Question from a team mate

Peter Have been trying to lose weight in prep for the upcoming season and for climbing. I know that there is a trade off with adding muscle in place of fat Found this workout suited for training and for weight loss. Any thoughts from your end. How would you balance this with building on everything you have been teaching? In addition to your weight training I do one day of weight training at home XXXXX http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/burn-more-fat XXXXX, I'll be blunt. I think that is a nice program for a non-racer. The overall ride times are moderate and the length of the intervals the same. I know that you can ramp it up and do more even if the ride times stay about the same. I know that work and family have to come first but you could really crank it up during the intervals. I'd recommend more of the intervals and at a definitive intensity. Have you done the 2x8 test on the Cycle-Ops? If you have I can calculate your zones. The bike training at this point should be focusing on building Vo2 for the most part. These would be a series of short (30 second to 2 minute) efforts, repeated multiple times. It gets boring for some people to do this two days per week for several weeks. I just had some guy I coach ask what the purpose of his training plan was as it seemed to repetitive. Thats what it takes sometimes! Now that you have power you can make every interval and every set of intervals and every day that you ride intervals competitive within your own training. In other words if you're doing two days next week of 12x1 minute efforts, I'd be comparing each effort on a given day, the average of all from a given day to the next day, and then see how they compare week to week. Riding against yourself is a great place to start training your body and mind. My blog on my website has some of this in my comments. Essentially the efforts above are supercharged efforts from the bike article as you would eventually be adding in steady state's, tempo, climbing repeats, etc. You will burn some serious calories on these rides and I would do some long rides when the weather is nice. I love getting in a century ride at least one a month and usually twice. You burn during and after on those. Strength training consistently would be the other component. you're doing the right thing with the indoor endurance and your other training. Stick to the simple things like dips, pull-ups, pushups, lunges, squats, planks, etc. Just build muscle everywhere and your metabolic rate will go up all day and night. Did you do the Bod-Pod with Dawn? Do you have a goal for the weight loss and a way to track fat loss and muscle gain?