Junk Miles, No Man's Land. Fiction or Fact?

SCR Pedro

Do junk miles exist? Is no man's land in Terms of HR Training a load of crap? Of course a structured Training plan will give the most Returns for the time spent, but in the real world People have off-days where intervals just aren't going to happen, and there isn't the time for Long slow endurance miles. But are These rides actually just a waste of time, or is it the case that the Returns on Fitness just won't be so high?

Take, for example my ride today, 15 minutes in, I knew it was an off day. My HR was up and down and in no particular Zone for any length of time. But I rode for 2 hours, just the same. I doubt I achieved anything from the ride.

In These cases, is it worth continuing, or should we just go home and Play Video games instead? And before the "just go out and enjoy the scenery" Hippies come along; go hug bunny rabbits and Dance around rainbows in your own threads.

drlodge

I think every ride is going to have some benefit, there are two types of training in my book:
- training for speed
- training for distance

If you're doing a relaxed 2 hour ride then its neither, but not a complete waste of time. Better to do 2 hours of relaxed riding than none at all. If nothing else, this ride will prevent your performance from degrading even if it isn't actually improving it. Unlike sitting on the couch where your muscles are turning to mush. Its also good for your mental state too I think, by enjoying the scenery mentally you must be in a better world than being inside looking at 4 walls.

Just my opinion, based on no facts.

ai_1

I have no definitive answers to offer on your query. Just want to admit that up front!

Nothwithstanding that, I'm going to give an opinion anyway, because that's how forums are supposed to work.
No, there is no such thing as "Junk miles" that provide no benefits.
There is more and less effective training but a mid distance low intensity ride is not devoid of merit. You should take this on faith. Alternatively, wait until you get a statistically relevant number of responses and calculate the proportion for and against the theory. This will not tell you anything about reality but will provide the data necessary to choose a position such that you can feel you fit in or you're a maverick crusader depending on your preferences.

Tom Dean

Any ride can provide some training benefit, but you also have to consider the fatigue it will generate. The right balance will be different for everyone. Generally I think 2 hours steady gives about the worst return in terms of benefit/fatigue. Doing that when you are already too fatigued to do your targetted session is the definition of junk IMO.

poynedexter

i guess it depends on what you are training for, and how long you could have cycled for normally. if you are training for a 5 hr event and normally do 3-4 hrs then 2 steady isnt gonna make much difference, unless you need to burn some beef off!

however, if its all part of a bigger picture, one swallow does not a summer, make!

kingstonian

SCR Pedro wrote:

Do junk miles exist? Is no man's land in Terms of HR Training a load of crap? Of course a structured Training plan will give the most Returns for the time spent, but in the real world People have off-days where intervals just aren't going to happen, and there isn't the time for Long slow endurance miles. But are These rides actually just a waste of time, or is it the case that the Returns on Fitness just won't be so high?

Take, for example my ride today, 15 minutes in, I knew it was an off day. My HR was up and down and in no particular Zone for any length of time. But I rode for 2 hours, just the same. I doubt I achieved anything from the ride.

In These cases, is it worth continuing, or should we just go home and Play Video games instead? And before the "just go out and enjoy the scenery" Hippies come along; go hug bunny rabbits and Dance around rainbows in your own threads.

If I'm out and I feel it is an off day, I will usually just work on the pedal stroke and cadence ie something more technical than physical that I want to improve. Don't know whether that can work for you or not, but I do manage to get something useful out of the ride.

SCR Pedro

Thanks for the opinions.

drlodge wrote:

If you're doing a relaxed 2 hour ride then its neither, but not a complete waste of time. Better to do 2 hours of relaxed riding than none at all.

Ai_1 wrote:

No, there is no such thing as "Junk miles" that provide no benefits.
There is more and less effective training but a mid distance low intensity ride is not devoid of merit.

Kingstonian wrote:

If I'm out and I feel it is an off day, I will usually just work on the pedal stroke and cadence ie something more technical than physical that I want to improve.

