How long do pro cyclists train for per day?

True about the mitochondrial production and specificity but their is strong evidence that the

"lactate shuffle" is enhanced by the adaptations gained from cycling in adjacent muscle cells. Quads, gluten, calves, hammers would see some running benefit from cycling. Also, fat metabolism benefits are gained by going 3 + hours per day that would have crossover benefits from cycling to running.

There are loads of pro cyclists on Strava. I follow quite a few including Alex Dowsett (ex hour record holder) and quite a few GT riders. Complete listing

https://www.strava.com/pros

A couple I like are

https://www.strava.com/pros/adowsett

and

https://www.strava.com/pros/laurenstendam

and so on.

Sjsjsjznnn wrote:

wccelder wrote:

I had heard about that too. They would be right in front of a brick wall on a trainer for 5 hours to "harden them up".

Were they good?

They were World and Olympic champions. I would sometimes cycle up to 4 or 5 hours at the gym but I had magazines, books, music and TV to occupy the time. I can't imagine doing this for 5 hours in a stall. with no diversion.

Collegiate runner actually. Transitioned to cycling- once I made the switch it took me 2 years for the first contract. 1 year to get to a Category 1, then one year chasing UCI/National results (road cycling). I have been a pro fro 2 years now.

Cyclocross, to get to the top level it was a little quicker. By my second year I was scoring UCI points. But once I signed my first road contract, the ability to focus on cyclocross became non existent. Just sort of a fun thing September-October. Cyclocross has gotten so competitive that you have to focus 100% of your year to the sport.

To the OP, if you're curious about the switch over, it's not really beneficial. Sure in best cycling shape, I could hop off the bike and suffer to a sub 17 5k (Over 2 mins slower than best). But it would take every ounce of energy. The only thing you get from cycling to running is aerobic capacity and the ability to suffer. Nothing else.

Pass me the Kombucha wrote:

Depends on the season. When I'm training for the professional road season, I'll do 17-30 hours a week December-March. March-June it's 17-20 with racing. Small break. Then rebuild until July. 17-20 until CX. Cx I can get away with 8-12 hours.

With that said, there's plenty of recovery weeks thrown in. 10-15 hours. I'm a big believer that 3-4 hour super quality sessions are way better than the old school 6-7 hour rides.

Would you mind sharing a favorite cross workout or two? I am racing my first (brief) cross season and always like to talk training if people don't mind sharing. I am peaking for a weekend in November where I will be racing four times in two days.

wccelder wrote:

Pass me the Kombucha wrote:

Depends on the season. When I'm training for the professional road season, I'll do 17-30 hours a week December-March. March-June it's 17-20 with racing. Small break. Then rebuild until July. 17-20 until CX. Cx I can get away with 8-12 hours.

With that said, there's plenty of recovery weeks thrown in. 10-15 hours. I'm a big believer that 3-4 hour super quality sessions are way better than the old school 6-7 hour rides.

Would you mind sharing a favorite cross workout or two? I am racing my first (brief) cross season and always like to talk training if people don't mind sharing. I am peaking for a weekend in November where I will be racing four times in two days.

Obviously the turning is super important, so being on the cross bike is always key. I'd say at least 1-2 just skill sessions a week. But-your starts and your V02 is also really important. It's hard for a lot of amateurs to understand this, they say, "it's impossible my field is so huge, I can never move up". But...you can always move up if you hit gaps right.

Story time, haven't raced cross in a year, so UCI points are gone. Back row start, I slide back about 5 feet so I'm legit last, lights go and boom. Hit the gaps right and by 3 laps I went from 70ish to front group.

With that said. 20 minute warm up, then 10 mins at light tempo. Then 6-8 x 90 second starts (legit find a 90 second course with turns. Foot down to start. 30 second sprint, then 1 minute at first lap pace (above race pace). This would be more like a Tuesday workout. Nothing crazy, just keep systems online. 3-5 mins full recovery.

Hard workout for Wednesday- 20 minute warm up. Then 10 mins at light tempo. Then 6 sets of 2 mins at above threshold. So for me at like 63 kg, I'd do like 360-380 for 2 minutes, then 1 minute at high threshold. So like 420 for me, then 30 seconds full gas. Cut the recovery down to 3 minutes. That really helps you work with the transition paces needed in cyclocross.

I started coaching last year, so if you're interested in a coach I can direct you to my contact. Just leave an email.

Short answer: doing extra hours of "aerobic-training" that isn't running is of little value.

What do you think of Alistair Browlee able to run a 10k in 29'30" after 1.5km of swimming and 50km of biking with only a few running sessions each week (but with biking and swimming sessions)?

Would he improve notably on 10k by following a specific running schedule (compared to his current time without the swimming and biking part) ?

What are professional cyclists doing on Letsrun?

What was your power progression the first months/3months/6months/year? How many hrs a week were you putting in?

