Intervals

onabike

hi,

ive been introducing some turbo 1x20 mins intervals to my cycling for the first time. I'll start doing 2x20 mins in a week or two.

Is there any particular gear to do these in? And should I aim to do these sessions at higher resistance as i improve?

Currently I have the chain on the big front chain ring (53) and middle rear chain ring. I use a Minoura Mag 850 R and set the reistance to 2, cycling at 95rpm. The resistance feels moderate to hard. After a 1x20 min ( or 2x10min) LT session my legs dont hurt at all, which means i might not be going hard enough.
I'm a recreational cyclist wanting to improve on a 10-mile TT time of 26.20 mins.

Thanks.

terongi

I think the point of these 2x20 intervals is to improve TT ability. It seems to me that you should do them at whatever cadence you normally use for TT. 95 rpm sounds like it is in the right sort of range.

Beyond that, the point of 2x20 intervals is to be so hard that you are only just able to finish the second one. This may take a bit of trial and error. So the gearing and resistance should be set up to serve that purpose, because the level of effort will be personal to you.

A Heart Rate Monitor or careful attention to perceived exertion will be a better guide than gearing and resistance.

On another point, it may be better to start with say 2x12, then 2x15, then 2x20 rather than starting with 1x20. This is because part of the rationale behind these intervals is to improve recovery between 2 sets of efforts.

Toks

onabike wrote:

hi,

ive been introducing some turbo 1x20 mins intervals to my cycling for the first time. I'll start doing 2x20 mins in a week or two.

Is there any particular gear to do these in? And should I aim to do these sessions at higher resistance as i improve?

Currently I have the chain on the big front chain ring (53) and middle rear chain ring. I use a Minoura Mag 850 R and set the reistance to 2, cycling at 95rpm. The resistance feels moderate to hard. After a 1x20 min ( or 2x10min) LT session my legs dont hurt at all, which means i might not be going hard enough.
I'm a recreational cyclist wanting to improve on a 10-mile TT time of 26.20 mins.

Thanks.

Just ride the 2 x 20's in a cadence that feels right to you and ideally allows you to average the most power too For most of us that will be pretty close to our our cadence on the road. Although for myself, 85-90rpm on the turbo, feels a bit better than when ride at my normal 95rpms on the road.

Training is all about specificity specificity and specificity. If you ride them at a very slow, 60rpms, thats what you'll get good at.

If you were planning to do sustained hill climbing then there's no harming in doing them in a slightly higher gear. For the sake of your knees I wouldn't go below 75rpms. The key is to get as much training adaption at or near threshold pace. Try 2 x 15 ,as Terongi wrote if 2 x 20 is too much of a a struggle so that you still end up completing the session. Take a five or even ten minute break in between the efforts