Don't eat

I don't think I could ignore the hunger to do this sort of training

 

If I am riding daily, my glycogen levels are never at full. I feel it because I always start the ride with soreness and don't have that 'kick' of energy I have when getting on the bike after 3-4 days off. Or I just suck at recovering. During stage races, such as Labitibi, I could barely climb a flight of stairs I was so sore by the end of the week.

 

Andy Hampsteen wrote once in an article that to train for long races or grand tours he had to train his body to use energy more efficiently. For example, he recommended for a given day of training, a pure protein breakfast, no carbs, and then a long ride without re-fueling. He won the Giro d'Italia and the Alpe d'huez stage in the tour, so he must know what he's talking about.

 

Imagine how well he could have gone if he had some carbs for breakfast...

 

That statement seems more and more ridiculous every time I see it.

 

All of you have to read the article and see that it is a base training protocol. Not a racing protocol. The science is very well stated behind this. When fuelling for intensity work, or in race phase, you must be glyclogen full, not depleted. In this instance, training is not racing.

Ever ride with someone who just hammers the group hour after hour without eating? Wonder why pros eat less on long training rides? They're naturally good at this.

If you are a recreational rider, don't even bother going here.

 

You can assume that he was properly fuelled for racing. The article noted that this is training periods only.

 

There are also discussions along the lines that the athletes of today have to train more to get the same training response as "yesterdays" athletes 'cause today's athletes are eating "to well". And there is some rethinking about antioxidants as well. The idea is that they protect you so well ,that the body don't get the right signals to compensate ("rebuild") as much (less training response) as the body normally would do.

 

That makes no sense whatsoever... If that was the case, in general, we'd all be going slower. Maybe you should run that theory through the discombobulator a few times first.

 

sdd

 

why is that ?? what is your palmares then ?

 

See, you're doing it again. I think he's referring to the mistaken notion that winning (or palmares) go hand in hand with knowledge. IOW, if Hampsten knows what he's talking about because he won the Giro, does it imply that those who didn't win it are less informed about proper training?

It's kinda like Armstrong winning the Tour 7 times because of Carmichael, or Taylor Phinney winning the Worlds at 18 because of what his parents taught him.

 

What Piotr said. Nothing personal, it's just surprising how often folks try to pass that off.

I have over 3800 internet forum posts, which apparently makes me well-qualified to point out ridiculous internet logic.

 

ok, sorry, i didn't mean to make it personal either. Anyway, I forgot to say that the long training rides wihout carbs should be at LOW intensity

 

Look into the Targeted Ketogenic Diet (tkd) -http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ .

I looked into as I’m pre-diabetic and usually do better losing weight by reducing carb intake. A ketogenic diet is high in protein and fat with less than 100 grams of carbs per day.

When you’re in ketosis, the body is depleted of glycogen. A targeted ketogenic diet allows you to consume carbs before your workouts. This diet allows for “carb loading” and super glycogen compensation occurs. Once you start consuming carbs after being depleted, your body supposedly overcompensates and more glycogen is stored in your body. This is truly “carb loading”. There was a study done on cyclists –really nothing special. On average there was no benefit to this overcompensation – one cyclists had an abnormally high performance –apparently it skewed the results…..as I recall some of the power data was actually lower.

From a personal perspective, training on a ckd or tkd is tough. Doing a tempo ride for an hour was not easy. However, I will say I felt much, much better during stage races. I didn’t experience the level of fatigue I encountered during training. Guess I should have done better……..race tactics are another topic....

 

It's somewhat unlikely that you are 100% replacing what glycogen you use while doing multi-hour rides, so in effect, you are doing this anyway.

You get enough of this on regular rides so now you're supposed to go out and also specifically train this way too? Why bother? It seems daft.