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5 Killer Cycling Workouts You Can Do In 20 Minutes

5 Killer Cycling Workouts You Can Do In 20 Minutes

So you don’t have a lot of time but you still want to progress. As cyclists, we tend to think that it is not worth doing short training sessions, since our goal is to ride fast for many hours. Well, here’s the secret to getting the most gains with the least amount of training time. Let’s go strong. I’m not talking about picking up the pace a bit, but going really hard. Sprints, hill attacks, other hard intervals and circuit training that demand a lot of oxygen and generate a lot of lactic acid. The accumulated oxygen debt will overload the anaerobic and aerobic energy systems, leading to improvements in both.

Additionally, high-intensity intervals and off-the-bike cross training increase your body’s production of growth hormone and testosterone, leading to improved bodily function without resorting to cheating. As we age, these hormones decline, so increasing them with exercise will help burn fat, recover, and develop new red blood cells. It will literally turn back your body’s internal clock allowing you to feel and perform younger. Not bad for such short workouts.

Enough of the preamble. You’re reading this because you want results, so go ahead with the workouts.

Due to the intensity of my workouts, you will want to warm up at least 10 minutes before you do the workout. As you get fitter, you’ll need a longer warmup for optimal performance, but a quick warmup will be enough to reduce the chance of injury when trying to do these cold workouts.

Tabata Interval Blocks

The basic Tabata interval is becoming very popular. The basic premise is 20 seconds hard / 10 seconds easy, repeated 8-10 times. 8 reps is a 4 minute block.

If you’re short on time, do a quick warmup and then do 10 x 20 second hard sprints with 10 seconds of easy pedaling between reps. This is a 5 minute workout. Don’t be disappointed by the length. Even the fittest athlete will get training overload if each interval is attacked with maximum effort. Due to the intensity level, it is best done on an indoor bike trainer. I’ve done them outside and by the sixth or seventh interval I’m zigzagging all the way.

If you have a little more time to work, I recommend doing a couple of blocks. After the warm-up, do 8 Tabata intervals (4 minutes), then a 4-minute recovery, and do it again. Two blocks of Tabata intervals overload almost every system in the body and it only takes 12 minutes. As you get fitter, you can try adding another set at times when you want a heavy training load.

20 minute time trial

Some of you may be familiar with 20 minute threshold reps. These are one level in intensity. You can do it indoors or out, but if you’re outside, find a 20-minute long hill climb for those lucky people who live in the mountains or level ground into a headwind. You don’t want the terrain to give you a break, so try to find a route that doesn’t have drop offs. The rest is quite simple. Cover as much distance as you can in 20 minutes.

A variation of these that I use for my clients is a 12-15km time trial, as most fit cyclists take about 20 minutes. If you picked the right pace, your legs will be on fire, but you’ll barely be able to keep up the pace for the entire distance. Because lactic acid builds up faster than your body can process, the last 5 minutes really hurt. These will increase your aerobic capacity and improve your ability to process lactic acid. If you’re doing time trials in competition, they’re also very good for getting a sense of pace. Go out too hard and your legs will explode. Go off too easy and you won’t be as fast as you could be.

Mini Velmax Intervals

Velmax intervals are a simple but effective workout that we typically do for 25-40 reps. In this case, you’ll do 20 to fit into the time limit, hence the mini. The intervals are pretty simple, 30 seconds at 135% threshold power or 8-9 out of 10 perceived exertion if you don’t have a power meter. Recovery time is 30 seconds. So you push yourself at the beginning of each minute and recover after 30 seconds. Pretty easy to follow no matter how tired you are. The first ones are difficult but doable. Each one after that gets harder until the last few feel like their legs are going to fall off. While you should get adequate recovery in between this type of training, it really does give quick results if you put in an honest effort.

Full Body Circuit Workouts

The last two training sessions are not on the bike. Sometimes you find yourself without equipment but still want to exercise. Other times you will use these types of exercises to balance the rest of the body. Cycling hits certain muscles hard but neglects others. If you lack muscular endurance in your core and upper body, it will affect your performance on the bike. A strong core will increase your power on the pedals both sitting and standing. While I give you two workouts, there are almost endless possibilities when it comes to scheduling cross-training.

To do these workouts you will not need anything more than a pair of dumbbells. For men I recommend a 20 pound set and for women a 10 pound set. If you don’t know how to do the exercises, google “crossfit exercises” or look up the name of each exercise. There are YouTube.com videos of most of the exercises.

Before we get to the workouts, a few points on how to do them. Do each exercise in order and once you’ve done a circuit start over again until you’ve done the number of rounds planned. The goal is to get through the workout as quickly as possible while maintaining good form on the exercises.

Don’t stay unless you have to. This type of training will have a lot of lactic acid and will make you huff and puff. This is good. This type of training leads to an increase in the production of growth hormone and testosterone in your body. For those of us over the age of 30, the levels of these hormones decrease. This increase will lead to easier fat burning, better recovery, and increased performance.

training 1

3 rounds

20 thrusters

20 Sumo Deadlift Tall Sweaters

20 burpees

training 2

3 rounds

10 Dumbbell Manmakers

20 dumbbell swings

30 bodyweight squats

When you first do the above workouts, work at your own pace. Give yourself at least 48 hours between workouts. Try to improve your time each time you do them. These are harsh but effective. Depending on your fitness level, this can be done in as little as 6 minutes.

Overview

By making every minute count and supercharging the system, you can get great results with very little training time. As a cyclist, if you focus on quality during the winter with a longer, more moderate ride once or twice a week, you’ll see a big improvement come spring. Lack of time is just an excuse.

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