Having a peloton bike at home is extremely convenient for me because I can use it every day. But what if you want to do it more often, can you ride the peloton twice a day?
In general, you can ride the peloton twice a day because it can help to reduce muscle soreness. Doing extra session at a lower intensity not only help to burn extra calories, but also helps with the clearance of lactate from the muscle. This speeds up recovery and reduces muscle tension.
There are several ways you can implement two workouts per day. In this article, I will explain everything you need to know and help you design your schedule for two a day.
Peloton twice a day benefits
There are several benefits of doing a peloton class twice a day. It can be used to improve your performance, health, and body composition. It can also enhance your recovery and reduce muscle soreness, as long as you adjust the training volume and intensity.
One thing that makes the peloton stand out from others is its extensive workout library. Peloton has access to over 24,000 workouts, all varying in intensity, duration, and type.
This means you can adjust and modify your two-per-day that suit your current schedule and fitness level.
Here are some benefits from doing training with the peloton twice per day.
Doing two per day helps to improve your performance
Doing peloton twice a day helps with performance because you can do longer rides that are broken down into two sessions (morning and evening), or it can be done back to back.
I know several people who spend 1-2 hours on the bike doing two sessions one after another.
A good example of using two a day is when you use a peloton for marathon training or another endurance type of event.
If your goal is to improve your muscle endurance, train for a cycling event, or take part in a triathlon then having a peloton and doing a twice-a-day session is like dream come true.
Those types of events require constant preparation and when the weather is off you can do everything at home.
Using peloton twice a day helps with weight loss
Generally, doing a peloton twice a day does help with weight loss because you burn double the number of calories. For weight loss, the best option would be to ride with lower resistance and higher cadence for 30-40 minutes at each session.
I don’t recommend doing two peloton HIIT workouts per day becasue it may lead to overtraining (more on that later).
In the graph below you can see how the body uses energy sources during long-term aerobic activity.
- In the first 15-20 minutes, the body uses glucose available in the muscles.
- After that time, it starts to utilize more fatty acids.
This, however, can only happen when you stay at a lower heart rate. Low resistance and high cadence keep your heart rate at the aerobic threshold and allows you to burn more fat, without elevating your cortisol levels.
On the other hand, doing long-duration high-intensity workouts will ramp up the stress and cortisol levels, which will lead to prioritizing glucose as the fuel and make you feel tired (Foster, et al. 2015).
When it comes to weight loss, HIIT sessions should be limited to around 20-30 minutes. Anything more than that increases the stress and cortisol levels (Hill, et al. 2008).
So doing HIIT is good, but if you plan to do two rides a day and your goal is fat burn then it’s better to go longer with lower resistance.
Peloton twice a day help with recovery
In general, doing a peloton twice a day helps with recovery because low-intensity aerobic exercise is the most effective way of alleviating pain during DOMS.
Regular muscle contraction at lower intensity stimulates the lymphatic system and helps with lactate clearance.
I know this may sound like you contradictory, but exercise is actually one of the most effective ways to reduce DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) that you get after your workout (Cheung, et al. 2003).
This was the biggest game-changer for my performance.
Studies have shown that low-level activities like walking, stretching, or playing around stimulate low muscle contraction which helps to flush all the lactate out of the muscles.
This reduces muscle soreness for the next day, so you can do it again.
Muscle feels sore after a workout because eccentric contraction creates microdamage in muscle fibers. The muscle starts to release pro-inflammatory molecules (cytokines and myoglobin) that start the inflammatory process. The result is muscle tension and soreness.
Adding extra sessions, where you take it easy and just “ride to relax” and very low intensity and medium cadence helps to flush those molecules and combat inflammation.
You can build muscle faster
Another benefit of using the peloton twice a day is the increased training volume, which can lead to greater training adaptations and hypertrophy.
Daniel Alves Corrêa, PhD., a researcher from Brazil, said that doing strength training twice a day has a positive effect on muscle strength and muscle hypertrophy.
In his study, Dr. Corrêa compared a group of people who trained twice a day vs once a day.
- Group A (one session per day) 16 sets per exercise per session.
- Group B (two sessions per day) 8 sets per exercise per session.
So basically everyone was doing the same total number of sessions. The only difference was that group A did all sessions at once, and group B did 8 sessions in the morning, followed by 8 sessions in the evening.
See the graph below.
- Training twice a day has shown significantly better results on 1RM back squats (7.8% vs 16.1%) and 60% 1RM (19.0% vs 24.3%).
One thing I need to point out is that according to Dr. Corrêa, the most profound effects were noticed on lower body strength, however, upper body strength did not show a big difference.
