Maintaining fitness when you can't train

As cyclists, we invest a lot of time and effort to improve our fitness, building our FTP, endurance capacity, and top-end anaerobic power. However, we can’t train all the time, we need to rest to help our bodies recover from the stress of training and come back stronger. Consistent resting is an important part of the training plan. During rest is when our bodies assimilate the stress signals that will eventually result in the physiological adaptations we are seeking.

Resting to recover is fine and good, but what happens if you have an extended period of time without structured training? For a committed athlete, this could be the off-season. For most of us, it may just be the result of work/family life balance. Whatever the case, none wants to lose the improvements in fitness and performance gained through a hard cycle of structured training. A certain amount of fitness loss is unavoidable, even professional cyclists have to deal with it. The good news is that you can minimize the loss by using your riding time wisely.

The recommendation is not that simple; the energy/muscle systems needed to perform in cycling decline at different rates when they are not been used. Your anaerobic power (the fast explosive one) will decline faster than your aerobic capacity. So, the answer really depends on what type of rides you will do when you come back. If you are planning century rides you need to prioritize your aerobic system, on the other hand, if you want to ride crits or fast hard rides on the weekends, you may want to focus on maintaining your high-end power.

For me, I would prefer to use most of the time available to maintain my aerobic fitness. Why? Because of the energy systems your body uses for cycling, aerobic fitness is the one that takes the longest to build. This energy system is heavily dependent on the number and quality of your mitochondria, and this is not something you can build in a couple of weeks or months. Keep in mind that your top-end (for instance for sprinting) is driven mostly by neuromuscular conditioning; and significant gains in this area can be attained after just a couple of weeks, using the right training.

How can you maintain your aerobic fitness? do 80 to 90% of rides at 55% of FTP or less. The longer the ride, the better. Your heart rate should stay between 80-85% of Max HR. For me, this is 139 bpm (beats per minute).

What about the other 10 to 20%? Go for the harder efforts. You can do a few tempo sessions, but the best thing to do would be to sprinkle a few short high-intensity intervals. You don’t have to complete a lot of intervals each session, just 3 to 5 is enough to maintain good neuromuscular conditioning.

If you follow this recommendation, when you get back to your structured training plan, you will be able to spend less time in the base phase preparing for the more demanding build and specialty phases.