Basically, I agree with these points. Today I turned my attention to my position on the bike, and focused on what I could do to dial it in a little better. However, I wouldn't kid myself that such rides will contribute much to fitness.

Tom Dean wrote:

Any ride can provide some training benefit, but you also have to consider the fatigue it will generate. The right balance will be different for everyone. Generally I think 2 hours steady gives about the worst return in terms of benefit/fatigue. Doing that when you are already too fatigued to do your targetted session is the definition of junk IMO.

I agree again. That was why I knocked the effort back from the start. It was at that point I asked myself why I was bothering to go on. I couldn't see the sense in what I was doing. And I have no weight to lose, so the beef burning logic is out

jgsi

May I ref this
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/arti ... -threshold

Training Peaks blog contributions are always worth a read and this one does uplift you if like me you cannot, just cannot goes eye balls out every goddamn time you swing a leg over a bike...

dennisn

FWIW I think it was bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman who said something to the effect that ".. if you always do the same thing you'll always have what you already have...". Something like that. Not sure if it applies in the OP's case, just throwing it out there. :?

Mikey23

@scr pedro... Offended by your first post so you dont get the benefit of my wisdom.

Dippydog2

Well I did two hours of junk riding yesterday. I went so slow I didn't get a single Strava cup and kept my heart rate below zone 3. Lowest suffer score I have ever had.

But, the sun was shining, I met a group of guys riding round the island for charity (and saved them a few hours of misery as they were lost) and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Did it do me any good? Well, the alternative was eating half a barbequed cow and drinking a gallon of wine,so I think overall it was a positive experience.

SCR Pedro

@ JGSI: Good to know that junk rides are salvagable by some logic
@ Dennisn: I agree, but it's not so applicable here. I haven't been following my training plan long enough to plateau
@ Mikey23: I don't even know what you are on about.

I'm off for 110km's, and if it sucks, I'm turning around and going back to bed!

okgo

That is part of the problem with having a pro as your coach. They all seem to share similar opinions in regards to what you should be doing. I've heard of some hilarious stuff for local guys on 10 hours a week from a pro.

There is a balance, you can't train high intensity all the time. Though there is certainly a balance between being fresh for events and using some as a training exercise. You can't be fresh for everything and expect to improve I don't think.

Stalin

1111

mangetout_rodney

Depends on your goals, I reckon.
All effort burns calories- if you're cycling for weight loss then there might be more efficient methods than low intensity cycling but it isn't wasted time unless you're 100% focussed on performance riding.
I lost most of my excess weight doing low to medium intensity, mid distance riding.

If it is the only thing you do then it is less effective than a mixture of various ride types.
Plus, sometimes it is just nice to cruise about and look at the scenery- it is meant to be fun, after all.

It can be problematic when ideas taken from professional circuits make their way down to the serious enthusiast level.
If you're a pro then yes, there probably are junk miles but that is because they are trying to maximise every minute of their time on the bike.

Stalin

111111

okgo

Because they have to due to the number of hours they train. Until an amateur comes on here saying they have 25-30 hours a week then I don't believe the best thing is just bumbling about.

SCR Pedro

Sevendeadly wrote:

Depends on your goals, I reckon.
All effort burns calories- if you're cycling for weight loss..

Definitely not. After a ride, I have to eat the house down to avoid losing weight. Most days I can't get enough calories in. My goal is to be fast, or to ride endurance rides with hard climbs, and not blowing up. So far, it's going reasonably well.

Sevendeadly wrote:

..it is meant to be fun, after all.

Hmmm. Fun, you say? I might try it one day. Is there a heart rate zone for fun? How long and at what intensity?

Stalin wrote:

111111

I think that's a lesson to us all. I would like to counter your argument with 222222, though.

