If you find that you struggle to repeat hard efforts or feel as though you can’t reach peak numbers at the end of a race, it may be worth examining your training habits. They run out of juice before the end and cannot replicate the hard efforts when they matter the most. Many of them have the raw numbers to be competitive in races, but they simply aren’t efficient enough to realize their full potential. These types of riders are great at burning carbs, but not so good at using fat as a fuel source. The result is that almost all of their training is actually above their aerobic threshold. Maximize Fat Burning With Aerobic Training They often ride hard up the hills and coast on the descents. Many riders don’t like going slow and feel that if they aren’t riding hard, they aren’t getting any benefit. Completing a proper Zone 2 ride requires lots of discipline. Zone 2, therefore, is where you should spend a lot of your time training if you want to improve your fat-burning capability.Īs a coach, one of the most common problems that I find when working with new athletes is that they are riding too hard. Beyond this point, your body will begin to utilize more and more carbohydrates and then begin to decline in metabolic efficiency. If you want to train your body’s fat-burning capabilities, you simply must train at the intensity where you burn the most fat! The commonly known “Zone 2” lies just below your aerobic threshold - an intensity at which you are burning large amounts of fat. You, too, can teach your body to burn fat more efficiently so that you can spare glycogen for when it matters most. In other words, the riders who could burn fat the most efficiently perform better. Research has shown a correlation between the intensity at which the aerobic threshold occurs and performance in competitive cyclists. Thus, it’s not just the riders with the highest FTP or VO2-max that end up winning a lot of races, but also those who can efficiently utilize fat as a fuel source and therefore better preserve their glycogen stores. It’s unlikely you would be able to do a 5-minute best after four hours of hard riding because there’s just not enough left in the legs. You have surely felt this at the end of a long ride. If there are not enough carbs in your system (i.e., glycogen), you simply won’t be able to reach these intensities. At around your lactate threshold and beyond, you burn almost entirely carbohydrates. The harder you ride, you begin burning an increasingly higher percentage of carbs and a decreasing percentage of fat. Why? Racing tactics and skills play a large part, but another major key is the ability to burn fat.Īt lower intensities, you burn mostly fat and some carbohydrates. In professional cycling, there are lots of riders who can do a 5-minute or 20-minute power test on par with Grand Tour contenders however, in real races, these riders are often pack-finishers and domestiques. Why Fat Burning Matters in Cycling RacesĪpart from explosive one-off events such as track racing, short time trials, and 5 ks, efficient fat burning is a major key that sets great racers apart from the rest of the pack. One of the most important adaptations that you get from endurance rides is the ability to use fat more efficiently. How does riding for hours on end in Zone 2 replicate shredding the field on the finishing climb in a road race or making the winning break in a criterium? While it may not seem like it, endurance rides are a requirement for successful training. At face value, riding steadily at a relatively easy pace would not seem to help your racing.
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