The best way to use fasted training is at selected times during your training program.

One key time may be the early season, when improving your body composition, rather than focusing on your direct performance-orientated goals, is more important.

Ideally keep fasted training sessions to around 60-90 minutes and of a moderate intensity (ideal for the ride to work). You will be able to exercise for slightly longer at a lower intensity, but your equivalent calorie burn will be similar and it will not have the same metabolic-stimulating effects.

If you can tolerate it, doing a very small number of high intensity interval sets at the end of your fasted session really helps to amplify the affect on your metabolism.

Fast training also shouldn’t dominate your training schedule. On race day we typically consume high doses of carbohydrate in order to perform at our optimum level. Therefore, it is important that our muscles retain the capacity to use carbohydrate efficiently, and not just fat.

For this reason, avoid performing all of your training sessions in a fasted state. Within your week, use a combination of fasted rides and use longer or more difficult training sessions to practice your in-race fueling strategy. This means that on race day itself your muscles are well developed to use both fat and carbohydrate as a fuel.

Emma Barraclough is the Senior Sport Nutritionist for Science in Sport – www.scienceinsport.com