RST (Jan 12, 2008)

41ants said:


> My gut feeling is that I am simply not riding enough and need a more structured riding plan, but at the same time I don't want to lose more lean muscle mass/strength.


Strength or performance on a bike, which is more important to you?


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## arai_speed (Aug 19, 2003)

Here:

Amazon.com: The Time-Crunched Cyclist: Fit, Fast, and Powerful in 6 Hours a Week (The Time-Crunched Athlete) (9781934030479): Chris Carmichael, Jim Rutberg: Books


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## simonaway427 (Jul 12, 2010)

Two small kids here - 80% of my rides are 30kms or less, usually done at 7pm after they've gone to bed.

During those rides I go all out - essentially time trialling the whole way 36-37km/h avg. I haven't noticed any decline in my performance during the occasional longer ride. Once in a while, I tag along with the weekly hammerfest group ride. Last one was avg 40km/h for over 90kms. While I suffered, I stayed with them.

Bottom line - if you're time limited, make the best of that time. Also, if your fitness goal is to get faster, you have to give up some if not all of your weight routine.


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## Newnan3 (Jul 8, 2011)

Your underwear model career is over....Just ride the d#mn bike.


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## swaits (Oct 10, 2005)

Find a faster competetive group. One where you can just barely hang on. Keep going out until you are finishing better within the group. Nothing replaces this for me.


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## 41ants (Jul 24, 2007)

swaits said:


> Find a faster competetive group. One where you can just barely hang on. Keep going out until you are finishing better within the group. Nothing replaces this for me.


 This is also something I'm going to try. I actually do have a tough time with the Sat group that I ride with and the Wed group is even tougher. I have only ridden with the Wed group once and found myself dropped only 10 miles into the ride...Ouch!


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## pr0230 (Jun 4, 2004)

*Diet always trumps exercise*

You should be 185-190. 

Lance Armstrong: What a Cyclist Eats - YouTube

Interesting utube short. Armstrong - what a cyclist eats. But the video, emphasizes, nutrition and weight loss. Never really discusses what a cyclist eats. Take a peek, I thought it was interesting. 

as for workouts you want to be lean up top, High reps , medium weight. For legs, I find squats, and squats with weights < 50 lbs, really help. WIth no weight I do a set of 50 for warm up. Then set of 100... Then a final set of 150...


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## Newnan3 (Jul 8, 2011)

pr0230 said:


> You should be 185-190.
> 
> Lance Armstrong: What a Cyclist Eats - YouTube
> 
> Interesting utube short. Armstrong - what a cyclist eats. But the video, emphasizes, nutrition and weight loss. Never really discusses what a cyclist eats. Take a peek, I thought it was interesting.


I remember seeing this vid and thinking "cool, lets check out what LA eats." But then he says, "sometimes its tough and sometimes you just have to go without meals." 

Haha, Eatin is Cheatin.


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## 41ants (Jul 24, 2007)

pr0230 said:


> You should be 185-190.
> 
> Lance Armstrong: What a Cyclist Eats - YouTube
> 
> ...


I think you mean skin and bones up top?  I think I am fairly lean all over in that I don't have much fat. I have already started to take some weight off of the bar and upped my rep range by 50% more than what I was previously doing, but nowhere near the reps that you are doing. For squats, I am typically doing 3 sets approximately 15 reps



arai_speed said:


> Here:
> 
> Amazon.com: The Time-Crunched Cyclist: Fit, Fast, and Powerful in 6 Hours a Week (The Time-Crunched Athlete) (9781934030479): Chris Carmichael, Jim Rutberg: Books


How is this book? I put in a request to have this available in a kindle edition.


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## Cinelli 82220 (Dec 2, 2010)

41ants said:


> my BF fluctuates between 6-9% right now. I guess I could try to drop my BF down to 4-6%, but everything is probably just going to hurt (knees and other joints)


How are you measuring your body composition?
Why would having a lower bodyfat make everything hurt?



