hill interval type training
stratcat
Posts: 160
I'm trying to get fitter (generally) and faster for TT's (10's mainly) I don't own a turbo trainer and so I was thinking of getting up early (when its very quiet) and using the local dual carriage way (pretty flat) to do some intervals on. A friend suggested using a hill to ride up and down a few times.
So yesterday I tried this it took me about 5mins to go from the bottom to the top, before turning around and about 3 mins down (the road surface is pretty bad on the way back down). It's only 0.86 miles long but about a 9% hill. I did it about five times before coming back home. It was a good work out, but do you think it will have the desired effect. I'm sure it will make me stronger and fitter, but will it make me faster? - it feels a bit counter intuitive to ride up a hill (relatively) slowly, to go faster.
Is it all just grist to the mill?
So yesterday I tried this it took me about 5mins to go from the bottom to the top, before turning around and about 3 mins down (the road surface is pretty bad on the way back down). It's only 0.86 miles long but about a 9% hill. I did it about five times before coming back home. It was a good work out, but do you think it will have the desired effect. I'm sure it will make me stronger and fitter, but will it make me faster? - it feels a bit counter intuitive to ride up a hill (relatively) slowly, to go faster.
Is it all just grist to the mill?
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Comments
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If you just go out and ride your ride as fast as you can then the chances are that you will get a little bit fitter.
The idea of "Interval training" is more complicated and should be more effective than just going out and riding
The basic idea is that to train you must "overload" your body in an area that needs developing. With bike riding this is usually aerobic power. The only trouble is, too much overload is not a good thing. Intervals are supposed to be bursts of exercise at an overload power. In a typical interval session you might spend 75% of the time warming up or resting inbetween intervals
Also interval session days are usually spread out with numerous rest days
So that is what intervals are and what they are for. To relate it back to your original question, will short hill repeats help with a 10 mile TT? Yes they will. But a slightly longer interval of overload than 5 minutes would probably be more effective0 -
That hill sounds perfect for intervals, good find.0
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Just remember if you are using a hill like that for intervals with a view to short / middle distance TTs then do it in the aero position on your race bike. And remember to spin / cadence at normal race speeds.0
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That might be a bit tough to do on a 9% grade.SteveR_100Milers wrote:Just remember if you are using a hill like that for intervals with a view to short / middle distance TTs then do it in the aero position on your race bike. And remember to spin / cadence at normal race speeds.0 -
Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:
That might be a bit tough to do on a 9% grade.SteveR_100Milers wrote:Just remember if you are using a hill like that for intervals with a view to short / middle distance TTs then do it in the aero position on your race bike. And remember to spin / cadence at normal race speeds.
Indeed it might.....ok aero position then and grunt your way up.0 -
I definitely can't do it at my usual cadence. :shock: Grunting up is the only way
I rode it on the drops so I'll give it a go in aero position next time.
Is the time ok then 5mins of effort followed be 3 of rest? I don't have a HRM so I'm going of perceived effort and It certainly felt like I had caught my breath etc when I got to the bottom.
As an aside I checked my resting heart rate this yesterday and this morning and it's at about 52 bpm - I must be doing something right (I'm 41 Y.O.) 0
