5 Top Cycling Training Tips For Time Crunched People
Cycling / Beginner
Many of us live extraordinarily busy lives; work, families, social life and then training and racing. The question many coaches get asked is, " Can I train effectively on limited training time?" The answer, of course is Yes! Check out our cycling training tips for those with limited time!
Before we get into the top cycling training tips it’s important that you’re realistic about the below:
- How much time have I got to train?
- What are my goals and objectives?
- How will my training impact on my family or other commitments?
Its vital that you set some SMART objectives:
- Specific
- Measureable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timely
If you have 6-8hrs a week to train, then targeting a professional contract and high finish in the Tour de France may not be either achievable or realistic! That said, there are plenty of events that you can train for within such limited hours and do very well at.
Events such as:
- Road races or criteriums, most of these will be 1-2hrs maximum in duration (*unless you achieve / target first Cat or elite status) – so focused sessions to a maximum of 2hrs can deliver great results.
- Time trials 10 mile to 100 mile, 20mins to maybe 4 hrs can be trained for with specific interval based training of short duration and high intensity
- Endurance sportives can be trained for using a short duration intensity focused training regime.
- Sprint / Olympic and even Half Ironman Triathlons.
- Even just maintaining / building fitness is easily achieved – but having a key goal, be it an event , target time, or target weight is vital in my opinion.
1. PLAN YOUR TRAINING TIME
Firstly, review your week. You can work out when to commit to train and ensure it will actually happen?
It may be early morning, get it done and out the way.
You may be able to nip to the gym in your lunch hour.
Or late evenings after the kids are in bed.
Also it’s a good idea to agree it with your family and ‘book’ the time. Then at least everyone is on the same page and training time in scheduled in.
2. BE CREATIVE
Is your working day long and you just don’t seem to have the time when you get home? An idea could be to cycle to / from work and train that way. For instance, it’s popular to prescribe a lot of athletes with a session riding home from work one day, then back in the next. This method of being time efficient is one of our favourite training tips.
This is a great, time efficient way to train:
You don’t ‘waste’ any time as you would just have been sat in the car or on public transport anyway.
You don’t have to carry all you need at work, take the bike and all your work gear in with you in the car, then all you need to take home at night is your keys and phone!
3. DON'T WASTE ANY TRAINING TIME
Often when I review new athletes past training, I will see that almost 50% of the training this time crunched athlete was doing was in Zone 1, less than 60% of threshold.
For me this is ‘wasted’ time. If you have limited time using it effectively is key
Zone 1 is a recovery and low level endurance zone, its great IF you have unlimited hours BUT if time crunched, in my opinion it’s wasted time.
