When you cross the beginners level of your cycling days, you start looking for the improvements in your average speed, start looking for PRs and KOMs on Strava, start looking for weight loss to improve yourself as a rider and the term you come across in search of all of the above is High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT workouts.
What is HIIT?
HIIT is short & very intense workout which boosts your aerobic and anaerobic fitness, improves insulin sensitivity and makes you faster and stronger on the bike. It helps in reducing body fat and gaining lean muscle mass. It also keeps your metabolism awake for longer.
This workout takes about an hour and gives value to every second of yours. You can also mix it with on and off the bike.
Two HIIT workouts per week are good enough for you. HIIT is a very hard workout and your body needs recovery from these workouts to come back stronger and give your 100%. A 30 min HIIT workout is a good workout if you are short of time. You can extend it to an hour.
Here is a sample HIIT session for 30min-
- Start with a 10 mins. warm up.
- Push yourself as hard as you can for 30sec.
- Pedal easy for 60 sec.
- Repeat for 4 times.
- After the final sprint pedal for 4min and cool down.
- This is one set. Repeat this 2-3 times
- After the final set cool down by riding 5 min easy pedalling.
This workout has been used by professionals and amateurs at different levels to improve their performance levels. You can notice a significant improvements in your performance if you stick to this workout.