BONK Training??
Gav888
Posts: 946
Ive found this article about loosing weight through cycling, I have a few pounds to loose myself and wondered if anyone has done this, or more importantly is it safe?
BONK TRAINING
If you're normal, well adjusted and sentient, you have to ask why any cyclist would submit himself to "bonk training." It's the ultimate in hair-shirt riding. You wake up in the morning, drink two cups of coffee without putting anything else in your stomach, then go for a 60-90 minute ride. The answer: To lose weight. FAST.
Andy Pruitt, clinical director of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, has seen plenty of clclists shed their guts with bonk training. "If I have a patient who's trying to lose weight- cyclist or not- I have him ride 20-30 minutes before breakfast on a stationary bike at about 60 percent of max heart rate," says Pruitt. "This ignites your fat-burning metabolism, and it stays lit during the day." If you have an extra 5-10 pounds to lose, empty-stomach exercise first thing in the morning is ideal, he says.
Bonk training works, according to Pruitt, because there's no readily available fuel source for your muscles (there's very little glycogen in the bloodstream when you wake up), so your body has to seek out fuel...stored fat. To get the full effect, you have to maintain an endurance pace; you should be able to converse without panting.
The name of this weight-loss comes from the idea that the training mimics the conditions that lead to the scourge of cyclists- bonking. In fact, true bonking is a danger.
"If you ride like this longer than 90 minutes, your body starts breaking down muscle and protein in organs," says Liz Applegate, sports nutritionist at the University of California-Davis, cyclist and author of Eat Smart, Play Hard. "Then you're not just losing fat, you're weakening your body, so dont ride longer than 90 minutes and you will fine to ride as normal the following day."
HOW TO BONK TRAIN
1. Upon waking, drink 2-3 cups of coffee, up to 45 minutes before cycling. Don't eat.
2. Ride at endurance pace- 60-70% of your max heart rate, or a casual pace that doesn't make you pant when you talk.
3. Keep it up for between 20-90 minutes.
4. You can do this on consecutive days, but mix in at least one normal breakfast per week.
5. Eat your typical breakfast as soon as the ride ends.
6 . Watch the blubber ignite!!
BONK TRAINING
If you're normal, well adjusted and sentient, you have to ask why any cyclist would submit himself to "bonk training." It's the ultimate in hair-shirt riding. You wake up in the morning, drink two cups of coffee without putting anything else in your stomach, then go for a 60-90 minute ride. The answer: To lose weight. FAST.
Andy Pruitt, clinical director of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, has seen plenty of clclists shed their guts with bonk training. "If I have a patient who's trying to lose weight- cyclist or not- I have him ride 20-30 minutes before breakfast on a stationary bike at about 60 percent of max heart rate," says Pruitt. "This ignites your fat-burning metabolism, and it stays lit during the day." If you have an extra 5-10 pounds to lose, empty-stomach exercise first thing in the morning is ideal, he says.
Bonk training works, according to Pruitt, because there's no readily available fuel source for your muscles (there's very little glycogen in the bloodstream when you wake up), so your body has to seek out fuel...stored fat. To get the full effect, you have to maintain an endurance pace; you should be able to converse without panting.
The name of this weight-loss comes from the idea that the training mimics the conditions that lead to the scourge of cyclists- bonking. In fact, true bonking is a danger.
"If you ride like this longer than 90 minutes, your body starts breaking down muscle and protein in organs," says Liz Applegate, sports nutritionist at the University of California-Davis, cyclist and author of Eat Smart, Play Hard. "Then you're not just losing fat, you're weakening your body, so dont ride longer than 90 minutes and you will fine to ride as normal the following day."
HOW TO BONK TRAIN
1. Upon waking, drink 2-3 cups of coffee, up to 45 minutes before cycling. Don't eat.
2. Ride at endurance pace- 60-70% of your max heart rate, or a casual pace that doesn't make you pant when you talk.
3. Keep it up for between 20-90 minutes.
4. You can do this on consecutive days, but mix in at least one normal breakfast per week.
5. Eat your typical breakfast as soon as the ride ends.
6 . Watch the blubber ignite!!