What was your biggest strength/weakness at those points? What kind of course/workouts would you beat guys that would drop you elsewhere?

Did you ever race on a bike before that first year? Did you ever ride a road bike with clipped/clipless?

Power progression went like this-Injury last year of college, hop on bike.

Year 1- 1st power test at 20 minutes was around 330 watts 62kg. So pretty decent. End of the season, around 355 would have been my guess. Cat 4-1 this year. Never went over 14 hours this year. Mostly 10-14. Biggest weakness was tactics. Biggest strength was fitness from running.

Year 2- First year at the cat 1/pro level- in February did around 350, by June I would say I was in around 365 shape. Never went over 18 hours this year. Mostly 15s. Biggest weakness was lack of mileage. Biggest strength was my lack of recognition which allowed me to not be marked.

Year 3- First year as a pro. Only did one test, 379. Never went over 21 hours this year. Mostly 15-17 a week. Biggest weakness was time trials. Biggest strength was being consistent/ hard races.

Year 4- 2nd year pro. Started legit winter lifting program (This year) 395 at 63kg. 5 mins went up to 465 watts from 450 in 2014. Never went over 28 hours. Mostly was between 15-22. Biggest weakness was racing in the freezing rain. Biggest strength was uphill hard races.

Overall my biggest weakness would be time trial. Only ever have been able to manage 1 top 20 in a UCI event. But I can hold my own with GC guys.

Strengths- really hard hilly races, uphill finishes, and the most surprising hard criteriums.

Also, to the poster who asked me why I'm on letsrun. I was a degenerate collegiate runner who loves the site. I guess I never broke the habit. I don't enjoy visiting cycling forums or websites. Just can't get into it, I hate reading the articles to tell you the truth.

And finally, I mountain biked a little bit in high school. I would attribute my success to cycling sort of like musicians who can teach themselves to play an instrument. Don't get me wrong, I'm still new and have a lot to learn. But coming out of the start I was pretty good at reading the races and making the results happen. Hope that helps.

Lance Armstrong said in a Nike commercial something like.. "what am I on? I'm on my bike training 6 hours a day."

so there you have it.

This is interesting. I could do about 325 W for 20 mins at 65 kg, and I struggled to place top 10 in hilly Cat 4 races in California. What part of the country are you located in? I don't mean any offense, but I'm kind of surprised how low your numbers were. You were riding Cat 1/pro races and could only do 5.5 W/kg for 20 mins? Am I misunderstanding? Is this a projection for 1 hour?

What impresses me the most is how much you were able to improve from year 3 to year 4, the jump from 379 to 395 is hugely impressive. What kind of lifting did you do?

cycling my recovery runs wrote:

Short answer: doing extra hours of "aerobic-training" that isn't running is of little value.

What do you think of Alistair Browlee able to run a 10k in 29'30" after 1.5km of swimming and 50km of biking with only a few running sessions each week (but with biking and swimming sessions)?

Would he improve notably on 10k by following a specific running schedule (compared to his current time without the swimming and biking part) ?

I think he ran about a 28:3x at the Stanford Invite a couple of years ago. Most 10K triathlon times are suspect but him running that time at the end of a triathlon is certainly feasible. I did triathlons as well and it weird that you can go out and ride 50 miles and enter a 5k race and run close to your PR. It is like the biking took nothing out of you.

Did you ever run a 3:57 mile?

Run to Bike wrote:

Did you ever run a 3:57 mile?

He did?

East Coast/somewhere in Europe or Australia in winter. When I was racing my first cat 1 season (year 2) I'd say I was around 5.7-5.8 WPKG. I would have gotten smoked at any major UCI race or mountain finish. Cali, Utah. etc. But I was really good at repetitive hard efforts 3-5 mins then recovering. During that season I think I did around 450 watts for 5 mins. At 62 kilo that's a pretty big number. Nothing spectacular, but I guess I was just good at holding a wheel and being savvy.

To finish in the top 10 now for mountain finishes, I've had to do around 350-360 at the end of 4 hour days in major stage races. Besides that, this year for one hour I've done 350 for an hour mid race breakaway, so I'd say my 395 test is pretty indicative of my FTP.

As for the lifting, I really focused on upper body and core. This was to help with my time trial efforts and keep my body more still during hard efforts and breakaways. With legs all left to squatting, power lifting, and leg press. 10-12 REPS 3 sets. But I did this 2-3 times a week, after rides in the evening. It brought up every power number from 1 second to 20 minutes. Then again, that could just be because I was on the bike one year longer, and raced a full 12,000 mile pro season the year prior

Here is a research comparing different sports and the average time they spend at different intensities. It includes cycling and running, but other sports, like rowing as well.

http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.pdf

Cool, thanks for the info. Maybe I'll do some leg work and see how it goes.

350 for an hour mid race is really sick.

Cheers.

Great stuff here.

Did you ever get offered any doping drugs? EPO? Cortisone?