Time to Regain Past Figures?

Alhana

What sort of time frame would it take to recover past power figures following a year off? After about 3 weeks (3-4x/wk) of training, I am at 60-70% of those old numbers. Feel like a slug on an iceberg riding the bike now, talk about slow

One more question. If you have gained some weight during the layoff, like most people, could you expect to make a bit more power eventually? Though the power divided by weight figure would probably be less.

Alhana

No answer huh? Guess after a year I am starting from scratch like a newbie again

daveryanwyoming

O.K. since no one wants to play....
Hard to say how long it will take, it depends a bit on how fit you were at your high point, how you're training now compared to what got you to your peak fitness, what activities you did when you were off the bike, etc. But after more than a decade away from serious riding I got back to race fitness(and exceeded my earlier results by quite a bit) in about 8 months of training. And I dropped an awful lot of accumulated weight in the process. So I wouldn't be surprised if you could regain your previous fitness in just a few months.

As for the weight, it will only help if you were either much too light before or the added weight is from increased muscle mass in the muscles that count. I'm guessing that's not the case and the extra weight won't lead to extra power.

-Dave