Indoor workouts

c/- Chris Carmichael

 

Maximize fitness while minimizing trainer time

 

When it comes to having fun on a bike, most cyclists would rank riding inside on the trainer somewhere between bonking 20 miles from home and getting hit by a semi. But riding inside doesn’t have to be torture: The key is to adopt a get-on, ­get-off attitude and build more intensity into your workouts so you can spend less time ­pedaling to nowhere. Here are some simple guidelines for making the most of your rec-room sweat sessions. 

Be Consistent
If an athlete wants to main­tain fitness over the winter, I recommend he or she ride four times a week and build intervals into three of those sessions. That might work out to two midweek rides on a trainer and two weekend rides. If two won’t fit into your schedule, you could do a program with interval workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and (if road conditions are good) an outdoor group ride or long endurance ride on Saturday. 

Go Hard, Not Long
Indoor training is all about working at the right intensities without wasting time idly pedaling. Some of the workouts that follow are tough, but you can complete them during a trainer session of just 60 to 90 minutes. 

Then Go Harder
You might be riding three or four times a week with a bunch of hard efforts, but if you don’t incrementally increase the workload, all you’ll do is burn calories. That’s not a bad thing, but if your goal is to emerge from the basement a fitter rider, you need to increase time at intensity, starting first by focusing on endurance-building aerobic intervals (tempo), then on harder workouts that will raise your maximum sustainable pace (steady state, climbing repeat) and boost your top-end speed (power intervals). 

Below, you’ll find an eight-week plan that uses a winter event as an incentive. Click here for descriptions of each workout in the chart (including the CTS Field Test). 

Your Winter Workouts
Twice a week, do the recommended interval sessions (see chart) as part of a 60- to 90-minute ride. Your third ride of the week should include a long tempo interval during the first three weeks, and three sets of 10-minute steady-state or climbing-repeat intervals during weeks four through eight. On the fourth day, do a long ride or group ride outside, if weather permits.

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8
Workout 1	CTS Field Test—to gauge your fitness and set intensity goals for each workout.	3 x (1 min. Fast Pedal + 1 min. RBI)// 2 x (15 min. tempo + 5 min. RBI)	3 x (1 min. power interval + 1 min. RBI) // 3 x (8 min. steady state + 4 min. RBI)	3 x (10 min. steady state + 5 min. RBI)	2 sets of 3 x (2 min. power intervals + 2 min. RBI), with 6 min. recovery spinning between sets, or RBS	6 x (2 min. power intervals + 2 min. RBI)	10 x (1 min. power intervals + 1 min. RBI)	3 x (10 min. over under [1 min. under, 1 min. over] + 5 min. RBI)
Workout 2	3 x (10 min. tempo + 5 minutes recovery spinning between intervals, or RBI)	3 x (1 min. fast pedal + 1 min. RBI) // 30 min. tempo	3 x (8 min. steady state + 4 min. RBI)	3 x (10 min. steady state + 5 min. RBI)	3 x (9 min. over under [2 min. under, 1 min. over] + 5 min. RBI)	3 x (10 min. over under [3 min. under, 2 min. over] + 5 min. RBI)	10 x (1 min. power intervals + 1 min. RBI)	3 x (2 min. power intervals + 2 min. RBI) // 5 min. rest // 4 x (3 min over under [2 min. under, 1 min. over] + 3 min. RBI)
Warm-Up	3 minutes easy // 30 seconds at a high cadence // 30 seconds easy // 2 x (1 min. max effort at high cadence + 1 min. easy) // 3 min. easy
3rd Ride	Long tempo interval, preferably during a 1.5- to 2-hour outdoor ride			3 x (10 min. steady state or climbing repeat intervals + 5 min. RBI), preferably during a 1.5- to 2-hour outdoor ride
4th Ride	Group ride or long endurance ride if the weather permits

Training Interval

Herzig subjected himself to the most brutal training of his life–holding back his vomit while a stereo blared the heavy-metal group Pantera. But after just eight of these interval sessions, Herzig was fast. His maximum power output jumped more than 10 percent. His VO2 max–a measure of how much oxygen your body can absorb and use–increased by three points. And he took four minutes off his 40- kilometer time-trial performance. Herzig is now a domestic pro in Australia.

Laursen’s findings, which have been backed by other recent studies, show that the workout he dubbed T-Max can, on average, increase maximum power output by 5 to 6 percent, and raise VO2 max sky-high. The T-Max Interval is effective because it tailors work and rest time, and intensity, to your genetic ability and fitness level, rather than prescribing an arbitrary set of conditions. Here’s how it works: T-Max is the length of time you can hold your peak power output before succumbing to exhaustion–or, scientific jargon aside, how long you can ride really, really hard until you feel so much like you’re dying that you stop. For most of us, that’s about four to six minutes.

