The great thing about cycling is that anyone who is reasonably fit can saddle up and spin for hours. The not-so-great thing is that most of us non-professional cycling folks only have so many hours during the week to ride. But you can turn that frown upside-down—even if you spend most of your weekday hours riding your office chair, you can still bang out some truly great short rides on weekdays and get more out of the longer ones when the weekend comes. It’s just a matter of hitting all the high notes to hone your fitness needs.
Here are three workouts that you can do in 60 minutes flat. Try to get one of each during the week, and sprinkle in some easy rides as time permits. Then go rock your weekend!
(For more speed tips from Selene, read Get Fast— you might surprise yourself with your strongest season yet!)
Mighty Micros
I love micro cycling intervals. They’re super-hard, so you blow out the day’s stress and enjoy a sweet endorphin buzz, but not so long that you dread doing them. They’re also insanely effective. Research shows that these full-throttle efforts train your body to recruit maximum muscle fibers and to fire them faster, as well as raise your threshold, all of which improves your power and endurance. They also train your body to recover quickly between repeated hard surges, which comes in handy during hard group rides, crits, and cyclocross races. In general, micro intervals range in duration from 20 to 90 seconds. You can do them Tabata-style, with short (half-interval time) rest intervals in between, or allow full recovery between efforts so you can give max power to each interval. Here are two examples. (Warm up and cool down as needed.)
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Tabatas: Sprint as hard as possible (you’re going for maximum power output) for 20 seconds. Stop and coast for 10 seconds. Repeat 6 to 8 times. Rest 4 to 5 minutes. Repeat for another set…or if you’re really feeling frisky, two more sets.
Down ‘n’ Dirty 8 x 30: In a medium-to-large gear, push as hard as you can for 30 seconds holding that full-gas effort for the entire 30 seconds (you should feel completely gassed by the end). Recover fully for 4:30 minutes. Repeat 7 more times.
Strong & Steady
To get both fitter and faster, you need to improve your aerobic capacity, muscular strength and lactate threshold tolerance. You can do that by performing focused efforts that require you to hold a strong, steady pace, again and again, until that pace becomes easier—and then repeat, bumping up your speed and endurance as you go. These efforts range from tempo—where your breathing is harder, but you can still talk in short sentences—to threshold, where your breathing is deep and rhythmic and you can only utter one- or two-word replies.
You can do these in a range of durations. As a general rule, the more intense the steady effort, the shorter the interval and vice versa. Try 4 x 10, 3 x 15, and 2 x 20 within an hour ride. Let your heart rate come down to an easy endurance zone (about 3 to 5 minutes) between efforts.
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Ready for Anything
Part of the fun of cycling is the great variety of physical (and mental) challenges it throws your way. Hills, headwinds, blazing fast flats, town sign sprints, group chases—cycling has it all. So, you need to be prepared for it all. Do so by designating one ride a week to work on a particular challenge. If you live in a rolling to mountainous region, for example, a designated climbing day is a great way to improve your stamina on the ups so you can hang on the hills. Likewise, if you ride with a spicy group that likes to keep the pace high and sprint for everything in sight, working on your leg speed and muscular endurance will help you stay in the mix. Here are a few specific workouts to choose from, depending on where you ride.
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Hill master: On a moderate climb (aka about 10 to 15 minutes in duration), as soon as you get your rhythm, click into the next harder gear and stand up and attack for 10 to 20 seconds. Shift down and climb seated again for another minute or two. Then get up and attack again. Repeat all the way up the hill, or for just part of a longer climb.
Fast feet: Develop fluid speed on a flat stretch of road: click into a gear you can pedal at 90 to 110 rpm with moderate effort, then pedal as hard and as fast as you can while maintaining good form for 10 seconds. Spin easy for 20 seconds. Repeat for 10 to 12 minutes. Recover for about 5 minutes and repeat.
Pedal power: Make yourself more fatigue-resistant when the going gets hard by improving your peak pedal force with a large gear to work up moderate climbs or into a relentless headwind. Pedal as you normally would in these conditions, then click into a harder gear and slow your cadence, maintaining a smooth, strong pace at a low heart rate. Push for 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Shift into an easier gear and spin it out for 5 minutes. Repeat for a total of 3 to 5 times.
