Recently I picked up a injury from running amd it looks like I’m not going to be running any time soon.
I usually use the bike to supplement my run training but since no running for the foreseeable I’ll be leaning on the bike to maintain and hopefully build some fitness, as well as strength training and swimming.
I’m wondering what is the minimum amount of hours spent in each zone per week to minimise fitness losses? I’m sure it was covered on a podcast once say for example Z2 might be 1x120min ride per week and Z4 something like 20-40min total. I know there must be a study somewhere that details the duration amd frequency of each zone to stay at some sort of baseline fitness I just can’t find it amd end up with search results like do x training while injured. I want my x training to be with dedicated purpose while recovering. These are just examples but im hoping to keep it by working in each zone until fully recovered.
I’m coming up with a plan with my physio which will include strength, cycling and eventually a return to running.
They used to have us do ‘pool running’ in college when we had a running injury, or the elliptical (both suck IMO). They are effective but not fun.
I always viewed cycling as less intensive than running for the same ‘zone’. For example, a 60min endurance run might be similar to a 90-120 min endurance bicycle ride. But, if youre not fit to cycling, you might not be able to do that much more volume (in terms of minutes).
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