Originally Posted by burnthesheep

You can't argue this topic with certain users on BF. They contribute nothing other than hand waving about how parts of the discussion are hopelessly unknowable.

There ARE accepted norms that can be applied to 95% of people. There ARE people significantly smarter than a bunch of joes on BF.

If anyone cares educate themselves, bike related, there's quite a few podcasts by Fasttalk on this EXACT topic. Even from a diabetics perspective if that's a need.

Being goal based is key. General health and well being, fondo riding, or racing? From there, how much time per week do you have to exercise? From there, the longer you have the easier you can go and the more frequently as well. The shorter you have, the harder you have to go and less frequently. In either scenario, going hard occasionally improves insulin sensitivity. Lookup the "80/20" training method and the associated podcast.

Super basic stuff that's been repeated a lot by people a lot smarter than myself and repeated a lot on those podcasts.

I simply will not accept in life that just because we're all made a touch different that there aren't underlying norms and best practices we can all benefit from. They may take some tweaking or customization given those differences, but they're still best practices. That may change over time by applying the scientific method and updating the norms.