Half an hour on the turbo

markhewitt1978

I've finally managed to get my turbo set up such that I can just jump on it when I need to.

But the only time during the week between family commitments, work and sleep is 30 minutes in the morning (more like 25 minutes most of the time) before I have to go to work. But I can do that every day Monday to Friday - riding outside on Sunday!

What sort of things should I be looking at to maximise the effectiveness of the limited time I have? I have a HRM so should I be targeting specific zones or doing intervals etc?

My goals are modest, losing weight, getting fitter and finally being able to keep up with my mate on climbs!

diamonddog

HIIT sessions IMO.

Tom Dean

+1. Specifically Tabata.

imposter2.0

Tom Dean wrote:

+1. Specifically Tabata.

As above^^ - you won't need your HRM for those though. All I would add is that tabatas are quite stressful (on the body) and I personally would struggle do them first thing in the morning, but everyone is different. You might not want to do them five mornings in a row, either..

markhewitt1978

Imposter wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

+1. Specifically Tabata.

As above^^ - you won't need your HRM for those though. All I would add is that tabatas are quite stressful (on the body) and I personally would struggle do them first thing in the morning, but everyone is different. You might not want to do them five mornings in a row, either..

That was part of my question too, it's going to be a struggle enough to put effort in every morning, so I'll need to mix it up a bit, partly going by how I'm feeling at the time. e.g. Friday morning I felt great, this morning, not so much.

imposter2.0

2x10 might be an alternative, perhaps a bit more palatable for that time of the morning...

jgsi

Extra Shot... if you can stomach it first thing in the morning.. just over 21 minutes but always an IF value of over 0.95 per ride.. fuel - minimum 1 espresso.

markhewitt1978

JGSI wrote:

Extra Shot... if you can stomach it first thing in the morning.. just over 21 minutes but always an IF value of over 0.95 per ride.. fuel - minimum 1 espresso.

I have that on my Strava app but was wary since it says it's only really for use after a main workout.

jgsi

W hat do 'they' know .. go for it

Bar Shaker

The rest between workouts is as well moor rant as the workouts themselves. Try alternating between furious, hard days and soft zone 2 days for maximum effect.

Going for it every morning may leave your muscles permanently in recovery and your performance won't improve.

For weight loss, your body is very good at scraping around for reserves for the first 20 minutes. After this, it will start burned NF fat. 25 minutes won't achieve great weight loss. For such short sessions have no fuel for the hour before and hour after. This will help as your metabolism will be elevated when you finish and sticking to water means it will draw on fats but ideally you want to train for longer.

markhewitt1978

Bar Shaker wrote:

The rest between workouts is as well moor rant as the workouts themselves. Try alternating between furious, hard days and soft zone 2 days for maximum effect.

Going for it every morning may leave your muscles permanently in recovery and your performance won't improve.

For weight loss, your body is very good at scraping around for reserves for the first 20 minutes. After this, it will start burned NF fat. 25 minutes won't achieve great weight loss. For such short sessions have no fuel for the hour before and hour after. This will help as your metabolism will be elevated when you finish and sticking to water means it will draw on fats but ideally you want to train for longer.

Thanks for the advice about the easy / hard days. So I'm best off just having some days which are the equivalent of a nice ride along a flat road?

I've been eating a cereal bar just after I've finished my workout so I'm not feeling hungry for the drive into work, you saying I should leave that for a while?

supermurph09

Maybe I'm wrong and I know finding time isn't easy, but you say you only get 30 mins in the morning, no time in the evenings? Could you not juggle your diary around so that you could find an hour twice a week (morning or evening) to do your training? In terms of time this would work out less doing 5 x mornings (getting changed into your kit etc) but would probably be more beneficial.

You could do the Sky/BC warm up (20 mins), 30 hard minutes of intervals and a 10 minute cool down. Focusing your efforts into 2 sessions a week will surely be easier than getting up every morning to do 25 minutes?

Just a thought.

apcmtb

Supermurph09 wrote:

You could do the Sky/BC warm up (20 mins), 30 hard minutes of intervals and a 10 minute cool down. Focusing your efforts into 2 sessions a week will surely be easier than getting up every morning to do 25 minutes?

Just a thought.

Sorry to interrupt, but have pretty much the same query/issue with time constraints. The above that you mention. where could I find these?

supermurph09

You can type "team sky warm up" into Google but essentially:

This is the Standard Team SKY Warm-Up:

5 min light spinning
8 min progressive to Zone 5 – gradually increase the effort until reach maximum power output without sprinting
2 min easy – to recover from the above
2 min to include 3 x 6 second sprints to fully prime all the musculature involved in cycling
3 mins easy – to recover from the above before the race start

For the 30 minute intervals, you can find variations of shorter or harder efforts anywhere on the internet.

apcmtb

Great, thanks for coming back so quickly, I've found the said warm up.