> I typically can only manage 3 days a week of riding max


That's not much riding. 
Buy an Olympic barbell and do some compound stuff at home, like Terry Crew's 24 routine three times a week. You'll save money on gym fees and cut out travelling time.


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## teddysaur (Dec 30, 2004)

You may not be training correctly for your body to adapt to the stresses.

My advice is to invest in a powermeter and get this book "Cyclist Training Bible" by Joe Friel or "Training and Racing with a Power Meter" by Andrew Coggan & Allen Hunt. You can learn more from the experts and experimenting by yourself. Although Internet is free, most of them are noise. 

If powermeter is over your budget, start with "Cyclist Training Bible" for RRP$25 only.


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## Rich_Racer (Jul 12, 2002)

To re-iterate somewhat what everyone else has said, it sounds like you have about 20-30lbs of muscle that is just slowing you down on the bike (weight that is not helping you to make it go faster). Lift less, ride more, and when you ride, sometimes do some painful fast intervals to train yourself to go fast. (I like "High Intensity Training (HIT) for Cyclists" (Ed. 13) - by Arnie Baker.)


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## 41ants (Jul 24, 2007)

Cinelli 82220 said:


> How are you measuring your body composition?
> Why would having a lower bodyfat make everything hurt?
> 
> 
> ...


My BF was measured by 9 point caliper inspection... Being too dried out and too low of a BF% can cause some pain (heals of your feet, palms, some joints), but you definitely have a nice shredded look if that is your thing.


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## Saikidodo (Jul 7, 2008)

can probably stick with your 3 rides a week. but add intensity to those rides. do hill sprints (or even flat sprints). full gas for 2-5 mins depending on your fitness. recover and repeat 5-6 times on a ride. unless you've outridden all the gears on your bike, there is still more gears you cannot push now but with harder/more training you will be able too as you get stronger and faster. like anything in life, you cant improve unless youre challenged (including your legs!). but yeah def been there and with adding interval/intensity in my rides ive def made more gains.


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## The Human G-Nome (Aug 26, 2002)

Saikidodo said:


> can probably stick with your 3 rides a week. but add intensity to those rides. do hill sprints (or even flat sprints). full gas for 2-5 mins depending on your fitness. recover and repeat 5-6 times on a ride. unless you've outridden all the gears on your bike, there is still more gears you cannot push now but with harder/more training you will be able too as you get stronger and faster. like anything in life, you cant improve unless youre challenged (including your legs!). but yeah def been there and with adding interval/intensity in my rides ive def made more gains.


1. Ride lots
2. Intervals
3. Recovery 

If you do those things in the proper ratio, you're set. Even if you only have 3 days to ride, you shouldn't be doing intervals on all 3 days. Pick one or two of those days for your intervals, and one day should be a rest day.

This is kind of like a diet though. If someone said, "I want to get thinner... I follow my diet on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, but I can't seem to lose weight for some reason" then you'd wonder if they were really on a diet or just pretending to diet occasionally. 

If your goal is really to become fast, you have to be on your bike 5 times a week. A couple of those days will be interval days, a couple will be active recovery days, and at least one will be a heavy mileage day. Once you have your base intact, you can get by just fine on Saturday race/hard group ride day and Tuesday or Wednesday night intervals. If you really can only muster 3 days a week from the start, and your longest day is only 40 miles, the best bet is to just rearrange your goals a little and be ok with not ever becoming particularly fast. No harm in that though. 

However, interval sessions don't take very long, and even with an hectic schedule and family, some people still manage to get up an hour earlier just to throw in an hour of hard word. That's really all it takes. Just one hour of structured intervals can make a huge difference for you. If you can follow that up the next day with an hour of active recovery then those are some of the best two hours you'll have spent all week.


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## gp257 (Oct 27, 2010)

swaits said:


> Find a faster competetive group. One where you can just barely hang on. Keep going out until you are finishing better within the group. Nothing replaces this for me.


I'll 2nd that


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## dasho (Apr 8, 2002)

*Pre-race riding*

Is it best to lay off any riding a week before a race or do you have a schedule you adhere to leading up to race day such as not riding a couple of days before the race, riding on the trainer etc.? I have a race in 6 days.

