Does commuting count as training?

Seriously. My commute is making/going to be integral in training. Planning to fit in as much interval training as I can.
I have bugger all time to spare for much training.

i would say so

There has been one persons opinion whom I would respect on this subject so far.

I'm with Balki too.

;-)

I think you need to be very strict with your commute,especially if you have a specific discipline in mind. As mentioned, there is a huge chance of just emptying valuable carb stores over junk miles. However, if you are pushed for time, commuting can be structured in such a way to help progression (depending on your desired outcomes).

From the winter training thread babydinotrackboy on commuting+training

A girl I have been coaching this year commutes to and from work in central London and was doing the same last year. We got her to improve massively this year by cutting her down to every other day and tubing in on the rest days. She was fresher and therefore could work harder on the days she did ride in.

The "fat burning zone" is a myth and the statement that 50 yard repeated sprints only make you good at 50 yard sprints likewise.

http://jp.physoc.org/content/588/6/1011.full

High-intensity interval training (HIT) induces skeletal muscle metabolic and performance adaptations that resemble traditional endurance training despite a low total exercise volume.

What is most intriguing about these findings is that the volume of exercise and time spent training were ∼90% and ∼75% lower, respectively, with HIT compared to ET. This suggests that HIT is a potent and time-efficient strategy to induce skeletal muscle metabolic adaptations and improve functional exercise capacity.

Given that ‘lack of time' is the most commonly cited barrier to performing regular exercise in a variety of populations (Godin et al. 1994; Trost et al. 2002), low-volume HIT may represent an alternative to endurance training to improve metabolic health and reduce the risk for chronic diseases.

With your goals Stelle, it can be harmful. For hobbyists, even those wanting to do a once a year sportif it's great...but for performance cycling not so, I'm sure that being a courier and riding 50-70 medium paced miles every day, although it kept me kept me thin and generally "fit", left me unable to do high-end or specific training. Also a certain amount of muscle is "trainable" to become either fast or slow twitch, you could be training your muscles to become slow twitch...but for your racing goals you probably want as much fast twitch as possible.

Commuting can be useful, but you should ride incredibly easily in a high cadence to work on base endurance and souplesse, or treat the commute as an interval session along with the safety issues.

Regular work in the "medium zone" will make you good at just that...being medium, great for very long endurance events, not for track or crits.

I completed half ironman and 200km triathalons last year.
My primary training was my commute to work & long weekend rides
(admittedly I got up an hour earlier to make the ride longer and have clearer roads)
It counts

Triathlon cycling does not equal track cycling; % of time spent below aerobic threshold vs above.

I think hippy & winston have summed it up, as far as stelle's situation goes.

I'd consider my commute part of my training (e.g. base miles, recovery miles, etc) if I was doing road/TT/endurance track, and only if my commute consisted of 10+ miles each way of open road in relatively fresh air.

My current commute is the antithesis of the that, and I'm too tired from actual training (or in need of quality recovery) to treat it as anything other than a safe and gentle journey from A to B.

How would riding you bike not count?

You don't ride the track, do you?

@stelle - Do you have enough time in your schedule (and time in your commute) to treat commuting as pure recovery/very gentle riding, so it will at least, not harm your training?

That's how I treated my commute last year and it worked wonders.
Or I extended my commute to take in Regents Park as part of a structured training approach.

Commuting is the only riding I am doing nowadays

Well, does it?

My commute is 11 miles each way, 15 if I take the scenic route. Is this any kind of aid to fitness? It's not exactly mindblowing. There's a bit of a hill, but nothing 'epic'. And no, before you suggest it - I'm not going to bloody sprint from lights etc etc - too busy trying to stay alive. Is this just general riding good for you? Is that a stupid question?

How long does this commute take?
Let's start talking duration and not distance, I'm guessing around 30-40 mins?

There's some accurate stuff on this thread, and some not so accurate.