Just out of interest, does this help the OP,

May 2012 edition of Cycling Plus, and is the warm-up regime used by Wiggins for over 10 years
1 - Get slow, endurance muscles working with 7 minutes easy pedalling at about 60% of max heart rate (normal conversation should be easy).

2 - Then 8 minutes at 85% of max heart rate (difficult to talk properly after a few minutes)

3 - Followed by 5 minutes of alternate flat out 6-10 second sprints at about 95% of max HR, with easy 20-second recovery intervals.

markhewitt1978

Supermurph09 wrote:

Maybe I'm wrong and I know finding time isn't easy, but you say you only get 30 mins in the morning, no time in the evenings? Could you not juggle your diary around so that you could find an hour twice a week (morning or evening) to do your training? In terms of time this would work out less doing 5 x mornings (getting changed into your kit etc) but would probably be more beneficial.

You could do the Sky/BC warm up (20 mins), 30 hard minutes of intervals and a 10 minute cool down. Focusing your efforts into 2 sessions a week will surely be easier than getting up every morning to do 25 minutes?

Just a thought.

The 30 minutes was already gained from getting up early (5.50am) skipping out eating breakfast, cutting down on the 'safety margin' of getting to work on time, and skipping the 10 minutes I spend with my daughter in the morning, so no, that 25-30 minutes was already a struggle to carve out.

As for the evenings I could, but, in the evenings after my daughter has gone to bed I'm tired and the last thing I feel like doing is working out.

That said, when the mornings get lighter I'm going to be getting up earlier once or twice a week then doing an hours ride outside.

nicklong

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Supermurph09 wrote:

Maybe I'm wrong and I know finding time isn't easy, but you say you only get 30 mins in the morning, no time in the evenings? Could you not juggle your diary around so that you could find an hour twice a week (morning or evening) to do your training? In terms of time this would work out less doing 5 x mornings (getting changed into your kit etc) but would probably be more beneficial.

You could do the Sky/BC warm up (20 mins), 30 hard minutes of intervals and a 10 minute cool down. Focusing your efforts into 2 sessions a week will surely be easier than getting up every morning to do 25 minutes?

Just a thought.

The 30 minutes was already gained from getting up early (5.50am) skipping out eating breakfast, cutting down on the 'safety margin' of getting to work on time, and skipping the 10 minutes I spend with my daughter in the morning, so no, that 25-30 minutes was already a struggle to carve out.

As for the evenings I could, but, in the evenings after my daughter has gone to bed I'm tired and the last thing I feel like doing is working out.

That said, when the mornings get lighter I'm going to be getting up earlier once or twice a week then doing an hours ride outside.

It might sound counter-intuitive, but being motivated to do an hour session in the evening even when you're tired is a great way to improve your energy levels.

I've got a young family, demanding job and neglected wife so the only time I normally have for proper training is 10:30 / 11pm, although I admit sleeping afterwards takes me a while.

BSRU

markhewitt1978 wrote:

The 30 minutes was already gained from getting up early (5.50am).

Why not get up earlier, I got up at 5am this morning for my session before taking my youngest to pre-school then me onto work.
It's much easier to get up at that time by going to bed early and abstaining from alcohol for more than a week.
Eventually you get used to the routine of waking up early.
In the summer I'm often up at 4am at the weekend to take advantage of the early sun rise.

markhewitt1978

When it starts to be light at that time of day I will get up at 5am in order to get on the road for a good hours ride once or twice a week. Much like yourself in the summer Sunday mornings I'm often on the road by 6am to get 80 miles (Gran Fondo as was!) in before lunchtime.

This time of year it's not so easy, I need my 8 hours sleep, and I don't usually get that.

diy

5 min warm up
5 - min progressive resistance to get the sweat on
20 seconds sprint 10 seconds recovery x 8 moderate resistance
20 seconds sprint 10 seconds recovery x 8 high resistance
5 min stretch / cool down

don't waste time looking HR data on the intervals you go as fast/hard as you can max/out

I do tabata sessions as part of a 45 minute work twice at week at 6:45AM - short strong coffee gets you going.

JayKosta

I would do this:
5 minute warm-up, ramping up to the HARD intensity
10 minutes HARD - but able to complete without needing to slow or rest, AND be able to do the remainder of the session!
5 minute recovery
8 minutes HARD - complete without slowing or rest
2 minute cool-down
Do for 2 weeks, or longer if it works for you.

