Training: Ride hard after work
Supercharge your riding with evening sessions
Published:
At last the evenings are getting longer and with the clocks going forward it’s a great opportunity for some quality training after work. Early spring is when you should get more specific with your sessions. You will be getting a little stale with long steady miles and the turbo trainer, so now is the time to speed up your riding.
Introducing some faster pace work into your training now will make the transition to racing later on a whole lot easier. The lighter and hopefully warmer evenings are perfect for short, snappy training sessions that will boost your fitness levels and won’t leave you too fatigued. Most of us don’t have much free time after work, maybe an hour at most, but that’s still plenty.
British Cycling’s lead coach, Chris Furber, thinks an hour is a perfect window of time. “The human body is designed to walk and run, so is neurologically and physiologically set up for those movement patterns,” he says. “You can condition your body to follow a cycling movement pattern just by getting out on your bike regularly. If you stop cycling for too many days your body will quickly return to its normal walking state.”
Bearing this in mind, here are three one-hour sessions to do in your working week between Monday and Friday:
Monday | Wednesday | Friday |
The Hour Of Power | Spin To Win | Torque The Torque |
Aim: To build strength and power | Aim: A low load session designed to create pedaling efficiency | Aim: To develop speed endurance |
Tip: Try to hold your pace for the duration of the efforts. If you fade too much, try starting a little slower | Tip: Pedal in circles, and don’t bounce in the saddle | Tip: This session is hard because there are no rests. Persevere, because it’s very effective |
Equipment: A cycle computer that measures cadence | ||
Warm Up | Warm Up | Warm Up |
15 minutes in a small gear, gradually bringing your heart rate up | 15 minutes in a small gear | 15 minutes in a small gear |
Main Set | Main Set | Main Set |
3×2 minutes hard and controlled, in a big gear + 90 seconds rests | High/low cadence efforts | 15 minutes at 75-80% of your max heart rate. Should feel hard, but sustainable |
4 minutes easy spinning | 2 x (2mins spinning your legs at 110rpm, 2mins at 80rpm) | Change up a gear and ride 10 minutes at 80-85% of your max heart rate |
3×1 minute hard and controlled, in a big gear + 60 seconds rests | 10 mins easy riding | Change up a gear and ride 5 minutes at 90% of max heart rate (this should be an all-out effort) |
4 minutes easy spinning | 2 x (2mins spinning your legs at 110rpm, 2mins at 80rpm) | |
3x30secs at maximum effort + 30 seconds rests | ||
Warm Down | Warm Down | Warm Down |
15 minutes in a small gear, gradually bringing your heart rate down | 15 minutes in a small gear | 15 minutes in a small gear |