Assuming that your goals are in summer and you are in your preparation or conditioning phase:

1. Aerobic endurance is still paramount for endurance based track riders, in which case you would be better off extending your commute two or three times a week to something which takes 90 mins to 2 hours then eschewing the bike for the remaining trips or going at recovery pace*

2. As you near competition time, say 4-8 weeks before track league, you could ideally increase the intensity of the workouts but reduce the volume of training, so for instance 1x 2 hour aerobic ride per week and 2 hard interval sessions, with active recovery* after the hard workouts. Using a London commute for interval sessions is almost impossible, unless you can use part of it as a warm up on your way to somewhere quiet enough for the efforts to be done without interruption? otherwise you would need to do them on the track or turbo to ensure quality.

3. During competition you may be racing three times a week, with perhaps 1x specialist training session in there too, this is where the commute can cause most damage and can be why so many people complain of overtraining or overreaching during early and mid summer (there are other reasons why uncoached amateurs get this but I won't go into it now)
   You would ideally want to use the commute for active recovery* but in your case you would need a lot of tube/car/train journeys or possibly a shorter commute.

*active recovery/recovery rides:
should be done at such low intensity that you are <60% of your MHR (max heart rate) this means very easy pedaling and a generally flat route. The duration would be 30-45 mins ideally and no more than 1hr.

^I will just add that this is an example of what could be done rather than hard fact or direct advice, the best course of action for a rider with Stelle's aims would be to get a full time coach who can help with time management, goal setting and testing.

+1 that man.

Also a certain amount of muscle is "trainable" to become either fast or slow twitch, you could be training your muscles to become slow twitch...but for your racing goals you probably want as much fast twitch as possible.

There's no evidence to suggest that one type of muscle can be changed into another, what can happen is that your training causes recruitment of one type which may simultaneously cause atrophy of the other type.
As you say, doing courier work would have recruited your slow twitch muscles predominantly.
The % of muscle fibre type is genetic, some people have more of one than the other, this is what can (but not always) make some people better at sprinting than endurance and vice versa.
The importance of recruiting fast twitch fibres* for Stelle is less important than for a track sprinter.

*There are two types of fast twitch fibre (type IIa and type IIx) and one of slow twitch.

Surely Stelle will still need to recruit plenty of type IIa fibres, as well as training the type I fibres to operate efficiently towards their twitch-ceiling*.

*check out the science jargon

Yes.

Remember how high the intensity is of the training required to do this. (I hesitate to use the phrase anaerobic threshold) That type of intensity requires an adequate level of aerobic fitness to maintain an effective period of this training.
And as such, once intensity increases there should be a corresponding drop in volume.

My ceiling is definitely twitching

Mine never stopped twitching after the five microdots incident.

Yes.

Remember how high the intensity is of the training required to do this. That type of intensity requires an adequate level of aerobic fitness to maintain an effective period of this training.
And as such, once intensity increases there should be a corresponding drop in volume.

RPM, you are saying once you are peaking, doing several all-out efforts a week, drop the intensity of your commutes, or reduce how many you are doing.

Makes perfect sense and marries up with what I have learnt from running schedules.

I am going to try and follow (robs) advice this year. Use my commute as
*active recovery/recovery rides:
should be done at such low intensity that you are <60% of your MHR (max heart rate) this means very easy pedaling and a generally flat route. The duration would be 30-45 mins ideally and no more than 1hr.

No more commuter racing for me this summer.
Also I sure deep breathing recovery at traffic lights surrounded by diesel engines is not good for the lungs anyway..

Then just do my track racing and training at HH

Mine never stopped twitching after the five microdots incident.

Five? OMG. That's like five Shredded Wheats!

It's okay, I'd done plenty of base work before attempting the more intense sessions.

RPM, you are saying once you are peaking, doing several all-out efforts a week, drop the intensity of your commutes, or reduce how many you are doing.

Makes perfect sense and marries up with what I have learnt from running schedules.

Reduce overall volume when the intensity is increased.

Amateurs that commute and do a training ride once a week in winter tend to carry on the same in summer except adding two or three high intensity sessions (such as racing CP on a tuesday and HH TL on a wednesday) and generally without any proper rest or active recovery, then wonder why they are a: not finishing in a higher placing than last year and b: feeling exhausted and demotivated by June.