Commuting: beneficial or detremental?

greygoose1

Hi all,

Do you think there's a point at which commuting has a negative impact on your 'proper' training? Say someone cycled c10 stop-start miles each way to work (c100 miles per week), leaving relatively sore legs. Would you get less out or your speed sessions and 'proper' training?

Cheers
GG1

Mindermast

Well, you should make commuting part of your training.

hasbeen

Mindermast wrote:

Well, you should make commuting part of your training.

+ 1,000,000

I'd LOVE to have an each way commute of 10 miles so at least 100 mpw. You could do so much with that in terms of drills, intervals (10 sec sprints to 5 mins) that you could do 1 endurance ride at the weekend and easily be competitive in road races at 2/3 level.

If you had the time to extend the ride even better:

Mon - easy commute in and out (spin easy gears)
Tue - commute in steady, 3 x 5 mins efforts on way home
Wed - easy in, 90mins to 2hrs home (sweetspot effort)
Thurs - easy in, sprints and drills on way back
Fri - steady in and out
Sat - day off
Sun - 3hr endurance ride (with efforts)

Do that for a few weeks/months and you'll be well on your way. This means when you do get home from work (10miles is < 45mins) you haven't got to worry about going back out again which fits in with family/social life

phreak

I think the key part of the OPs post was the stop start nature of his commute. I've ridden 10 miles to work here in London and the frequency of traffic lights make it useless for training, so I simply used it as an easy ride and pootled along. Active recovery if you like. Saved the proper training for the evenings and weekend.

Zoomer37

greygoose1 wrote:

Hi all,

Do you think there's a point at which commuting has a negative impact on your 'proper' training? Say someone cycled c10 stop-start miles each way to work (c100 miles per week), leaving relatively sore legs. Would you get less out or your speed sessions and 'proper' training?

Cheers
GG1

Just get fitter and those commuting miles will start to feel like sod all.

If you are in a position to put in proper training hrs on the bike then personally id use those commuting miles to just ease the legs up.

jonomc4

I also commute in London - agree about the traffic lights. But there is plenty of sprint training catching up the person in front and then doing a vanity overtake - I am sure there is a thread on that somewhere

jibberjim

If you get sore legs from riding 10miles of stop start riding, then you're either extremely unfit, or ride it such that you're training for standing start sprints. Given that standing start sprints are not part of any cycling event outside of the track (and a tiny number of crits where it matters...) then it's a really dumb way to train.

lucan2

I find commuting is a really useful way of getting to and from work.

tlw1

I find it great value, but then I live 35 miles away from work

thegibdog

jibberjim wrote:

If you get sore legs from riding 10miles of stop start riding, then you're either extremely unfit, or ride it such that you're training for standing start sprints. Given that standing start sprints are not part of any cycling event outside of the track (and a tiny number of crits where it matters...) then it's a really dumb way to train.

I would've thought it could be a good way of improving short term muscular endurance and/or sprinting ability, depending on the road conditions. Surely having sore legs after interval training is a good sign that it's working?

You might not be able to get as much out of your time commuting as you would spending the same time doing focussed training, but it's going to be more beneficial than time spent in a bus, train or car. I know of at least one person who has got to first cat whilst doing most of his training on his commute.

okgo

On the whole I would say mine is an even balance.

I don't think if offers much in terms of fitness but it allows me to monitor my weight more easily (35 miles per day when I do it, which I am less and less as it just leaves such fatigue after a few days).

GGBiker

Before Christmas I was commuting 3 miles each way, I went flat out on a hill taking around 2 minutes near the start, probably like a short vo2 max interval and tried to ride around a threshold type pace on the way back, I was at my peak fitness this year doing that so definitely worth while even for short distance.

It has taken me about 2 months of hard interval training 3-4 times per week for 1-2 hours to regain that level.

sloppyschleckonds

GGBiker wrote:

Before Christmas I was commuting 3 miles each way, I went flat out on a hill taking around 2 minutes near the start, probably like a short vo2 max interval and tried to ride around a threshold type pace on the way back, I was at my peak fitness this year doing that so definitely worth while even for short distance.

It has taken me about 2 months of hard interval training 3-4 times per week for 1-2 hours to regain that level.

3 miles at threshold? What kind of hard interval training did you do to replicate that?

buckles

thegibdog wrote:

jibberjim wrote:

If you get sore legs from riding 10miles of stop start riding, then you're either extremely unfit, or ride it such that you're training for standing start sprints. Given that standing start sprints are not part of any cycling event outside of the track (and a tiny number of crits where it matters...) then it's a really dumb way to train.

I would've thought it could be a good way of improving short term muscular endurance and/or sprinting ability, depending on the road conditions. Surely having sore legs after interval training is a good sign that it's working?

Nope, sore legs is a good sign of fatigue.

jibberjim

thegibdog wrote:

jibberjim wrote:

If you get sore legs from riding 10miles of stop start riding, then you're either extremely unfit, or ride it such that you're training for standing start sprints. Given that standing start sprints are not part of any cycling event outside of the track (and a tiny number of crits where it matters...) then it's a really dumb way to train.

I would've thought it could be a good way of improving short term muscular endurance and/or sprinting ability, depending on the road conditions. Surely having sore legs after interval training is a good sign that it's working?

No, since it's not at all specific, sprinting from a stand still - 0 cadence, 0 inertia, is totally different to sprinting from 40kph with loads of inertia and an immediate cadence of 80-90... They are not the same thing, so you're training something unrelated to what you want to train. It would train your ability to sprint from lights of course, but as I said that's not a skill in cycling outside of track.