I did 80 tempo Km's yesterday, the only junk parts were waiting at traffic lights and getting angry at my saddle.

bahzob

JGSI wrote:

May I ref this
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/arti ... -threshold

Training Peaks blog contributions are always worth a read and this one does uplift you if like me you cannot, just cannot goes eye balls out every goddamn time you swing a leg over a bike...

Yes this article is very good. However some care is needed in interpreting it wrt to discussion about "junk miles".

As it explains endurance athletes need to train outside lactate threshold level. The rationale for this is that it improves the capacity of muscles to process lactate, which gives a double benefit: Lactate levels for a given power are lower and, since lactate is used as an energy source less glycogen is needed.

However it makes it clear. This training should be done at ZONE 2.

Zone 2 is NOT "junk miles". Zone 2 is 80%-90% of your heart rate at lactate threshold. Maintaining this level for an endurance ride of several hours is not easy and requires a considerable focus.

(See here for more on this http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/how-proper-training-affects-lactate-threshold-heart-rate?feed=70c86158-aad7-4b07-8cc3-7c383b9bd61b&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+trainingpeaks%2FXAlX+%28TrainingPeaks+Blog%29

So. "Junk miles" do exist and are long rides done at low intensity i.e. below Zone 2. That is not to say they have no training benefit, they are useful for recovery and are fun if done in a group.

However if you have limited time in terms of training improvement they are useless.

If you are riding for 3+ hours then you will be far better off doing in Zone 2 than as junk miles.

If you feel you can't manage this then it would be best to take a day off and do some jobs that will free up time later in the week that can be used for quality training.

dw300

SCR Pedro wrote:

Sevendeadly wrote:

Depends on your goals, I reckon.
All effort burns calories- if you're cycling for weight loss..

Definitely not. After a ride, I have to eat the house down to avoid losing weight. Most days I can't get enough calories in. My goal is to be fast, or to ride endurance rides with hard climbs, and not blowing up. So far, it's going reasonably well.

You should be loosing weight. Until you get down to pro level bodyfat there's no reason to replace the calories from fat that you burned. All you need to do is replenish your glycogen stores asap, so you can train again asap.

The fitter you get the less glycogen you'll use on, for example, a Z2 ride. So you shouldn't need to eat an awful lot extra afterwards. Or.. you'll be able to go faster overall if you still burn all your glycogen, but the speed is coming mainly from the increased power you make from burning fat.

In theory you shouldnt need to replace more than 1500-2000kcals after any ride. If youve been going hard enough to burn through your full store of glycogen, and more, then presumably you were replacing the extra while in the saddle, or you bonked, in which case you still don't need to replace more than whatever your full gyycogen store is.

YellaBelly

I wouldn't fancy hitting the same % body fat as the pros compete at. Considering they have professional trainers, nutritionists, sport scientists etc looking after them, monitoring performance and everything else. I'd bet most enthusiastic amateurs looking after their own diet and training would suffer more than they gained trying to tread such a fine line between calories in and calories out.

It's only my opinion mind you, and I wouldn't argue that it is categorically wrong to drop that low. To a degree it will depend on an individuals ability to plan and monitor their own progress. It would just leave very little room for error before illness and poor performance begins to hamper things.

daxplusplus

dw300 wrote:

.. In theory you shouldnt need to replace more than 1500-2000kcals after any ride. If youve been going hard enough to burn through your full store of glycogen, and more, then presumably you were replacing the extra while in the saddle, or you bonked, in which case you still don't need to replace more than whatever your full gyycogen store is.

It's taken me a long time to realise this to be true .. I'm still trying to convince my stomach I'll be concentrating on this going forward. Slightly worried that I will be bonking on rides though when I get it wrong.

SCR Pedro

Well, I'm also reading up on nutrition too. That is a whole other discussion. But I can say that I haven't eaten so much after the last couple of longer rides, so something must be working.

Current body fat is around 12%. I would like to continue filling out a M size t-shirt, rather than looking like some sort of war refugee, or that Froome geezer. It might be time for 45% fat goats' cheese and whole milk. Mmmm....