Cycling never gets any easier, you just go faster - Greg LeMond
0
Comments
-
There was a thread on this some time back:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=125694180 -
I can't see that it wouldn't be safe - it's pretty much what I do when commuting the 17-odd miles to work (except I don't like coffee, and I ride it fairly hard). I expect a lot of other people do the same. Trouble is, in practice a lot of people might replace the last point with:
6. Develop a ravenous hunger halfway through the morning and end up snacking,
7. Stay the same weight as before.
If you can resist the temptation to eat more, then (if I've understood the article correctly), you're just doing more exercise on the same amount of calories, which will indeed make you lose weight.0 -
Bronzie wrote:There was a thread on this some time back:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12569418
Sorry didnt spot that post.....
Ive had a read through and there is conflicting advise, some favour it, others avoid it at all costs.
I guess it comes down to -
Do you burn more fat riding at a slow pace first thing in the morning on an empty stomach for 1 hour, or during the evening riding at a fast pace for 1 hour, given that you would have restored your glucose levels during normal eating through out the day?Cycling never gets any easier, you just go faster - Greg LeMond0 -
Do you burn more fat riding at a slow pace first thing in the morning on an empty stomach for 1 hour, or during the evening riding at a fast pace for 1 hour, given that you would have restored your glucose levels during normal eating through out the day?
just do them both. I do...0 -
Foolish training idea.
Training to become more powerful is a far better solution. You'll be able to ride harder for longer and hence burn more calories overall, and be able to do it sustainably.
If you want to lose weight, then control what you eat/drink.0 -
Lauren Brochard used to do all his training rides on nothing but water in order to make any level of suffering in a race seem paltry by comparison.
Rumour has it is was this plus the "Festina Diet" that caused him to think that mullet looked good for upwards of 10 years."In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"
@gietvangent0 -
Really Long rides 4-5 hours will train your body to burn fat for fuel... (at higher power outputs) And if you force bonk on these rides that will MAKE YOU lose weight.
When you start to bonk heavily.... Get some Saliva going on your MP3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQcRv9Pzk4c
I did a 75 mile ride on nothing but water last July, came home close to fully-bonked. I rode 5 mph up a hill and rode strait into the back of a parked car at the side of the road. Got up, bagged with my front wheel bent a little; dizzy & fatigued as hell but still with plenty of energy to ditch the scene with a good sprint before the owner of the Firebird noticed the scratched car. Your liver can actually hold ALOT of glycogen. In fact you never really run out unless you go to full-exhaustion which takes a long time.... I believe I can do over 100 miles on nothing and others can go longer.....
But... I do believe you need to eat about 30-40 grams per hour of carbohyrate consumption in order to properly burn fats for fuel....0 -
You don't need to teach your body how to burn fats for fuel. It already knows how to do that.KKspeeder wrote:Really Long rides 4-5 hours will train your body to burn fat for fuel...
What you can do though is increase the power at which you can still utilise FFA as a primary fuel source, thereby sparing more glycogen for when it's really needed, i.e. when the hammer goes down.0 -
Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:
You don't need to teach your body how to burn fats for fuel. It already knows how to do that.KKspeeder wrote:Really Long rides 4-5 hours will train your body to burn fat for fuel...
What you can do though is increase the power at which you can still utilise FFA as a primary fuel source, thereby sparing more glycogen for when it's really needed, i.e. when the hammer goes down.
Yeah. Not important if people's races are only 90 minute crits though.... Increasing the amount of glycogen you can store will help if your flying along at 300+ watts for long crits.0 -
I have never deliberately tried that but I did once go out for a 50 mile hard training ride with only a bottle of water since waking up. It was the single most agonizing thing I've ever done...NEVER AGAIN!!!! :shock:0
-
Well increasing one's glycogen storage capacity isn't what we were discussing (nor crit racing) but even then, the better your aerobic fitness, the easier that 300W in a crit will be, the less deep the surges send you into the "red zone", the more quickly you recover from surges and the more frequently you'll be able to surge.KKspeeder wrote:Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:
You don't need to teach your body how to burn fats for fuel. It already knows how to do that.KKspeeder wrote:Really Long rides 4-5 hours will train your body to burn fat for fuel...
