Making the most of my lunch hour

Bullet1
Bullet1 Posts: 161
I've signed up to Tour of the Peak in June - 98 miles with 8,000 ft of climbing.

I'm 6'5" and 16.5 st so not the exact build for being a great climber.

My main focus over the next months is getting the weight down and focussing on increasing power to help me with the hills.

We have a spinning bike in the gym at work and I can pretty much get a 30 - 40 minute session on it 3 times times a week during my lunch hour.

My current workout is spinning easy for 5 minute to warm up, followed by 1 minute on high resistance every 3 minutes for 10 repeats. Then, if time allows a 5 minute easy spin warm down.

If this the best thing I could be doing in the gym to aid with my training??

Comments

  • Setarkos
    Setarkos Posts: 239
    I'm assuming you follow that up with 2 rides on the weekend?

    Given the duration the intensity should reasonably high to get something out of those sessions.
    Have a look at Bill Black's Hour of Power (even if it's not going to be a full hour) and you might also like some of the workouts mentioned in the thread about HIT: viewtopic.php?f=40011&t=12917243
    Sounds like you are already doing something similar...
    If you do two or three of those during the week I'd recommend to follow that up with two ~3-4h endurance rides on the weekends.
  • Bullet1
    Bullet1 Posts: 161
    Thanks for the above - from the table it looks like i'm doing half of the bottom one??? If only I were a highly trained cyclist :)

    Following it up with generally 4 hours over 2 rides throughout the week - where time allows - kids eh?
  • Setarkos
    Setarkos Posts: 239
    Well, whatever you can fit in your schedule, maybe 2h on Saturday and 3h on Sunday are possible? Sleep less, ride more? ;)
    The top two workouts in the table are a bit shorter so you could get closer to completing them - maybe try one of those.
    Another suggestion: do 30s hard 30s endurance pace and repeat for the duration you have available (5min warm-up and cool-down) - increase intensity as much as you can maintain it for the duration of the workout. The 30s off are not complete rest - keep pedaling at medium resistance (endurance pace).
    If the training starts feeling to intense throw in a 4x5min session at threshold intensity.