Muscle burn

[one slow 5.0]

My friend complains about muscle burn about 25 to 30 miles into a ride. She does two 25 mile rides during the week and a 45 to 65 mile ride on the weekend so I dont think its lack of training. Are there any preworkout supplments that one can take to hold off muscle burn.

[jfrog]

make sure theres enough carbs in your diet, also experiment with some gels or sports drinks. Make a log of what you eat prior and during so you can see what works best. Probably running out of fuel, thats one thing Im learning about myself in endurance type sports.

[one slow 5.0]

On the 65 mile rides we usually eat a high carb dinner the night before, and for breakfast its usually waffles, or pancakes, with a piece of fruit. She takes a gel about every hour since she loses a lot of saft through sweat, and eats a pbj sandwich while we are out. 48oz of Gatorade G2 low cal and about 160oz of water in 4 to 4 1/2 hrs.

[OldGuysRule]

Maybe she is just pacing herself too fast. Is she "spent" while she gets the burn or can she push through the burn?

There are a lot of potential causes for it especially if she can power through it.

She may want to spend some bucks ($100-200) to have a LBS fit her to the bike. Most mountain bikers who tell me they have burning quads is because their seat it too low. I've seen some people who just have bad angles all together which put their body into a very inefficient position to pedal a bike.

Too short on carbs you'd have a general overall feeling of tiredness to go along with the burn.

[ceyko]

Creatine is a no-go for chicks right? It's helped me endure less muscle pain in nearly everything I do, to include cardio.

[one slow 5.0]

Maybe she is just pacing herself too fast. Is she "spent" while she gets the burn or can she push through the burn?

There are a lot of potential causes for it especially if she can power through it.

She may want to spend some bucks ($100-200) to have a LBS fit her to the bike. Most mountain bikers who tell me they have burning quads is because their seat it too low. I've seen some people who just have bad angles all together which put their body into a very inefficient position to pedal a bike.

Too short on carbs you'd have a general overall feeling of tiredness to go along with the burn.

Had Richardson Bikemart fit both of us at the beginning of the year. Yeah she pushes through it the last 40 miles. Her cadence ranges between 82 to 90 unless she's climbing then it can go as high as 102 from what she has told me.

[OldGuysRule]

One thing that I started doing last year that seems to help was to add a scoop of amino acids to my hydration during long bouts of training.

http://www.baseperformance.com/product/base-amino/

It did take a couple of weeks of consistent use for me to feel real difference and see the results on the training I did while attached to my Garmin.

I personally like Base Performance products but she may get the same "mileage" out of another brand.

[OldGuysRule]

I should also mention I take 1-3 scoops a day. 1 scoop if it is a recovery day and I'm not doing anything and up to 3 scoops on quality workout days (running intervals, hill work, etc.)

[one slow 5.0]

We did change pedals on her bike at the beginning of July but she said its been all year probably have her get refit.
Oldguy do you replace the sports drink or a plain bottle of water with the amino acid.

[OldGuysRule]

We did change pedals on her bike at the beginning of July but she said its been all year probably have her get refit.
Oldguy do you replace the sports drink or a plain bottle of water with the amino acid.

I use either the low-cal G2 or Powerade Zero and a scoop the amino is "non-flavored". Which ever is on sale.

I should mention I do put a scoop of Base Performance's electrolyte salt in there as well.

[GRAYHORSE]

Try Omega Sports Ultima. It's a non stim preworkout/intra that many endurance athletes use.

we can get Gels for you pretty cheap as well. The powerbar power gels and Cliff gels. I cant get hammer or goo at this time though.

[one slow 5.0]

Ended up with Body platinum Amino Edge its kind of pricey but I found it locally. May try mail order next time if we see a change.

[OldGuysRule]

Ended up with Body platinum Amino Edge its kind of pricey but I found it locally. May try mail order next time if we see a change.

The other thing to try is to warm up for the first 10 minutes of the ride. Easy gear, 80-85 RPM, with two 60 second sprints during the warm up. The sprints should be hard enough that you feel a slight burn in the legs.

3 minutes easy spinning - 1 minute sprint - 1 minute recovery - 1 minute sprint - 4 minutes easy spinning. You can then start your normal pace/gearing. This will help start the action of clearing out the muscles of lactate and calcium during your workout.

The other thing I'd suggest is if she is riding 3x a week is to take one of those workouts and do some threshold training. Warm up like above and then to 5 minute bouts of high intensity/big gear/high cadence (100 RPM) with a 5 minute rest in between. Do three or so of those and then finish up your normal workout. The 5 minute max stuff should be sustained and it should hurt.

I do a TT workout once a week with bike on trainer which is:

Warm up as above
3x5:00 big gear, high RPM, lactate threshold, I feel like I'm going to puke at the end of the 5 minutes, pain level 9 out of 10 with a 5:00 recovery in between.
4x2:00 lesser intensity than above switching from high rpm to low rpm every minute trying to keep my heart rate within 5 BPM. The higher rpm is in a easier gear, the lower rpm in a harder gear. It isn't easy effort on a scale of 1-10 I'd put it at a 7.5-8.
8 minutes cool down - easy gear and spin. Clear out the poison in the legs.

1 hour on the trainer with that routine is worth at least 2 hours on the road for me. It can certainly replace one of the 25 mile rides she does during the week. I use this routine for 40K time trails and triathlons which amounts to 25 miles. If done right she should feel much more tired than her normal 25 mile ride during the week.

[one slow 5.0]

Thanks for the tips. We already do a similar to your threshold training but were doing 2min big gear at 95-100, easy till hr hits about 155, then repeat 4 times finish ride. Guess we will try pushing thatup till we can hit that 5 min. Do you do any training off the bike?

[OldGuysRule]

Thanks for the tips. We already do a similar to your threshold training but were doing 2min big gear at 95-100, easy till hr hits about 155, then repeat 4 times finish ride. Guess we will try pushing thatup till we can hit that 5 min. Do you do any training off the bike?

Swim, bike, run and stuff that could be considered cross-fittish.

I haven't done much ultra events in the past couple of years switching over to off-road triathlons and "mud events."

Since the mud events require obstacles I needed to get more strength in more upper body. Typically 3 times a week in some routine that is running/strength/running/strength/running/core in a continuous fashion for an hour. The strength component is typically body weight stuff or maybe a weighted vest.

Typical week would be 5x running, 5x mt/road bike/trainer, 3x swimming, 3x strength. I work at home so my day is pretty flexible.

For the rest of the year I got an off road tri in two weeks, The Jailbreak mud event with my 15 yr old daughter in September, Tough Mudder and a long course off-road tri in October (1 mi swim, 34 mtb, 10 mile run) and one of the 1/2 marathons in Dallas in November/December.