This study shows that you can do two shorter peloton strength classes per day (around 20 minutes each), one in the morning and one in the evening, instead of one longer 45-minute class, and get better results.
Cool, right?
Drawbacks
Apart from the fact that training twice a day will require you to do more laundry and more cleaning, there are some more serious disadvantages like the risk of overtraining and even some nutrient deficiency.
Overtraining
One of the drawbacks of cranking up the resistance on your bike twice a day may result in overtraining and burnout, depending on how hard you push yourself.
Michael Hartman, PhD., a VP from Plexus Worldwide, says that ” lifting weights twice a day results in higher neuromuscular activation (EMG) and can improve performance, assuming that sufficient recovery is given.”
“Without sufficient recovery, exercising twice a day can potentially lead to overtraining,” Dr. Hartman says.
Iron deficiency
Recently, when I updated this article, I came across a fascinating study from Aya Ishibashi, PhD., a researcher from the Japan Institute of Sports Sciences.
According to Dr. Ishibashi, “iron deficiency is one of the most common problems observed among endurance athletes.”[1]
“Twice a day endurance exercise elevates serum hepcidin level, which can inhibit the absorption of dietary iron in the gut,” Dr. Ishibashi says.
How to use Peloton twice a day
Generally, you can do a peloton twice a day, as long as you have enough time and energy. Doing two rides per day helps to break down your workouts and adjust to fit into your current schedule.
There are several ways to skin the cat and doing two sessions a day doesn’t always have to be done the same way.
Morning and evening
If you break down your workouts into the morning and evening, I recommend you eat the biggest frog first. I like to start my day with HIIT becasue it helps me to get a lot of calories burned, wakes me up, and gets me ready for the day.
When I’m up at 5:00 am that’s exactly what I need. If I don’t do morning sessions, I feel like my mind is clouded and my energy sucks.
In the evening, I go for steady-state low-intensity. This allows me to push for longer because I’m already done with the day.
This is when I usually spend more time (30-40 minutes). However, here I typically do lower intensity and higher tempo. It helps me to relax, sweat out the anxiety and boost my recovery.
As you can see, I like to divide my days where I do high intensity and climb in the morning. Then in the evening I usually go for fast cadence and low intensity.
Peloton twice-a-day workout plan
Here are other options that I hope may spark some interest and inspire you so you can implement the peloton twice a day.
| Option | Morning | Evening |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | HIIT (15-20 min) | Long-distance (30-60 min) |
| 2 | Long-distance (40 min) | HIIT (15-20 min) |
| 3 | Long-distance (40 min) | Long-distance (40 min) |
| 4 | Weight training | Long-distance (40 min) |
| 5 | Long-distance (40 min) | Weight training |
| 6 | HIIT (15-20 min) | Weight training |
| 7 | Weight training | HIIT (15-20 min) |
| 8 | Long-distance (40 min) | Yoga or stretching |
| 9 | HIIT (15-20 min) | Yoga or stretching |
| 10 | Yoga or stretching | Long-distance (40 min) |
| 11 | Yoga or stretching | HIIT (15-20 min) |
| 12 | Weight training | Yoga or stretching |
I personally like to use full-body workouts because you don’t feel so beaten up after each session, so you can do them more frequently. Here you can check out the full list of “best peloton full body workouts“.
How many times a day is optimal?
This will depend on your schedule and fitness level.
People who have more time or work from home can do it twice a day or more. People who don’t have much time should still aim for the everyday sessions, even 10-15 minutes.
There is this saying that something is better than nothing. So I’m a big believer in doing at least 10-15 minutes when you’re crunched on time.
However, when you do have time, or maybe some days of the week you have less work to do, I would definitely go for two rides a day.
Is doing peloton twice a day safe?
Generally, doing a peloton twice a day is safe because intensity and duration can be personalized. People who are just getting started can do as low as 10 minutes each session. As you get stronger and the body adapts you increase the volume and intensity.
Of course, there is a fine line between doing more and overtraining. You need to be mindful of how you feel. Doing too many sessions over time can lead to the opposite effect.
That usually happens with people who want to jump from beginner level to advance on day one.
And you know it doesn’t work like that. The body needs time to adapt. Going too hard and overtraining often leads to weight gain because the body starts to compensate.
Energy compensation is one of the reasons why people may start to gain weight after the peloton.
Conclusion
- Doing a peloton twice a day can really help to excel in your results, but it has to be done correctly.
- Splitting workouts in two (morning and evening) or doing them back-to-back is a great method, but it’s not for everyone and not for every type of workout.
- And as long as one of the two-session will be at a lower intensity, you can still safely recover from it.