A beginners training plan

[Jayne Raynor]

Hi all

Can anyone recommend a sensible training plan that will help me increase my strength over time please. I am a beginner and currently ride every weekend covering approx 20 miles. Now the better weather is here (just) I'm trying to get out on the two days I work from home to cover about 15 miles each ride so that my weekly quota is 50 miles and eventually increase the weekend distance. It's not all about distance though so what sort of things could I be doing during my ride to help me increase my strength and stamina and what sort of things could I be monitoring to be able to measure my progress apart from distance.

I suppose my aim would be to enter at least one sportive this year but haven't decided the distance and another aim would be to beat my husband up a hill - any hill!

In case it's needed I'm 5ft 8' and 10.5 stone, female.

Thank you

 

[pepecat]

Hello

Another female beginner (ish) here.....
Seeing as it's not all about distance, I would add some hills in - perhaps on the shorter rides on the other two days you can go out (apart from weekends). They'll help strength / stamina. Keep in a lowish gear, keep your cadence (pedalling rate) high and try not to stand up. Your thighs will burn like hell, but i am told that this helps (the low gear / high cadence I mean).

I would also try and increase your distances at the weekends too, if you can handle 20 miles ok, try 25, or 30 and see how you get on. I did a 30 mile ride for the British Heart Foundation last Oct, and the longest i'd ridden before that was only 20 miles. It was fine - thankfully not a hilly course, so that helped.
This summer i'm doing the Dartmoor Classic - 65 miles of hell up and down.....

Last year was my first at 'serious' cycling - i found that regular rides - whatever the distance - helped to just keep my fitness at a certain level, and when i had time i did longer and longer rides. Also, doing hills helps. It's nice to stick to flat rides, but hitting the hills did increase my stamina / leg muscles / fitness. PLus you get the fun of riding down the other side of them!

 

[teletext45]

I've been cycling since january so i've really worked out a training plan as i'm doign a 100km sportive at the end of april.

Monday- rest day
Tuesday- 10m fast paced ride
Wednesday- gym- cardio
Thursday- 15m fast paced ride
Friday- Legs weights
Saturday- rest day
Sunday- longer endurance race- started at 18 miles currently at 30 working towards 90% sportive distance week before

The thing ive realised is dont push to hard too fast but most of all enjoy it!!

 

[Jayne Raynor]

I've been cycling since january so i've really worked out a training plan as i'm doign a 100km sportive at the end of april.

Monday- rest day
Tuesday- 10m fast paced ride
Wednesday- gym- cardio
Thursday- 15m fast paced ride
Friday- Legs weights
Saturday- rest day
Sunday- longer endurance race- started at 18 miles currently at 30 working towards 90% sportive distance week before

The thing ive realised is dont push to hard too fast but most of all enjoy it!!

Brilliant, thanks teletext45, that's the sort of thing I was after. May have to swap the gym days for swim days or a home DVD which isn't quite the same I know but I'm sure it will help. Hopefully it won't be too long before I pluck up the courage to do a 100km sportive too. Best of luck with yours.

 

[iAmiAdam]

For basic training and because you're relatively new to cycling and you're not training for anything in particular. My advice is to just ride your bike alot. Structured training takes the fun out of it imo and I'd much rather do it without, but needs must.

 

[zacsheahan]

It is the best reply by teletext45. I think in the rest days, the few very light exercise and Yoga exercise are the best. It is also the best to play few outdoor games.

__________________________
EMT training

 

[nmcgann]

For basic training and because you're relatively new to cycling and you're not training for anything in particular. My advice is to just ride your bike alot. Structured training takes the fun out of it imo and I'd much rather do it without, but needs must.

+1 to that.

IMO your primary focus should be to increase the miles you can do until you can comfortably ride as far and for as long as you want to for the event you are thinking about - don't worry too much about pace to start with, you need to develop the basic endurance first.

I think if I was critiquing teletext45's program I'd say make the tues/thurs rides an hour each at a "challenging" pace (whatever that means for you) and replace the weds gym cardio with another hour of bike, but at a more moderate endurance-level pace. Friday could be a more general weights-based gym session for general fitness (or more bike - maybe a few hill repeats to build some leg strength).

Sunday would be an endurance ride starting at 2 hours and progressively increasing up to 4 hours over a number of weeks. When you get up to 4h you are pretty much there to do a 100k ride - you may not be fast, but you can do the miles.