I don't want to have tired legs the day of the race (it's 20 miles in length). I just turned 60!

Thanks in advance!


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## The Human G-Nome (Aug 26, 2002)

dasho said:


> Is it best to lay off any riding a week before a race or do you have a schedule you adhere to leading up to race day such as not riding a couple of days before the race, riding on the trainer etc.? I have a race in 6 days.
> 
> I don't want to have tired legs the day of the race (it's 20 miles in length). I just turned 60!
> 
> Thanks in advance!


I love that you're racing at 60! I want that to be me!

Anyway, do not take a bunch of days off during the week before a race. What you can and should do is a hard (but short) day on the Tuesday or Wednesday before your weekend race, and then a lot of active, low heart rate recovery on the days leading up. So, hard day on Tuesday (1 to 2 hours), active recovery ride on Wednesday (1 to 2 hours, very low heart rate), Thursday off, Friday active recovery with some openers. For your openers, just do a sprint or two, a couple minutes of threshold work, but everything else is super easy spin. That should set you up fine for your race no matter what kind of race your'e competing in.


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## Alex_Simmons/RST (Jan 12, 2008)

The Human G-Nome said:


> I love that you're racing at 60! I want that to be me!
> 
> Anyway, do not take a bunch of days off during the week before a race. What you can and should do is a hard (but short) day on the Tuesday or Wednesday before your weekend race, and then a lot of active, low heart rate recovery on the days leading up. So, hard day on Tuesday (1 to 2 hours), active recovery ride on Wednesday (1 to 2 hours, very low heart rate), Thursday off, Friday active recovery with some openers. For your openers, just do a sprint or two, a couple minutes of threshold work, but everything else is super easy spin. That should set you up fine for your race no matter what kind of race your'e competing in.


That's a pretty good rule of thumb for a race you care about and fitness is reasonable, but I should point that in some cases, reducing training load before a race might in fact be counter productive. 

It's a classic case of "it depends".


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## The Human G-Nome (Aug 26, 2002)

Alex_Simmons/RST said:


> That's a pretty good rule of thumb for a race you care about and fitness is reasonable, but I should point that in some cases, reducing training load before a race might in fact be counter productive.
> 
> It's a classic case of "it depends".


You're right, but it also depends very much on the training load he's already enduring. Is he riding 5 or 6 times a week? How much intensity? Additionally, his age is a factor in his recovery. How much is up for debate of course. No substitute for a coach, coach, but I think as a generic bit of advice, it's halfway decent.


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## Alex_Simmons/RST (Jan 12, 2008)

The Human G-Nome said:


> You're right, but it also depends very much on the training load he's already enduring. Is he riding 5 or 6 times a week? How much intensity? Additionally, his age is a factor in his recovery. How much is up for debate of course.


That would be the bit where I said "it depends".



The Human G-Nome said:


> No substitute for a coach, coach, but I think as a generic bit of advice, it's halfway decent.


That would be the bit where I said it's a pretty good rule of thumb.


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## motox155 (Jul 9, 2009)

41ants said:


> Is it possible to increase performance without stripping away muscle? I guess it comes down to what my fitness goals are,


You pretty much answered your own question.

You sound pretty similar to my situation 10 years ago (family and business as well). About the same height (6') and around the same weight. I spent a lifetime riding bikes (mountain bikes mainly), motocross, surfing, hiking/backpacking...also spent a lot of time in the gym. Was on the average a pretty fit person and ate reasonably healthy.

A few of my friends I grew up with and mountain biked with really started getting into cycling. I noticed going on rides with them where I used to be able to hang with them I was now getting dropped pretty bad. My fitness was the same or better as it always had been...it was just their's was so much better for cycling.

I decided getting dropped sucked lol. I starting riding more and eating a bit less. I would squeeze in extra rides in when I could...sometimes even 30min on the trainer. Diet played the biggest part for me. Once I shed some weight my cycling fitness really improved. 

Now at 48 I'm usually running about 170/175. Never felt better.


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