Laursen found that cyclists improved the most doing intervals at 60 percent of their T-Max with double that amount of time for recovery between efforts. For instance, someone with a T-Max of four minutes would ride hard for 2:30, followed by five minutes of recovery. In a 2006 study performed at Ithaca College in central New York, members of the collegiate cycling team performed sets of eight intervals twice a week for six weeks; they improved their performance in a 5-kilometer time trial by 7 percent.

Exercise physiologist Andrew Coggan, a preeminent authority on training with power, gives his nod of approval to the T-Max: “It seems like a very logical, pragmatic approach to interval training. Here’s the maximum amount of time you can go hard. To do that intensity repeatedly, you have to go hard for a shorter amount of time.”

The one catch is obvious. Riding at peak power output is excruciating. “I could never forget the T-Max Intervals,” says Herzig. “They were and probably still are the hardest training I’ve ever completed.” In the Ithaca College study, says research project advisor Tom Swensen, “The guys could do about five or six intervals max. I think a goal of eight is too many.” In fact, Laursen admits that more than a third of his test subjects failed to complete the prescribed eight efforts, and that some of them gurgled puke by the end of the session. “The stress is quite significant,” he deadpans.

Cue the Pantera.

Find Your T-Max
1. Determine Your Peak Power Output. Using a power-measuring device from PowerTap, Polar, SRM or CompuTrainer, begin riding at 100 watts. Increase power by 30 watts every minute until you reach exhaustion. Laursen deemed test subjects fully exhausted when they could not keep their cadence above 60 rpm. You can use that benchmark, but let’s be honest, you’ll know when you’re done. The number of watts you produce just before collapsing is your peak power output, or PPO.

2. Find Your T-Max. Rest for a day or two. Again using a power meter, ride at your PPO until you can no longer sustain that level of output. The amount of time you can hold your PPO is your T-Max. For most of us, that’s between four and six minutes.

3. Calculate Your Ultimate Interval. Multiply your T-Max time by 0.6. This is the work phase of your interval. Double the work phase to set your recovery time between efforts.

4. Try It Out. The original study prescribed eight hard efforts. But if you’d rather avoid losing your lunch, start with two or three intervals. Do two sessions a week, with at least two days of rest or other easy riding between. Add one interval to each set every week until you achieve five or six intervals per workout. Build up to eight if you can.

If You Can’t Measure Power 
Though the results likely won’t be as dramatic as with a power-based T-Max Interval, Laursen says unplugged cyclists can reap some of the benefits by performing 2:30-minute intervals at 95 to 100 percent of max heart rate (the point at which you cannot speak), followed by recovery to 60 percent of max, or until you can speak in full sentences. Do two to six sets twice a week, with at least two days of spinning or rest between.

Training Instensity

c/- Chris Carmichael

But I have a solution to get me to the height of summer in peak condition, and you can use it too: intensity.

 

Even when you’re busy, you can sneak out for short, fast workouts to maintain your fitness. Remember, intensity and volume are inversely related–the less riding you do, the more intensity you can pack into your training. The fortunate few who have unlimited riding time can cruise at a moderate pace most of the time and throw in a few intervals.

 

But if you’re short on time and still want to keep up with the Sunday group ride or do some racing later in the season, then high-intensity workouts are the only way.

 

Not all intensity is the same, however. There’s a big difference between doing a sprint workout (15-second efforts) and doing repeated one-minute max efforts. Both are hard, but because the power outputs are so drastically different, these workouts that seem similar won’t yield the same results weeks from now.

 

For this plan, stick with the longer intervals, which work your sustainable power at threshold while at the same time stressing your aerobic engine, so you’re killing two birds with one stone. Later in the summer, when you have more time to ride, you can do shorter efforts to quickly regain your explosive sprinting power.

 

To put this theory into practice, I’ll do three one-hour rides during the week. If I’m lucky, I’ll also be able to swing a three-hour endurance ride on Saturday or Sunday, but if I can’t, it’s not a huge deal.

 

Because these workouts are so intense, you’ll want to take a recovery day between each interval day. For me, this means a Monday, Wednesday, Friday interval-workout schedule with the bonus endurance ride on the weekend.

 

Keep in mind that this schedule is intended only to get you through a three- to five-week crunch time when other important aspects of your life cut into your available training time. After that, you should go back to a typical seven-to-10-hour training week, and enjoy your summer.

