Why 20 minutes of focused cycling beats 2 hours of junk cycling – Triathlete

You don’t have to train five hours a day to become a faster athlete. Although you probably know this already, how often do you find yourself thinking, “If I could just practice a few more hours a week, I would achieve this”?

This is not always the case, and for many of us, we are already limited in the time we have to train. We have jobs, families, and other responsibilities that make it impossible to train 30-40 hours a week. Conversely, professional athletes have an optimal lifestyle that improves performance, spending many hours training every day. But even they refuse to waste their valuable time on unwanted miles.

You’ve probably heard the term “junk miles” before, but what does it actually mean? In this article, we’ll dive into the difference between quality training and unwanted miles, explain how you can save time and improve your fitness at the same time, and give you three structured exercises to try at home.

The “long ride” versus the “junk miles” in triathlon training

There is a real misconception in the triathlon community that cycling should be a long, strenuous effort. They don’t. Some of the best exercises to improve your fitness can be packed into a 30-60 minute session. We’ll get to the details of those sessions in a minute, but first, let’s explain the difference between a long flight and unwanted miles.

A quality long ride is an endurance training session that improves your fitness without leaving you too exhausted. It’s the kind of workout you can do on a Saturday morning, make some major fitness gains, and still have plenty of energy for family time the rest of the day.

A longer ride usually focuses on improving your aerobic fitness, or the low-intensity zones below your first lactate threshold. If you are a long-distance athlete, this is one of the most important factors for your performance because you will be spending thousands of hours in your aerobic training zone. Improving your aerobic fitness means you can ride faster without accumulating as much fatigue.

Junk miles are a low-quality version of a long flight. It is a session where you spend hours working, but you do not make significant gains. While a long flight improves your fitness, unwanted miles do not.

Long rides It involves plenty of time on the pedals, targeting a specific training zone, and minimizing low-effort recovery periods to help maximize training gains. In practical terms, you can compare long commutes and junk miles like indoor training versus riding around New York City.

during Internal training tripYou’ll never stop pedaling. Every second on the bike is a second spent pedaling. Intervals are structured minute by minute, and you can even use ERG mode to ensure you don’t miss a single second outside your target training zones. When you ride for 45 minutes on the indoor trainer, you are training for 45 minutes.

Now compare indoor training (long flights) to riding across New York City (junk miles). You will always stop at intersections, swerve through traffic, pull into a stop, and sit at red lights. In 45 minutes, how much time do you think you’ll actually spend on? Target training areas? How much time will you waste walking and sitting at traffic lights?

The longer rides are quality fitness-enhancing sessions that don’t take up half your Saturday. On the other hand, junk mileage can take twice as long, but leave you with only half the fitness gains. This is why.

Why are intervals more efficient?

Endurance training It’s all about maximizing your gains from a particular training plan. If you have a full day to ride, you can probably improve your fitness by training 30-40 hours a week. But none of us have time for that, and we wouldn’t be able to handle that amount of training load without a staff of professional recovery support.

Let’s say you have 10 hours a week to train. This means you train for 30-60 minutes a day, and maybe a longer ride on the weekend. How can you get the most out of this size? Structured interval training.

Studies have repeatedly shown that interval training can effectively replace higher volume basic endurance training. Of course, there will always be a time and place for high-volume endurance training, but our focus here is to explain why low-volume athletes are able to keep up with high-volume athletes through structured training.

This is 2021 Meta-analysis I found that interval training produces greater results VO2 Max improvements From continuous training of moderate intensity. Likewise, this He studies From the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found similar results regarding cardiorespiratory adaptation in low-volume interval training – while both groups gained physical fitness through training, the interval training group achieved significantly more.

You can find similar studies on men, slimrunners, untrained populations, and more. While endurance training is of course very effective, interval training is often more effective when it comes to achieving fitness gains.

Now, we never recommend that you go out and do 40/20 seconds every day. Too much force will make you slower, not faster. So what is the ideal balance? For most athletes, one or two days of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) per week is the sweet spot for long-term gains. You can increase this to two or three days of HIIT workouts during an intense training period, but that’s at the limit.

When we talk about replacing unwanted miles with focused intervals, we’re not just talking about HIIT and VO2 max intervals. Instead, we’re talking about regulated LT1, Zone 2 or FatMax intervals. You can also do Zone 3 Torque Intervals, which target one of the most important training areas for triathletes.

There are many different ways to improve the quality of your training while turning down the volume. Here are three time-saving exercises for triathletes that you can start incorporating into your training plan.

3 interval exercises to save time for athletes

1. Instead of 2-hour “junk miles” endurance rides, do 4 x 10-minute LT1 intervals.

Structured endurance training has taken off, and there is no better example than structured LT1 intervals. You may also hear the terms Zone 2 or FatMax, and while we could write an entire article on their similarities and differences, all you need to know for now is that we’re referring to the higher end of Your aerobic training area. For some, this is 65% of your FTP on bikeFor others it may be 70-75% FTP.

The key here is to ride at the top of your aerobic training zone for long periods of time. Start with 4 x 10 minutes and work up to 2 x 20 minutes, or 30-60 minutes for highly trained athletes who have time for a longer session. Instead of cruising at 55-65% FTP during an endurance ride, you can get more gains from your session by spending structured periods of time at the top of your aerobic training zone.

2. Instead of 4x5min intervals for zone 3, do torque intervals at 50-60 rpm.

One of the best exercises for athletes is the torque session. This means low tempo and moderate intensity for 2 to 10 minutes at a time. If you’ve never done torque intervals before, start with two-minute intervals at 60 Revolution per minute (RPM). Once you feel comfortable working longer and harder, work in intervals of up to 10 minutes at 50 revolutions per minute.

Torque intervals increase muscular endurance and resistance to fatigue, both critical performance factors for triathletes. While Zone 3 intervals are effective on their own, they can be even more effective as structured torque intervals. Make sure you use proper form and remain seated during torque periods. Once you’re ready, do these intervals in aerobic mode, and you’ll start seeing big gains after just a few weeks of torque training.

3. Instead of 3 x 10 minutes 40/20 seconds, do 3 x 4 minutes of 20/10 seconds.

High-intensity interval training is painful but effective, even for long-distance athletes. A big 40/20 session can help you make big fitness gains, but it can also be very stressful on your mind and body. Instead of suffering for a long time HIIT workoutsTry shortening your high-intensity session to three sets of 20-second, 10-second reps.

this He studies found that participants who did the 20/10 workout three to four times per week saw significant improvements in VO2 max and muscular endurance. This is a total workload of only two to three hours per week when warm-ups and cool-downs are added, which is a small training volume for most triathletes. But the most important thing to learn here is that you can make significant fitness gains with minimal, high-quality training. All you have to do is restructure your intervals and focus on quality rather than quantity.