Better workout - Long less or Short more?

What's a better workout with regard to weightloss, fitness, muscle tone.

Are you better off riding 10km twice a day, 5 days a week or riding 100km once a week? Which would be better for fitness and which would result in greater fat burning?

 

I saw no one had responded so I'll throw in my opinion.

Fat burning is most effective when you exercise at around 65%-75% of your max heart rate. This is because the body is able to take up enough oxygen so the cells can utilize stored fat, instead of calories in the form of carbohydrates.

Regarding whether daily short rides are better than 1 long weekend ride...from a fat burning point of view I would do the 100km option. That is likely to give you a great % of time in that fat-burning zone. On shorter daily rides the time to warm up and down will reduce your total 'fat burning' time. Regarding fitness and muscle tone...not really sure. Riding 100kms once a week will make you more accustomed to longer distances (ie build stamina)...hope that helps.

 

Like Walrus said, if you want to build your endurance so that you can ride longer distances, going 100 km once a week would be much better than 10km twice a day for 5 days.

But, if the only goal is overall fitness and weight loss, I'd ride twice a day. Believe that frequency will keep your metabolism up better than just one long ride a week.

Best would probably be a combination. Why not one 10 km ride a day, plus a 50-100 km ride on the weekend?

 

Or better yet, ride 100km twice a day, and 10km on the weekend

 

Would love to but I have family commitments so there is never enough time to ride as much as I would like.

Commuting is good because I HAVE to get to work, but getting a few hours off on a weekend is often hard.

Cheers

 

Most likely something between these two extremes would be the best solution.

 

OK, understand now twice daily 10 km is your commute...that's a great use of time and the bike. If weekend time is limited, maybe you can add another 10-20km to your trip home from work on the nice days.

Believe regardless of how much you ride, weight loss is mainly about the diet. My hero LA said at the Tour de Georgia last week that he's got 10 weeks now to work on the diet and lose a few pounds before the TdF. If a pro that train 4-6 hours a day needs to work on his diet to reach his best performance weight, that tells me it's going to be critical for the rest of us as well.

 

the fat burning corelation is open to debate, as it has been studied that higher output excercise results in more total calories burned leading to increased weight loss.

but it is all variable with the individual.
if you have been training a lot of endurance, some intensity can be added in a shorter workout. this can keep one from depleting themself.

one brutal fact of cycling is more miles usually results in improved performance, if only because this is how most peoples natural talent is revealed.

so for more miles, you can either do one or two short rides a day and log on the weekends, for example, or long back to back rides.

you might be suprised at the relatively lower mileages i have known some cyclist to put in yet still be ready to race and win, or ride a century.

even 50 miles a week can maintain some fitness for a while if one remains "always fit".

 

Here's an interesting article on how long/slow vs short/fast training affects mitochondria density...

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0129.htm

From article...
So what's the bottom line? As Dudley and his colleagues put it, an increase in the intensity of training brings about the greatest adaptive response in the mitochondria. Expressing the crucial importance of intensity another way, Dudley and co-workers said, 'For the same adaptive response, the length of daily exercise necessary to bring about the change becomes less as the intensity of exercise is increased.' In other words, 10 to 15 minutes of running at 5-K pace in a workout can do much more for you than running for 60 to 90 minutes at slower intensities.

Then the article goes on to say...
Realistically, of course, it's difficult to train fast every day, so almost every athlete ends up with a balance of training, with some days hard and some easy.