Novice Training?!

tomo20

hi

I'm thinking about getting my first road bike and my plan is to get fit over the summer and join my university team next year. I'm in pretty good shape already but not at a good enough standard to do well in the club.

Can anyone give me any tips on a suitable training program or plan? I go to the gym and do weights and cardio and am lifting fairly big leg weights, should i continue with this or do endurance exercises?

Thanks

incog24

Which University are you at? Swap weights sessions for cardio sessions, slowly build up your mileage, practice group riding if you can. If you go to a uni in a hilly area make sure you do some some hilly rides so you don't get dropped on them when you're out with the club.

Anonymous

Ride your bike more!

jonmack

I'm with Nap, just ride ride ride, and you'll soon be keeping up with the "faster" guys. In two weeks of riding I've already found my average speed on the flat is increasing, and now I have a HRM and will soon be buying a Turbo I expect my cardio strength to increase too.

Personally I'd suggest a HRM and a turbo trainer, I've been looking around the web and have found a nice page about intense turbo sessions - http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/fitness/ ... 73950.html and I downloaded a HR calculator - http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/b ... lator.html

I feel with those two resources I can improve my fitness levels and hopefully start racing in the future. I also found http://www.cptips.com/ which seems to be quite useful.

Keep riding, and good luck!

tomo20

I'm at loughborough which seems to be pretty flat and have been trying to ride around 50 miles a week which was good but exams are keeping me on campus more so hitting the gym more instead of going out on my bike. But that will change in a couple weeks then ill have 3 months off.

thanks for your comments

Garz

Hit the road hard when you get your break mate! Dont let anything get in the way of exams just yet.

Alex_Simmons/RST

tomo20 wrote:

I'm at loughborough which seems to be pretty flat and have been trying to ride around 50 miles a week which was good but exams are keeping me on campus more so hitting the gym more instead of going out on my bike. But that will change in a couple weeks then ill have 3 months off.

thanks for your comments

If it's bike riding fitness you're after, don't worry about doing weights. As has been said, just ride more and make sure you enjoy it!

If you want some more specific guidance to improve fitness and how to make the best gains with the time avaialble, then have a look at our custom training plans. You'll get excellent gains with three months of consistent work with progressively increasing workload.

http://rst-training.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... plans.html