Joe Friel On: Fasted Training, Losing Fitness When Life Gets In The Way And More

Welcome to the final episode of Watts Up. In this Episode 12 friend of Favero and training legend Joe Friel looks at the benefits of fasted training, how to maintain fitness during busy periods at work and changing things up when your performance plateaus. Thank you for all your questions over the course of the series!
0:00 Introduction
0:12 How to improve after seeing your performance plateau
2:55 Do you recommend fasted training?
5:13 How to not lose fitness when life gets busy
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Want to ask the world’s leading pioneer of power-based training how to get the most out of your ASSIOMA power meter? Welcome to: ‘Watts Up: Your Training Questions Answered’, with Joe Friel to give you expert tips on all aspects of power-based performance cycling.
A coach for over 40 years, author of several books including the ‘The Cyclist’s Training Bible’ and co-founder of TrainingPeaks, Joe is one of the industry’s leading authorities on power training. He’s also a long-running ASSIOMA ambassador and user of our pedals.
Every week we invite you to submit your questions about any aspects of cycling training, with Joe answering a selection of these in a weekly video posted here and across our social channels.
Follow Joe on Twitter: / jfriel
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About Favero Electronics
We make ASSIOMA. The lightest, most accurate pedal-based power meter ever made. Unleash your power.
Find out more: cycling.favero.com/

[@RetrieverTrainingAlone]

I'm 67 years old and definitely not as strong as I was in my 40s. I do reverse lunges every other day which helps leg muscle mass. I do more cross-training these days: cross-country skiing, biking, hiking, canoeing, etc. For me, fish oil daily has helped in terms of no joint pain when waking up in the morning.

[@punishmentforall]

Thanks Joe, have been enjoying these Q&A sessions.

[@richardmiddleton7770]

For people busy with work and worried about losing fitness I like to get up earlier and straight out for a jog for 30-60 minutes or you could just jump straight on the trainer and do say 30 minutes z2 then some hard 30 second on 2 minutes off for another 30 minutes.

[@marcosksaad]

Hi, about fasted workouts:let’s say 2 hours half Z1 half Z2. Is it only no food before or during the ride too? Up to how many hours? Tks.

[@Favero_cycling]

Hi Marcos, Thank you for asking! The series has just finished: it was a pleasure receiving so many interesting questions from you all. We invite you to address any further doubts to your trainers and watch our social media pages to keep up with the latest news on Assioma! Anna

[@markankone9362]

Fastest traing to me was explained to me by my nutrition specialist as: In the evening go hard 30 - 40 min training interval/hiit training. After the training water and protein. The next morning, a slow training z1 running/bike training for 30 min to 60 min

[@richardmiddleton7770]

I would say whenever your stomach has emptied. That could be upto 6 hours or more depending what you ate. It's always recommended to do fasted training in the morning after your overnight fast, unless you ate a steak at midnight and got up at 6am, that's probably not fasted! I usually do at least an hour fasted z2 in the morning after around 14 hours overnight fast. My longest is 7.5 hour ride fasted, water and salt only!

[@fatbikejamie]

Counter point on the fasted riding: I'm strict keto (several years) and do *all* my riding fasted. I just did a 3-day Fondo event where I rode 235 km (1700 m climbed) fasted. On a fatbike that, as equipped, weighed 50 pounds i averaged 20 kmh. I have never bonked once since i stopped eating carbs. I even beat 20 people on the 400m sprint at the 65km mark of the 100km main ride. Lol

[@veganpotterthevegan]

Beat 20 people.... did more than 20 people beat you?

[@fatbikejamie]

@@veganpotterthevegan absolutely. But no one else was was riding a bike as heavy or as slow. I expected to come in dead last in every category, but didn't. I was the only keto participant as far as i could determine. I was absolutely the only fasted participant.

[@veganpotterthevegan]

@Jamie Smith there's no baseline from this. You could have finished in the top 5 for all we know if you ate a normal cyclist diet

[@fatbikejamie]

@@veganpotterthevegan we will never know as I wont ever eat a carb-heavy (ie: above 20g/day) again. What I *do* know is that I've never bonked again since changing my diet despite riding harder, longer and for more consecutive days. I've got a new gravel bike on order and might even race this year. Cheers

[@veganpotterthevegan]

@@fatbikejamie your "hard" is diet limited(as is everyone's). That said, not bonking in ketosis is the same reason diabetics can comfortably deal with starvation better than average Joe. It's still not ideal for performance though. And chances are, you were just improving anyway and are crediting ketosis for that. There's a reason why no grand tour riders do this and as an elite TT specialist, the only people I know that are keto and cat 1s aren't very good.