What you can do though is increase the power at which you can still utilise FFA as a primary fuel source, thereby sparing more glycogen for when it's really needed, i.e. when the hammer goes down.
Yeah. Not important if people's races are only 90 minute crits though.... Increasing the amount of glycogen you can store will help if your flying along at 300+ watts for long crits.
The benefits of training to improve one's power at threshold are several (and include increasing glycogen storage capacity so one can go harder for longer, increasing the ability to utilise FFA as fuel at higher power levels and our long ride endurance and speed, going faster overall, being able to sustain more attacks, better time trialling, ability to burn more kJ overall, enabling weight loss where deisreable etc etc).
Focussing on that far outweighs silly training like deliberately bonking on a ride.
Indeed, there is some suggestion that deliberately bonking leaves you prone to bonking on a regular basis. That hypothesis (by Dr Andy Coggan) is not tested but comes from the fact that one or more bouts of insulin- (vs. exercise-) induced hypoglycemia results in a decline in the ability to glucoregulate.
And bonking can also mean the quality of your training suffers for the much of the following week or so.
Train well.
Train hard.
Eat well.
Rest well.0 -
Wake up.
Eat nothing.
Drink coffee.
Smoke some crack.
Ride 60 minutes. Stop and eat 60-90 grams of carbohydrate and smoke some more crack. Seriously, do some cocaine it will help. Then ride another 3 hours on nothing but water. Do a threshold 20 right before you bonk and listed to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlzcrKYY ... re=related
Get back home, eat. Make sure you stay hydrated. Pop some sleeping pills like Zaleplon or Zolpidem (Ambien CR) and go to bed for 12 hours minimum. The more you sleep, the more you will not be eating since you cant eat when your in bed. IF you wake up early, have some of http://www.ivodka.com/ with your Ambien. Then climb back under the covers.
Get a water filter if your drinking cheap Vodka: http://www.filters-now.com/products/wbw ... taPitchers
When you wake up just chill for the day. Inject EPO on your rest days if your into that. You dont want to inject right before your rides because you can sweat out some of your epo and thats money wasted. .
Take 3 rest days and 3 bonk rides per week. One day is for threshold 20s, a 3*20 at 95% FTP.
You will lose weight big time if you do this 3 times a week for a couple of months. You will be ripped!
0 -
Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:What you can do though is increase the power at which you can still utilise FFA as a primary fuel source, thereby sparing more glycogen for when it's really needed, i.e. when the hammer goes down.
Im going to sound think, but what on earth is FFA??Cycling never gets any easier, you just go faster - Greg LeMond0 -
Free Fatty Acids.
What fat is broken down to by the digestive system and is used as a key fuel source via oxidisation to create ATP (adenosine triphosphate) which is the molecule used by cells in the chemical reactions which release energy. ATP are the "battery packs" if you like that provide a source of energy when needed.0 -
Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:Free Fatty Acids.
What fat is broken down to by the digestive system and is used as a key fuel source via oxidisation to create ATP (adenosine triphosphate) which is the molecule used by cells in the chemical reactions which release energy. ATP are the "battery packs" if you like that provide a source of energy when needed.
Good answer!! So, how do you use FFA as fuel, or do you already?Cycling never gets any easier, you just go faster - Greg LeMond0 -
Er, it's a normal chemical process that takes place inside our bodies almost all of the time. Being alive and breathing is all one needs to do.0
-
I should have explained a bit clearer, how do you use FFA as a primary fuel source over glycogen as fuel, or am I getting the wrong end of the stick :?:Cycling never gets any easier, you just go faster - Greg LeMond0
-
Not sure why it really matters to you all that much but.... there are 4 ways:Gav888 wrote:I should have explained a bit clearer, how do you use FFA as a primary fuel source over glycogen as fuel, or am I getting the wrong end of the stick :?:
i don't ride.
ii. the easier (and more steady) your effort, the more FFA is used as an overall proportion of fuel source.
iii. the longer your ride, the greater a proprtion of total energy is from metabolising FFA.
iv. you train smart and hard, increasing your aerobic capacities, thereby being able to ride at higher intensities while still using FFA as a substantial fuel source.