 

Over Unders: During the “over” portions of these intervals, hit the gas as hard as you can. During the “under” portions, ride at your maximum sustainable pace (92 to 95 percent of time-trial heart rate, 85 to 90 percent of time-trial power). There’s no rest between the “over” and “under” portions. Warm up for 10 to 15 minutes, then ride for two minutes “under,” then one minute “over.” Keep alternating for nine minutes. Rest 10 minutes, then complete a second interval. Advanced riders can increase these to 12-minute intervals. Cool down and you’re done.

 

Descending Intervals: Hard intervals and short recovery periods yield big boosts in power output. These intervals are max efforts, and the interval times are the same as the recovery times. Warm up 15 to 20 minutes, then do the following set: two minutes hard, two minutes recovery, 90 seconds hard, 90 seconds recovery, then 75, 60, 45 seconds for the next three. Spin easy for 10 minutes and repeat the set. Cool down and you’re done.

 

Hill Accelerations: Find a climb that takes five to eight minutes to complete. Warm up for 10 to 15 minutes, and then ride the first three to six minutes of the climb at your maximum sustainable climbing pace. From there, gradually accelerate to the top so you’re riding all-out by the time you finish. Recover for 10 minutes and do it again. Cool down and you’re done. If you don’t have a hill nearby, you can do this workout on flat to rolling terrain; just increase the intensity from max sustainable to absolute maximum in the final two minutes of an eight-minute interval.

2011 Stratford to Dargo Classic

Wellington CC in conjunction with Cycling Victoria  hosted the 3rd Annual Stratford to Dargo Classic on Saturday 5 November 2011.

Dargo Pub

“X” is for Classix

Mat'sPodium

Today, Fabio notched up a 1st place at the Sat’dee Campbellfield Criteriums and earned the honour of giving the inaugural Classix™ victory salute.

X is for victory

Mat’s still practicing doing this while on the bike but this will do for the first effort. Congrats Mat and also congrates to Conall ‘The Natural’ for his 2nd place at Bayswater.

Vanilla and Vanilla Jnr rode in B Grade as well and finished 7th and 8th respectively in a brutally tough race. It won’t be long before they are saluting too.

The podiums roll on for the Classix™ team.

Modella Arthouse

When work colleague and ace cyclist Liwa Becker invited me to join him for a photo prior to the race, little did I realise that the pics would turn out so cool.  Liwa’s pa, Günter is pretty handy with the camera as these photos prove.  Hopefully, Liwa has a few more of him in action which I can post.

Classix Racing™- The 2011 CCCC Club Champs

Caulfield Carnegie CC (CCCC) held its club champs on 27 August 2011 on the hilly Modella circuit over 2 laps.  Always a race of attrition, this year’s edition would prove no different.  The Classix Racing™ roster saw Big Kev, Johnny the Warrior and myself ready to tackle the feared circuit under mild afternoon skies.

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Good things come in 3’s

I have entered the 2011 Tour of Bright and now training starts in earnest.

With the luxury of Friday’s off, I have decided on a training programme based around 3’s – 3 consecutive days of riding, 300 km in total and/or 3000 vertical metres of climbing.

I figure that if I can achieve those outcomes as often as possible in the lead up to ToB then I will be satisfied with the training effort.  I don’t want to go into the event worrying that I haven’t done the hard work.  Of course there will be weeks where the target won’t be achieved due to fatigue, weather or racing but it gives me some focus between now and the ToB.

This is how I went this week – Saturday included a tough 1 hour criterium at Casey Fields.  It is fair to say that I feel pretty exhausted but happy to have ticked the boxes.

Day	Distance	VM
Friday 5 August 2011	89 km	1156 metres
Saturday 6 August 2011	118 km	1152 metres
Sunday 7 August 2011	94 km	1390 metres
3 days	301km	3698 metres

2011 Victorian Masters Road Championships

The last time I did a Vic Masters Road Champs I DNF’d – that was many years ago but I was hoping that the same fate would not befall me once again.

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This year’s field in the M4 category was tough – ex Olympians, seasoned A Graders and some names  unknown to me that were sure to bob up.  The race was over 80kms at Harcourt -and it was a magnificent day that greeted us.  It wasn’t long into the race when John Marcan, a big Sunbury rider rolled off the first attack. 

Tour de Riviera (… continued …)

After missing in action for Stage 2 of the Tour de Riviera, it was back to Bairnsdale for Super Saturday’s programme of an ITT over 12.5 km and a 40 km road race immediately following.

East Gippy’s finest bling was on show for the ITT with many riders bringing their special TT machines and aero aids such as swooping helmets and lycra overshoes.  I rode the 40km from Eagle Point to the TT circuit as an enforced warm up to be greeted with the news that this was a TT handicap of sorts and that I had a predicted time of 18mins to complete the journey. 

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