Originally Posted by
Chitown_Mike
So, correct me if I am wrong, but you're thought is HIIT style training is good at times, but there is benefit to (for instance) a 30 mile ride at a pace that can be sustained without over exertion and there be "breaks" during it that require a higher exertion to complete (like hills or sprints)? From what I have read, HIIT training should be no more than 30-40 minutes, and unless you are superman there is no one who could do 30 miles in that time, but never thought of "combining" the 2 in a way like that. If, that is, I am following what you are saying.
I'm saying there is probably no need to overthink it. If you have the time, riding longer at a moderate pace (not slow, but steady, something you can maintain for two or three hours) is going to burn more calories than a one-hour hard session. (The amount of power I can put out at my threshold means that it is not possible for me to burn 1000kcal in a single hour, for instance, and if I got close to that figure I would be fried and have to stop: whereas I have no problem at all riding for three hours at 600kcal per hour for a total of 1800). And if in the course of that three-hour ride there are hills, by all means attack them, or sprint for some road signs, or whatever. Injecting those bursts of intensity will burn a few extra calories and boost your fitness at the same time. Riding rolling hills is a sort of interval training in itself, and one of the nice things about riding a bike is that one can vary the intensity in a single ride.
But if you are short of time, and the priority is to burn as many calories as you can in an hour or so, then of course going hard is the answer. For most people, some combination of the two fits their lifestyle. Sometimes one has time for long rides at endurance pace with a few hills or whatever thrown in, sometimes one has only an hour or so and can best use it for a warm up, 30 minutes of intervals, and warm down. And that mix, spread across the week, happens to be good training, as well as helping with weight control.