After that, adjust to suit your needs. Shorter duration HARDER work intervals to build speed and strength. A 25 minute continuous HARD period to build endurance.

I recommend NOT doing consecutive days of extreme HARD work - at least until you learn how much rest / recovery you need.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

Tom Dean

diy wrote:

5 min warm up
5 - min progressive resistance to get the sweat on
20 seconds sprint 10 seconds recovery x 8 moderate resistance
20 seconds sprint 10 seconds recovery x 8 high resistance
5 min stretch / cool down

don't waste time looking HR data on the intervals you go as fast/hard as you can max/out

I do tabata sessions as part of a 45 minute work twice at week at 6:45AM - short strong coffee gets you going.

It is possible for highly trained athletes to do more than the usual 8 efforts in Tabata. You cannot do 16.

okgo

You been to Crystal Palace? Its a bloody hour of it!

DeVlaeminck

A less horrible session would be progressive warm up for 10 minutes then 15 minute hardish effort with a 10 second sprint every 90 seconds - then cool down. I find 20 second sprints pretty much destroy me and I wouldn't be able to do repeats off 10s recoveries unless I was measuring my effort - which to me is not really sprinting. I could do the session but the later work intervals would be well below the power of the earlier ones - or is that the idea?

Tom Dean

Yes you can expect power to drop significantly over the set - it's not about sprint power but emptying the tank over the course of the 8 efforts.

diy

Tom Dean wrote:

It is possible for highly trained athletes to do more than the usual 8 efforts in Tabata. You cannot do 16.

I normally do the above with a 30 second - 1 minute reco time between sets - its common for people to do between 8 and 20 sets of the above - its also common to confuse 20:10 x 8 as Tabata. Confusingly its now a trademark (lower case t) which seems to have no resemblance to the original Izumi Tabata protocol.

What I describe is not Tabata protocol in its purest form, but people tend to associate 20:10 x 8 HIIT as Tabata. Tabataba took the point where increases in resistance didn't result in increases of O2 and multiplied that resistance by 170% For most people that is seriously high and not particularly easy to calculate. Hence the above is a simplified model.

If you go as fast as you can for each work set then you'll probably tail off about half way through the second set if your fit. Thats a pretty good failure model for most people.

Tom Dean

i don't get the how resistance is relevant or how resistance directly affects O2 uptake. Whatever, I still don't think you are going hard enough if you can start again after 1 minute's rest. You should be lying on the floor at that point.

Have you compared average power for the set to your max steady power for similar durations? Or looked at W' balance?

imposter2.0

Agree with Tom - if you are doing 1x set properly, then you should have nothing left for anything else, let alone another identical set one minute later.

DeVlaeminck

diy wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

It is possible for highly trained athletes to do more than the usual 8 efforts in Tabata. You cannot do 16.

I normally do the above with a 30 second - 1 minute reco time between sets - its common for people to do between 8 and 20 sets of the above - its also common to confuse 20:10 x 8 as Tabata. Confusingly its now a trademark (lower case t) which seems to have no resemblance to the original Izumi Tabata protocol.
..............................If you go as fast as you can for each work set then you'll probably tail off about half way through the second set if your fit. Thats a pretty good failure model for most people.

I don't believe anyone is going flat out for one set of 8 without tailing off let alone half way through a second set. A 200 metre sprinter isn't flat out for 20 seconds let alone repeating it 10 seconds later.

diy

Tom Dean wrote:

i don't get the how resistance is relevant or how resistance directly affects O2 uptake.

No - neither did I when I read the original study, it makes sense to set resistance to be hard enough to get you to your Vo2Max, but I think there are various combinations of resistance and cadence which could achieve that. I couldn't work out why you would then go to 170%? Surely max is max. My only thought is that they'd worked out that at 170% you reduced cardiac lag? Tbh - I have no idea. I'm not entirely sure I could get a turbo trainer to be 170% the resistance that achieves vo2 max at 90 rpm (which was the original specified cadence in the study). It is worth reading the original work, because their is so much BS about Tabata about.

imposter2.0

I think you are over-complicating this, quite a bit. Talk of percentages, cardiac lag and VO2 max numbers are not really relevant here. Regardless of what the original study quotes, what is commonly-known as 'tabata protocol' from a turbo perspective might be a bit different. Just because the original test subjects were made to work at a cadence of 85+ rpm, does not mean that is the 'recommended' cadence for these intervals.

Just set your turbo to reflect a typical 'flat road' level of resistance and use gears and cadence to vary the effort, like you would on the road. As I understand it, Tabata is just 8x reps of 'maximum' effort (ie flat out) for 20secs, with 10secs rest in between. That's pretty much all there is to it.