nutrition | Kits Energy Training

Should I be sore after every workout?

Blog, Cycling, Fitness and Training, Personal Training

You feel sore after a workout because you have created micro-tears that damage your muscles. Ideally, you should be able to recover within 24-48hs, just in time for your next workout.

The key is to repeat the stress so the muscles can continue to build week by week. It is only through repetition that you will get stronger.

There are no shortcuts.

Regular stretching, rest, avoiding processed foods and alcohol, and increasing your intake of anti-inflammatory foods, will help reduce muscle soreness.

Ideally, you should be able to recover within 24-48hs, just in time for your next workout.

The key is to repeat the stress so the muscles can continue to build week by week. It is only through repetition that you will get stronger.

There are no shortcuts.

So do you need to be sore after every workout?

It depends on several factors:

1. Short and long term goals

2. Timeline

3. System you want to improve

4. Time of the season

1. You have a big goal and a short amount of time (3 to 8month) to achieve it.

With a short timeline, you will need to see consistent gains each week.

Yes, the pro athletes feel sore like this AND worse. But it is their job, and when they are not training, they use their time to recover with naps, massages, ice baths, proper nutrition, chiro, acupuncture, and more.

The best way to help reduce the soreness is to follow a yearly periodized training program, focus on the workouts that matter the most, and then spend the rest of the time recovering. The training will still hurt, and you will be sore, but you will have more days when you aren’t sore.

If you have reached your goal for the summer and are looking to maintain and enjoy your current fitness level, you may not feel sore for the rest of the season.

2. If you have a moderate to big goal but lots of time to achieve it (a year or more), you don’t need to push as hard with more time and can improve slowly.

3. Which system are you trying to improve?

If you don’t feel sore after the workout, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t improving. Training is not just for your muscles. There are so many other systems that are also working hard, which you may or may not be aware of.

Neuromuscular system

With each training session, you become more efficient at your sport, strengthing or building new neural pathways. These pathways help you improve your technique so you don’t need to work as hard.

Aerobic System

It is necessary to build a solid aerobic foundation. These are the easy rides, runs that shouldn’t be painful or make you sore.

Mental

Each ride or workout builds mental resiliency, improves self-confidence, and creates healthy habits.

Cumulative stress

Every workout creates stress on the body, which cumulates over time. You may be able to accomplish your goal by completing either 2-3 long workouts in the week or six short ones. The six short ones will not make you as sore as the longer workouts, but you will have made the same gains if the accumulated stress is the same at the end of the week.

Stimulates Growth cycle and Reverses catabolism

After 25, our cells stop growing and building on their own. We are now mature humans and are beginning the 2nd stage of life, where the cells start breaking down. Exercise stimulates a chemical reaction, reversing this process and stimulating new growth.

3. You don’t have any goals and would like to stay fit for life.

If training negatively affects other parts of your life, you may need to prioritize and re-evaluate. Since this is your hobby and not your career, you may be willing to give up a bit of speed or strength to not be sore. Or you may want to improve slowly year by year instead of trying to do it all in one season.

4. It is the off-season

You can NOT continue to improve in ALL areas throughout the year, nor should you try to maintain peak fitness. It is NOT possible and will only get you injured. You need to prioritize the different systems throughout the year. As a cyclist, your season would look something like this, along with the relative soreness you should feel.

January to February – build strength in the gym = muscle soreness

March to May – build endurance = body fatigue as you are building a base

June to August – build strength and power = muscle soreness from high-intensity interval training

September – taper, and race = body and mental fatigue as you are recovering from a full season of training

October – transition = no soreness or residual soreness from the season as you take time to recover fully

November to December – work on injuries/weaknesses = no soreness or start strength training phase = muscle soreness from getting back into the gym

When to eat on the bike

Blog, Cycling, Health and Nutrition

Some of you are moving away from being casual riders to cyclists training for an event. One of the most important things you will need to learn, practice, and eventually master is the art of eating during long rides and during your event. I’m not talking about eating while pedalling, although eventually you may be ready for that, I’m talking about eating at regular times during your ride to keep up your energy throughout your event.

When you are riding, your muscles use sugar and fat to do the work. The process of converting fat into energy is more difficult and time consuming so the majority of your energy will come from sugar or glycogen. Your body will use most of your available glycogen stores within the first hour. Unfortunately your brain only survives on sugar. So when you feel dizzy, light headed, confused, short tempered or faint this is because you don’t have enough sugar going to your brain. You may have already experienced this on a ride but if you haven’t you never want to get to this point. Once you are there, it is extremely hard to reverse.

You want to stay one step ahead of what our body needs which is why I teach all my athletes to eat on a schedule – whether they feel like eating or not. Normally in life you are counting calories so that you don’t over eat. Now I’m teaching you to count calories so that you eat enough. The timing of when you eat and the amount of calories you eat at each interval are the keys to having a great ride.

Use the following guideline to start with and then add or subtract calories as your stomach insists or your energy demands require.

Breakfast one hour before your ride of mainly carbohydrates with only a little bit of fat and protein as these both take too much time to digest (2-3 hours).
examples: toast with pb and banana, yogurt with granola and fruit, fruit smoothie, oatmeal
drink one glass of water and an extra glass of water for every cup of coffee so you are well hydrated

First snack at 45minutes into the ride: 200-250 calories for women, 300-350 calories for men of mainly simple SUGARS (very little fat or protein)
NOTE: The range of calories are a guideline for you to start with and through experience you will know if you need more or less.
examples: fruit bars, gels, white potatoes, bananas, fig newtons, sesame snaps, shot bloks, cliff bars, sharkies or a drink with calories in it like Vega Sport, Gatorade, Eload, etc
Bring a wide range of food choices as you may not “feel” like eating something but you MUST.
Drink 3/4 to a full water bottle or water with electrolytes in it if you are a heavy sweater.

If your ride is less than 2 hours, then you don’t necessarily need to eat again on the ride but you MUST eat another 250-350 calories as soon as you get home to replace the lost sugar during the last hour. If you miss this 30min window after exercise, your glycogen stores will have a difficult time rebuilding which means that your next ride is going to hurt. AFTER you eat your post ride snack, eat a regular healthy lunch/meal complete with carbs, fat and protein to repair your muscles.

If you are riding for longer, you will repeat the above schedule EVERY 45 minutes. Set your watch to an alarm if you have to. The same “after ride eating schedule” applies to the long ride.