cod.peace

I am short time for bike rides from work this week, so today I went for a Tabata protocol ride. After a 10 minute warmup, it's 8 sets of 20 second all-out sprint, 10 second rest. I used a nearby office park loop. The total ride time: 14 minutes.

Wow. I hadn't tried these on a bike before and it's been a long time since I've tried this sort of workout. I am going to have some deep muscle soreness tomorrow!

txvintage

Tomorrow you are gonna wish you had done these on Friday so you do the whole death to resurrection thing on Saturday!

Tabata's frighten me.

cod.peace

Well, researchers in exercise physiology keep coming to the same conclusion: that interval training is the most time-effective means of improving your performance. I really enjoy longer rides for the mental health benefits, but I'm trying an experiment to see if hard intervals a few times a week when I am time-limited improves my riding.

I need to start logging my rides again to really track this...

Schwinnrider

I bike commute. That's always interval training. Sprint from stoplights, climb hills, sprint down, sprint to get over to the turning lane. Try commuting. :-)

cod.peace

I do, a 30 mile RT through mixed urban/suburban traffic, but not on any real consistent schedule. Yes, there's definitely some interval training going on there

When I move in a month my commute will be 37 miles, of nearly stoplight-free suburban roads.

txvintage

Oh, I'm quite aware of the benfeits of intervals. The whole Tabata approach can make you a monster in the sprint, but oh the pain, lol.