But if you are concerned with some desire to "burn fat", then forget it. Far better off to train to improve your aerobic capacities so you can ride harder, for longer. Tooling around at recovery pace ain't gunna do that.0 -
I was thinking the opposite. Riding in traffic with low blood sugar, shaky legs and your brain not working properly? No thanks!!I can't see that it wouldn't be safe -0 -
Anyone read Rouleur magazine? There was an article in the last issue about the bonk, or 'Blow Up' as they call it:
"I remember Fignon, three days before the world championships, setting off to do three hundred kilometers alone, with a cereal bar. He went out to meet the Man with the Hammer."
That's just insane but I do 26 miles most mornings, on an empty stomach. I normally have a glass of fruit juice and a coffee, and it's fine. I'm not sure it's a valid training technique, it's just I can't be arsed getting up even earlier to have breakfast first then wait for it to go down.
I've lost a bit of weight as well, but that's mainly from watching what I eat.0 -
Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:Foolish training idea.
Training to become more powerful is a far better solution. You'll be able to ride harder for longer and hence burn more calories overall, and be able to do it sustainably.
If you want to lose weight, then control what you eat/drink.
It's not difficult really. I lost six and a half stone from riding lots and being careful about what I eat.
God knows why anyone would want to bonk train. When I've bonked I'm cycling at about 10mph and feel like throwing up. How is that beneficial ?0 -
I have to get carbs into me even in short bike rides. This is something I learned as soon as I started riding and forgot yesterday.
Yesterday I went on 32 mile ride which took 1hr50mins and I didn't have any breakfast and all I look was 1 litre of water. I felt fine on the bike and felt fine heading home however when I got home (literally as I took my feet out of the pedals) I felt this overwhelming feeling of hunger. I just started stuffing food into myself and 4 hours later after several further attempts to satisfy my hunger I was still eating. I ate more calories in those 4 hours than I would in a whole day normally. I was totally disgusted with myself however I was just so hungry I couldn't help but eat. Best of all the previous week I done exactly the same ride in very similar conditions and all I had with me was 1ltr PSP22 of which I drank about 2/3. I didn't feel hungry when I got home so I just had some hot chocolate and a ham roll which some nice spicy onion chutney. That done me for about 5 hours until after I came home from the gym and had a normal dinner later on. That would be pretty typical.
Clearly this approach of starving myself on the rides just wouldn't work for me as I would end up looking like the half ton man :shock:
Never again.0 -
That overwhelming hunger is normal isn't it? I get that all the time, even if I haven't done any training!
The text books say the body stores enough glycogen for 90 minutes aerobic exercise, so I would have thought if you'd eaten properly the day before, then up to 30 miles or so should be alright. The title of that article is a misnomer though, because you shouldn't aim to actually 'bonk', the idea is to just ride at a moderate intensity on an empty stomach to accelerate 'fat burning', which sounds unlikely to me. Would be interested to know if there's any decent research to prove the theory...personally I do 26 miles flat out on an empty stomach every morning and I'm normally fine, but everyone is different.0 -
Interesting point of view: Metabolically, high-volume training makes sense0
-
Lydiard was a smart guy.stjohnswell wrote:Interesting point of view: Metabolically, high-volume training makes sense0 -
Interesting and educational read. "Train at the top of your fat burning zone" is pretty much how I've done my base training over winter: two long rides on the weekend at around 75% of max HR, ie as hard as I could go without blowing up (too much). See my earlier post but I think I could have saved myself some pain by drinking more water. Yet to do any lactate threshold training, but I figure I'll get that by racing ;-)Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:
Lydiard was a smart guy.stjohnswell wrote:Interesting point of view: Metabolically, high-volume training makes sense
In the past I've taken a more haphazard approach, which still produces results but in a more painful way. Train for five hours, including 2.5 hours quite hard at 80%. Blow up spectacularly in the last hour and a half, needing a lot of sustenance to get me home. But I found that the next week, I could handle exactly the same ride a lot better.
