THE WAY OF THE WAR

New research suggests cramming all your training into the weekend might be as effective as riding throughout the week. Hannah Reynolds examines the ‘weekend warrior’ approach

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This is rare for me - usually I can only get out at weekends.” Sound familiar? It came from a rider on my regular Tuesday night ride. As always with a group of cyclists, we were busy getting our excuses in early: too much work, childcare, bad weather, a broken bottom bracket - they all came out. It was a wonder any of us had made it to the start.

That said, my first reaction was to empathise. Lately I'd lost my appetite for cycling, conscious that I'd been failing to string together enough consistent rides to make progress, and it was becoming disheartening. My ‘Fitness and Freshness’ graph told the story - brief upward blips followed by a steady slide back to the bottom. What was the point? Cycling, I told myself, is only fun when you're fit - otherwise, it's just hard work.

The term ‘weekend warrior’ is often used with a hint of derision by riders with plentiful spare time. It implies that anyone riding only on Saturdays and Sundays is somehow less serious, less committed, and unlikely to reach serious levels of performance. But for many of us, being a weekend warrior isn’t a choice - it’s simply all we can manage. And now there is evidence that weekend-only training might be just as good as training across several days of the week.

No worries for warriors

The good news for weekend warriors comes in the form of research published in February by the