GGBiker

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

GGBiker wrote:

Before Christmas I was commuting 3 miles each way, I went flat out on a hill taking around 2 minutes near the start, probably like a short vo2 max interval and tried to ride around a threshold type pace on the way back, I was at my peak fitness this year doing that so definitely worth while even for short distance.

It has taken me about 2 months of hard interval training 3-4 times per week for 1-2 hours to regain that level.

3 miles at threshold? What kind of hard interval training did you do to replicate that?

Who said I was replicating it with intervals?

thegibdog

jibberjim wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

jibberjim wrote:

If you get sore legs from riding 10miles of stop start riding, then you're either extremely unfit, or ride it such that you're training for standing start sprints. Given that standing start sprints are not part of any cycling event outside of the track (and a tiny number of crits where it matters...) then it's a really dumb way to train.

I would've thought it could be a good way of improving short term muscular endurance and/or sprinting ability, depending on the road conditions. Surely having sore legs after interval training is a good sign that it's working?

No, since it's not at all specific, sprinting from a stand still - 0 cadence, 0 inertia, is totally different to sprinting from 40kph with loads of inertia and an immediate cadence of 80-90... They are not the same thing, so you're training something unrelated to what you want to train. It would train your ability to sprint from lights of course, but as I said that's not a skill in cycling outside of track.

It couldn't help train for sprinting out of hairpins in crits? Making/bridging to attacks?

Buckles wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

I would've thought it could be a good way of improving short term muscular endurance and/or sprinting ability, depending on the road conditions. Surely having sore legs after interval training is a good sign that it's working?

Nope, sore legs is a good sign of fatigue.

Couldn't it be either/both? Are you saying that you shouldn't have sore legs after interval training?

buckles

thegibdog wrote:

Buckles wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

I would've thought it could be a good way of improving short term muscular endurance and/or sprinting ability, depending on the road conditions. Surely having sore legs after interval training is a good sign that it's working?

Nope, sore legs is a good sign of fatigue.

Couldn't it be either/both? Are you saying that you shouldn't have sore legs after interval training?

Ok, look at it this way. Does having sore legs make you faster?

jgsi

Having 'trained' 'fresh' legs makes for a good race performance.
I use the word legs to really mean the whole body system.
Getting that optimum combined with a daily commute can be a difficult circle to square.

jibberjim

thegibdog wrote:

It couldn't help train for sprinting out of hairpins in crits?

Even out of a hairpin the instaneous cadence should be over 60 for almost anyone - the only reason it wouldn't be is if you forgot to change gear before. And the inertia from cornering at even 20kph is quite different to 0.

thegibdog wrote:

Making/bridging to attacks?

When there's any attack down the road, your inertia is going to be massive.

sloppyschleckonds

GGBiker wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

GGBiker wrote:

Before Christmas I was commuting 3 miles each way, I went flat out on a hill taking around 2 minutes near the start, probably like a short vo2 max interval and tried to ride around a threshold type pace on the way back, I was at my peak fitness this year doing that so definitely worth while even for short distance.

It has taken me about 2 months of hard interval training 3-4 times per week for 1-2 hours to regain that level.

3 miles at threshold? What kind of hard interval training did you do to replicate that?

Who said I was replicating it with intervals?

GGBiker wrote:

It has taken me about 2 months of hard interval training 3-4 times per week for 1-2 hours to regain that level.

thegibdog

jibberjim wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

It couldn't help train for sprinting out of hairpins in crits?

Even out of a hairpin the instaneous cadence should be over 60 for almost anyone - the only reason it wouldn't be is if you forgot to change gear before. And the inertia from cornering at even 20kph is quite different to 0.

thegibdog wrote:

Making/bridging to attacks?

When there's any attack down the road, your inertia is going to be massive.

How relevant is inertia though? Aren't intensity and duration more important?

Buckles wrote:

Ok, look at it this way. Does having sore legs make you faster?

No, but I thought we were talking about training rather than racing.

buckles

Ok then, look at it this way. Is the aim of training to stimulate adaptations and thus to increase performance, or is it to obtain leg muscle soreness?

Furthermore, does training that leads to leg muscle soreness necessarily lead to increased performance?

Having answered the above question - which of the following is an actual indicator that training is working - a) sore legs, or b) increased performance?

thegibdog

I see what you're getting at! But then you could also say that increased performance doesn't necessarily indicate that training is working, since there are so many other variables...

buckles

You could indeed say that, but then you'd probably be wrong.

jibberjim

thegibdog wrote:

I see what you're getting at! But then you could also say that increased performance doesn't necessarily indicate that training is working, since there are so many other variables...

Increased performance doesn't guarantee training is working no, but it's quite likely, you don't just get randomly better for no reason.

And yes, inertia is very relevant, for some riders more than others, but still very relevant.

thegibdog

I wasn't suggesting you judge the effectiveness of your training by how sore your legs are, just that you can use commuting as part of your training and therefore having sore legs after it isn't a particularly bad thing.

Interesting point re inertia, I've never really heard it mentioned before with regards to training.

Yellow Peril

I've commuted for some years 20 mile round trip not much stop start. For a period of time up until recently it was my only cycling and I began to realise that I was steadily "training down" to being someone who road 10 miles each way at a moderate speed. I then resolve to start turbo-ing and getting longer rides at the weekends and hey presto commuting cadence is up and riding faster again now.


commute by all means but don't kid yourself it is an intrinsic part of your training unless you have a long commute or testing terrain.