Indoor Cycling Workout I
To accompany my trainer article I’ve decided to provide one of many really good workouts to keep you guys occupied during the upcoming winter sessions. But first I want to break down the various heart rate zones that I use. I know some of you may use power meters for your workouts so you’ll have to determine YOUR levels of exertion based on your various power levels, the zones I am showing are only my views and the zones I use and they will provide athletes a good baseline. Figure out your zones and keep track of them, I will be putting up a new workout every so often.
Zone 1 <65% of max, heart rate this is a very easy pace
Zone 2 65-72% of max, heart rate this is easy
Zone 3 73-80% of max, this is steady/light
Zone 4 84-90% of max, this is steady and race tempo. ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD*
Zone 5 91-100% of max, this is PAIN
The gap between Zone 3 and Zone 4 is there because it is in that particular HR zone that most people ride, it is comfortable but the intensity level is too low to benefit your anaerobic threshold and your endurance will benefit as much or more with less stress at lower intensities.
*To save yourself from having to utilize the less than accurate formula of 220-Age to determine your Max Heart Rate I personally feel that finding your anaerobic threshold heart rate is the best way to determine your other heart rates. To accomplish this you should use your trainer and do a 20 minute effort, go as hard as you can and still finish the 20 minutes, take you average heart rate and this is usually a pretty good estimate of your anaerobic threshold. Of course, do that 20 minutes only after a good 15 minute warm up. And with some simple math you will have all of your zones. These will change as you get in better or worse fitness, so it isn’t a bad idea to do this test once a month.
Now for the workouts. Each of the workouts I will put up can be done in an hour or less and maybe a little more, so time is maximized.
We’ll just call this workout #1 it is a workout that will help us get into a system and really start to wake up our bodies for the future work to be done. Drills type workout.
10 minutes easy gear first 5 minutes Zone 1 second 5 minutes zone 2
5 minutes in a moderate gear* to high gear* 90 rpm’s increase 5 rpm’s every minute to 110 rpm’s zone3-4
2 minutes easy spinning zone
5 minutes repeat the above moderate gear intervals
2 minutes spinning zone 2
5 minutes 1 leg drills in a moderate gear pedal 30 seconds with one leg and then switch to the other leg. Spin 1 minute with both legs then repeat HR is not important and focusing on proper pedaling is.
2 minutes easy spinning both legs.
5 minutes repeat the one leg drills
10 minute cool down
This workout is good for all levels of cyclist and like all workouts on the trainer will easily highlight your fitness improvements.
*Moderate gear is a gear that won’t make you really push and won’t allow you to really spin, it is juuuuuust right, and is dependent on your fitness level Example would be the big chainring in front and 4th or 5th down from the easiest gear in back.
*Higher gear = harder gear so big chain ring and maybe 2 or 3 gears up from the hardest gear.
Again finding the gears you need to use is completely dependent on your fitness level. You may very well be in your easiest gear or you may very well be in your hardest gear. Just find a gear you can complete the workouts in. Just don’t make it too easy!
Good Luck!
Workout provided by Matt Simpson
