What's your favorite workout?

I have 2 circuits I do. One is a medium circuit that consists of a long, preliminary climb, a long descent and some brief hills that take me into a large town where I pause and drink some glucose. After I make my way back to the starting point on a long flat ride through a different route. I note my speed at various points and watch how my progress is going.
Then I have a newly discovered route that's far more challenging. This second route takes me into very remote countryside and very high terrain. There is climb after climb, descent after descent - which makes the route pretty tough.
The only problem is my knees ache these days after a hard ride so I only go all out once a week. Other days I do easy rides or weight train.

velomanct said:

intervals? what kind? hills, sprints, or just hammering all day?

saturday i did some big gear seated sprints, and granny gear sprints. they both were a lot of fun. today i did some intervals, 6x45seconds at kilo pace. those were hard, but they were fun too. tomorrow i am doing 2minute intervals at ~4min power. (yes, i am purposely burrying myself this week. Joe Friel calls it crash training.) it just feels good to go out and work hard, after a nice rest week.

what's your favorite workout?

velomanct said:

intervals? what kind? hills, sprints, or just hammering all day?

saturday i did some big gear seated sprints, and granny gear sprints. they both were a lot of fun. today i did some intervals, 6x45seconds at kilo pace. those were hard, but they were fun too. tomorrow i am doing 2minute intervals at ~4min power. (yes, i am purposely burrying myself this week. Joe Friel calls it crash training.) it just feels good to go out and work hard, after a nice rest week.

what's your favorite workout?

I took some of the workouts that I did for years while rowing and tried them out on a bike. They seem to make for a decent workout.

The first is 6x3miles on a few minutes rest. trying to keep the pace the same throughout at something that makes you feel like you really can't keep the pace for the last couple of pieces. (With rowing the workout would be about 35 minutes of work, at a pace that I could maintain for maybe 20-22 minutes without rest)

Another good one is just a set amount of time with each minute split into sprinting and spinning (where sprinting is @100% effort). The first minute do 20 seconds sprinting 40 seconds spinning, the second minute 30 seconds sprinting 30 seconds spinning, the third minute 40 seconds sprinting 20 seconds spinning. repeat until time is up (this gets really insidious when you finish up your 40 second sprint, rest for 20 seconds and have to sprint again). I'm lucky if I can do this for 20-30 minutes.

Then there is your basic 1 minute sprints on 30 seconds rest, 3 minute pieces on 30 seconds rest (both of which are done until you can't keep your pace anymore).

And of course a long ride on the weekend when I have more time.

I think it's all pretty standard stuff really, the thing that I've found to be the most important is knowing what pace you should be going at (something that's pretty much impossible on a bike without a way to measure power).

I would have to say VGS workouts are one of my favorite, followed by climbing intervals.

I have found these 3 hills that are wicked steep, pedaling up them is really tough. But I love it, feel my legs burning, breathing hard, and I can act cool and unzip my cycling jersey some. (Even though it does help cool me down)

But, in all honesty, I love every aspect of cycling. There really isn't ever a day when I'm like 'ah man, today is pure hills or just flats'. I ride anything b/c I can and b/c it's soo fun.

velomanct said:

... what's your favorite workout?

I like a workout that's enjoyable and not complicated. I think my favorite workout on the bike is the 2 x 20 minute interval session or one of it's variations. It's simple, easy to do and only takes an hour. It's hard to beat this one for the best bang for the buck in terms of time invested.

5 minutes of easy spinning to warm up
5 minutes of building up to speed
20 minutes of TT effort
5 minutes of easy spinning
20 minutes of TT effort
5 minutes of easy spinning to cool down

If that's too difficult or if you haven't recovered from a previous training session you can simply hold back on the intensity or juggle the time around to suit you.

Doctor Morbius said:

I like a workout that's enjoyable and not complicated. I think my favorite workout on the bike is the 2 x 20 minute interval session or one of it's variations. It's simple, easy to do and only takes an hour. It's hard to beat this one for the best bang for the buck in terms of time invested.

5 minutes of easy spinning to warm up
5 minutes of building up to speed
20 minutes of TT effort
5 minutes of easy spinning
20 minutes of TT effort
5 minutes of easy spinning to cool down

If that's too difficult or if you haven't recovered from a previous training session you can simply hold back on the intensity or juggle the time around to suit you.

How do you define Time Trial effort?

velomanct said:

intervals? what kind? hills, sprints, or just hammering all day?

saturday i did some big gear seated sprints, and granny gear sprints. they both were a lot of fun. today i did some intervals, 6x45seconds at kilo pace. those were hard, but they were fun too. tomorrow i am doing 2minute intervals at ~4min power. (yes, i am purposely burrying myself this week. Joe Friel calls it crash training.) it just feels good to go out and work hard, after a nice rest week.

what's your favorite workout?

I guess hills are my favorite. I really have no choice. I live in a hilly area where there are zero flats. Makes interval training tough.

Dellphinus said:

How do you define Time Trial effort?

Is it a specific HR zone, or is it how hard you can go for a certain distance/time?

Dellphinus said:

Is it a specific HR zone, or is it how hard you can go for a certain distance/time?

You can use either but I was referring to an all out 20 minute effort. That routine can be pretty flexible though. The other day I only did two 15 minute efforts and they weren't quite Time Trial either. Just wasn't up to it. :o