Lack of Fitness

[jasonmccullum]

OK... been riding daily for 6 months building up the speed and the distance (doing 40 miles in 2hr 35 mins was my best)

I got the dreaded Flu and was off the bike for a full 3 weeks... rode today for a few miles to test my new pedals and shoes and

OMG...

i feel like i have no fitness at all, everything was hard work... dry throat.....etc


How long will it take to get my fitness back...any ideas???

 

[kimz]

you may need more time to get over the flu 3 weeks is not long if you have it bad dont do too much to soon , i had food poisoning just before xmas was really ill for 3 weeks dragged myself back to work but then came down with a chesst infection this i think was due to my imune system being low from the salmonella went back too soon so just take it easy and build it up again im sure others will advise better than me

 

[gaz]

I was off the bike for 6 days, and my legs felt like an anchor weight today.

Give it a few weeks and you should be back to normal, but the actual time it takes to recover is dependant on person to person, just take it easy for now.

 

[marinyork]

You'll be back before you know it. Chin up, this time of year is bad.

 

[Bill Gates]

OK... been riding daily for 6 months building up the speed and the distance (doing 40 miles in 2hr 35 mins was my best)

I got the dreaded Flu and was off the bike for a full 3 weeks... rode today for a few miles to test my new pedals and shoes and

OMG...

i feel like i have no fitness at all, everything was hard work... dry throat.....etc


How long will it take to get my fitness back...any ideas???

I posted this awhile back. Stll applies and is what I've continued to do through all the bad weather. Hardly been on the road at all.

The answer is it all depends on your level of fitness at the time you stopped training.

For those riders who train all year round and race, if they stopped for say 3 months then it is estimated they would lose half of their aerobic fitness in that time. On the other hand if you started from scratch and trained for 8 weeks then stopped you would lose all of your aerobic fitness within the next 8 weeks.

If you can't get out on the bike then you should do something else to get the heart rate up such as running or swimming or use the turbo. IMO the mistake that most people make is to measure your training levels in terms of miles or hours on the bike. IMO 2-3 hours high quality training a week, (e.g. LT 2 x 20 minutes) on the turbo or rollers, will more than keep you ticking over during periods of bad weather conditions.

This sort of training is best done every other day; so hard one day then next day easy or nothing at all. If it feels too hard then ride easy as the body may not have recovered sufficiently. I also bung in a couple of hours of gym work.

I would always compare this situation with when I was tapering for a particular race. To taper you reduce the mileage and then enhance the quality of the training to produce the performance you want. The same principle applies when you can't get on the bike in the winter. Of course you need the base mileage but training your top end in the warm can be very beneficial as you will notice the next time you ride.

 

[accountantpete]

As Bill says - but I'd just back up what Kimz says - real Flu can take a lot out of you so gently ease yourself back into the routine.

 

[jimboalee]

I got a dose of the sicks, trots and flu a week and a half ago. While I was lying on my sick bed, I formulated a notion to raise the gear ratios on my Sturmey commute bike.
I swapped the 24T sprocket with a 20T sprocket, which meant 1 whole link out of the chain for negligible adjustment of the axle and gear cable position.

Having not ridden since Friday the twelfth, my choice of 'Shakedown' run yesterday was a short ride to Coventry IKEA, a 25 miler.

Excellent. Gearing was a dream and I got home with 1 kg of their coffee easily.

Had some lunch and went out again in the general direction of the Wednesbury IKEA, but got diverted to Barr Beacon to see if the 60 inch middle was fine for the 8% up the Walsall Rd and then the Aldridge Rd to the top of the Beacon.

No probs.