oh
more trainiacs
12 times
15 second
max
2 minute rest
whoa
so
when
people start taking up cycling
if they start wanting to get faster and
actually do something structured with it
there becomes this huge amount of
confusion should you ride long should
you ride steady some might see me doing
low rpm strength intervals you might see
me doing 15 second bursts like this or
even four minute intervals so developing
cyclists start questioning well like
what should i do i don't have time to do
all of these workouts every single week
well i'm going to give you two workouts
that you can focus on as a beginner
cyclist that are going to allow you to
ride longer ride faster
with just two bike workouts per week
and hardly any suffering involved it'll
work for real okay so let's say you are
a new cyclist that's just got into the
sport and as opposed to just going and
riding around aimlessly you want to
actually start getting faster typically
what most people start thinking about is
they want to do two things they want to
ride faster and they want to be able to
ride faster for longer so you want to be
faster with endurance when i first got
into cycling i ended up thinking that
you just go out and you ride and
sometimes you ride fast and sometimes
you ride slow and sometimes you ride
long and sometimes you just try to push
it here or there but what ended up
happening with me because i didn't
really have any sort of plan or any sort
of structure or any sort of guided
workout i rode for the first three years
that i got into endurance sports without
really making any progress when i went
into triathlons i was really no faster
than average when i went and joined
group rides i was getting spit off the
back or people that were way older
clearly less fit that were able to drop
me because they had more years of doing
these structured workouts that actually
are designed to make them stronger
faster and be able to do that for a
longer period of time so what i'm going
to give you is just two workouts and in
our book triathlon bike foundations
which can apply to triathlon or cycling
in general we talk about the two
workouts per week that athletes need to
do in order to be able to go faster and
longer we did a podcast with dr martin
gabala who wrote the one minute workout
where he talked about all of the
research that's being done about super
short intense interval training and
what's being found in study after study
is that this common misconception of you
have to grind you have to be putting in
huge hours to constantly be suffering so
that you can actually get faster it's
really just not the case if you want to
a just be healthier it takes a lot less
work than people originally thought
and what they're actually finding is
that even in already trained cyclists
that a really well designed but short
and intense workout can be enough to
make a huge amount of progress so what
do these workouts look like that are
short and intense well they look like a
really short but actually very easily
intense kind of workout they might be
about 30 to 40 minutes and on average
what they include is roughly three to
four
total minutes that's it
of really intense work that's broken up
so i'll give you an example the workout
that i just did was 12 times 15 seconds
at maximum effort with two minutes rest
in between and it doesn't have to be
that you can make up your own different
version of it but here are the
guidelines you want somewhere in between
about two and a half and four minutes of
really intense workout and the rest
should be anywhere from about a one to
three work to rest ratio so something
like 20 seconds on 60 seconds off all
the way up to a one to nine work to rest
ratio like 30 seconds on four and a half
minutes off so you can start playing
with that play with these really really
intense intervals
here's the key to it you want to be
broken up with efforts ranging from
about 10 seconds to about 40 seconds
this is your neuromuscular power this
your top end power and as you're
developing as an athlete that top end
power is really critical because it's
going to make you faster it's going to
make steady efforts less painful it's
also going to burn a huge amount of fat
it's going to increase your vo2 max so
the amount of oxygen that you can
process every single minute ends up
raising and it's a really good bang for
your buck as far as time spent versus
the benefits that you get when i say
intense they need to be intense they
need to be like tossing your cookies
kind of intense and if you end up fading
in the last few that's okay what we're
really just trying to do is push as hard
as we can to create that hermetic
response where the body adapts to be
able to perform the task that you're
giving it so that's workout number one
workout number two much more simple much
more easy as long as you like riding
long that first workout is going to have
an endurance benefit because you are
going to be stronger you're going to be
able to process your energy a lot more
efficiently but to ride long you really
just need to ride long and how i
recommend athletes do this is with a
three-step process the first is to ride
comfortably long at a very low intensity
how much is a low intensity you can go
online and find your zone two your easy
effort heart rate cap and stay under
this you're staying a long way under
this it's in your zone one or two and
ride under that heart rate cap for a
comfortably long distance this is your
endurance cap this is you burning a lot
of fat as fuel which is going to help
you ride longer the second thing that
you need to do is
increase that and you can increase that
by around eight to ten percent each week
drop down every third or fourth week to
about sixty percent so let's say you
ride 60 minutes then the next week ride
66 minutes then the next week ride 73
minutes then drop down to around 45
minutes then come back and do 10
more than your previous longest so up
around 85 minutes and by going up in
these eight to ten percent roughly
increments you're going to gradually be
able to adapt to riding longer and
longer the third thing that you need to
do in order to actually make this really
beneficial really easy is i believe in a
timed carb approach
when you end up having carbohydrates
before this ride you blunt your body's
ability to actually burn fat as fuel
your blood sugar goes high and your body
stops accessing fat as fuel as easily so
i recommend before these low intensity
rides don't have carbs but certainly eat
so this is something like eggs or a
protein bar or sausages maybe a
bulletproof coffee something like this
that is going to give you lots of fuel
and fuel during the ride but just
restrict carbohydrates until after the
ride what this is going to do is really
teach your body to burn a ton of fat as
fuel which is going to allow you to ride
for ages until i started doing this i
would always get those achy legs no
matter how fit i got around the two hour
mark because my body was just out of
fuel with those two rides you are going
to be faster stronger you're probably
going to lose body fat because they're
designed to burn a ton of fat during and
after the workout you're going to be
able to ride longer you're going to be
able to join all kinds of groups and do
all kinds of races that you never
expected that you could possibly do
you're gonna feel strong and you're
gonna feel healthy and enjoy cycling a
heck of a lot this is when it starts
getting really fun where there's no
workout or no group that you fear and
that's when you can start building a
community around race plans and race
goals or even just adventure goals and
it becomes really fun there is links in
the description below to studies that
we've got to the triathlon bike
foundation's book that we've got if you
want some structure or if you want a
full training plan we have not just
triathlon training but bike training at
our app that you can get a free 14-day
trial of at app.mymotive.com
later trainiacs
ride strong fast and far