Don't recommend it though. I think there are smarter ways to get fitter.Jeff Jones
Product manager, Sports0 -
Alex,
you say : “foolish training idea” , but with respect, it isn’t a “training idea” is it? It’s more of a “weightloss idea” and a good one in my experience. What’s “foolish” about it?
KKs says
“But... I do believe you need to eat about 30-40 grams per hour of carbohyrate consumption in order to properly burn fats for fuel....”
Look, I’m sorry to be blunt, but that’s pretty much complete cobblers. Every time you ingest carbs, you up your insulin levels, and thus slow or even stop completely, any fat-burning that you’d got going.
The reason that “bonk-training” works, is that exercise is taking place the relative absence of both stored and ingested carbohydrate, thus with lower levels of insulin (the hormone that stores fat,) and consequently higher amounts of glucagon, HGH, IGF-1 and adrenaline, (which are amongst the many hormones that promote fat-LOSS.*) It’s not a 100% either/or situation, but in general, the more carbs you eat, the less easy you’ll find it to lose body-fat.
Try looking at it this way :
Imagine you have a dual-fuel car that has a 10 Litre tank for unleaded petrol, and a 100 Litre one for LPG (gas,) and that whilst you can start the engine using either fuel, the car will then always preferentially use petrol. i.e. you can’t make further use of the gas tank until the petrol one is empty – I know that’s not how a DF engine works in the real world, but this is an analogy – go with me if you can please. Running on petrol produces a marginally superior performance, (highest top speed and best acceleration,) but is way less fuel-efficient, the LPG giving vastly superior mpg, as well as being a much bigger reservoir anyway.
If you want top performance (i.e. for racing) you run on petrol, although it’s highly inefficient and the reserves are very small, so you have to top up very regularly. But if you want the most efficient and long-lasting source of fuel, you deliberately run down the petrol so’s you can use the LPG.
Now for petrol read carbohydrate and replace “LPG” with fat, and the same is broadly true of your “engine”, i.e. your body: If you want to sprint and climb fast choose petrol. If you want the greater efficiency and distance go for gas. And if you’re doing something that might require both (like a race for instance) then use both fuels. But if you just want to use-up LPG in order to lessen the weight of the car . . .
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT KEEP TOPPING UP WITH PETROL !
So similarly if you want to get YOU lighter by using stored body-fat as fuel . . .
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT KEEP TOPPING UP WITH CARBOHYDRATES !
Simple really innit ?
* Do note that whilst there are many bodily substances and mechanisms that aid and promote fat-loss, there is one and only one that can store fat :
“ INSULIN – YOU CAN’T GET FAT WITHOUT IT ! ”0 -
Well I consider training to improve your aerobic abilities, so that you can ride harder while still using FFA as the primary fuel source is a much more intelligent way to train. And guess what? That requires CHO in order to train hard enough to develop that aerobic engine properly.
You'll burn more calories in a sustainable manner that way anyway. and for weight loss, it is calorie deficit that matters, not the fuel substrate used.
If you want to lose weight, control what you eat.
But each to their own.0 -
oh - if you want to burn more fat on your rides, you could just eat a high fat diet, that'll do the trick as well.
but that would be foolish as well0 -
"for weight loss, it is calorie deficit that matters, not the fuel substrate used."
Hmmmmmm
So would you say that the same is true of calorie surplus? Would two hypothetical, identical cyclists, who trained identically, but both ate say, 1,500 "too much" per day (let's imagine 4,000 cals consumed when they each only need 2,500 per day,) put on the same amount of weight, even if one ate all those calories as carbohydrate, and the other consumed all 4.000 as fat ?
Because I don't think they would.0