Then comes all the fun of trying to get faster

 

[Jayne Raynor]

Hi NMcgann

Since posting my original request I have been doing what you've suggested and focussed on distance. I have now built up so I can ride 50 - 60 miles covering an altitude of 3500 feet - so some hill work too. It's helped me 'grow' into my bike (I changed the saddle from a small man's sadddle to the next sized man's saddle with gel - much much better) so I'm really pleased with that and will be doing my first 100k ride on Sunday. I haven't focussed too much on speed but sometimes I'm now doing an average of between 12 - 14 mph over a distance ranging from 30 - 40 miles which is also an improvement from 8 - 10mph. However I'm not so worried about speed but more interested in building strength & endurance which I think this will automatically help my speed? If you have any further tips I'd be interested to know them.

Thank you for responding.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

If you want to go further and faster without undue suffering along the way then I can recommend a book to you if that is your learning style...

 

[nmcgann]

Hi NMcgann

Since posting my original request I have been doing what you've suggested and focussed on distance. I have now built up so I can ride 50 - 60 miles covering an altitude of 3500 feet - so some hill work too. It's helped me 'grow' into my bike (I changed the saddle from a small man's sadddle to the next sized man's saddle with gel - much much better) so I'm really pleased with that and will be doing my first 100k ride on Sunday. I haven't focussed too much on speed but sometimes I'm now doing an average of between 12 - 14 mph over a distance ranging from 30 - 40 miles which is also an improvement from 8 - 10mph. However I'm not so worried about speed but more interested in building strength & endurance which I think this will automatically help my speed? If you have any further tips I'd be interested to know them.

Thank you for responding.

I'm glad that things are progressing for you, there's a lot to be said for just riding the bike more as an initial training plan.

Actually, I would have flipped your statement round and said training for speed will automatically help strength and endurance. Most of the things that you have to do to get faster (at least for event durations over 5 mins) are common to any training program.

It's difficult to know exactly what to suggest next - almost everything leads to the slippery slope that is structured training. There are various sessions that you can do (e.g. the often mentioned "2x20 threshold"), but unless you know how hard to do them, how to measure your performance and at what point to do them in the training year (relative to the time that you want to be on top form) then you probably won't get the benefits you are after.

The most productive thing that I think you could do in the short term is to join a local cycling club (a large one that has a wide ability range). Riding with other people makes things a bit more challenging and you get a good idea of how your fitness is progressing. You are pretty much there on distance and speed for a lot of clubs slower groups, so I wouldn't worry about that (you'd be OK with my own club's "touring" group).

Beyond that, do some reading of training books and articles. Joe Friel's "Cyclist's Training Bible" is a good start for general principles. (his blog makes a lot of sense too http://www.joefrielsblog.com/) I'd expect you'd find the subject hard going at first, but it won't be long until you spot the common concepts and see how coaches recommend that they be applied.

One difficulty that beginners to training will always find is that there is no definitive approach that will work for every person , every coach and expert has a different slant on how best to train and different types of events (e.g. timetrials, road-racing, sportifs) require somewhat different training programs. It can be hard to know just what to do until you have quite a bit of experience. The good news though is that for beginners just about anything will work provided that the training program isn't so hard that they can't do it! It gets a lot harder to progress once you have been training for a few years...

 

[Jayne Raynor]

Thanks guys,

I will definitley take a look at both the long distance handbook and the blog. I do already ride with a cycling group, they don't like to be known as a club in the traditional sense as their aim is purely to encourage as many people as possible to ride, whatever their ability, whatever their bike which is how come I've got where I am now. There is a real mix of people and bilities so I understand what you mean about making things a bit more challenging (and fun) and it's help me benchmark how much fitter I'm getting. It is scary thinking about joining a serious club but will give it some thought as I progress.

thanks again

http://www.ivinghoevelos.org.uk/

 

[brockers]

However I'm not so worried about speed but more interested in building strength & endurance which I think this will automatically help my speed?

Refreshing. You sooo have the right attitude!! Get the fundamentals right and the numbers will come.

Don't feel intimidated by joining a cycling club if you are tempted (I think the fear of doing so taps into peoples' fear of being shamed or humiliated - which we all have to a certain degree). Clubs are a lot friendlier (to new members.... !) and helpful than you might think. Nobody will try to belittle you, or force you to join the fast group at gunpoint, and you'd be surprised at how slow (or 'easy') many club rides can be. The miles slip by much better in company too. You'll also pick up shed-loads of tips from the experienced members.