Jeffrey Jaime, CISSPServant Leader & CEO Driving AI Innovation and Team Excellence

Winter Cycling Workout

28 Dec 2008 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

2:05

A one-hour winter cycling workout for triathletes that builds pedal stroke efficiency through fast-spin intervals, single-leg drills, and heavy-resistance repeats. Start with 1-minute fast spins at 100-110 rpm, move into 20 minutes of single-leg focus, then finish with 2-4 minute hill repeats at 50-60 rpm. The presenter does this once a week in winter.

Questions this video answers

Designed as a one-hour workout; can be shortened to 30 or 45 minutes.

100–110 RPM (speaker says 100–100rpm then 100–110 RPM).

Add 5–10 watts every minute up to the 20-minute mark.

1 minute right-leg focus → 1 minute both-legs → 1 minute left-leg focus, repeated for 20 minutes (after a ~1-minute breather).

Hills last 2–4 minutes, cadence ~50–60 RPM, done at fairly high resistance/wattage, using a 1:1 work:rest ratio (example: climb 40–42 min, recover to 44 min).

Chapters

Hey, this is a workout that I designed as a winter training workout for all you triathletes and cyclists out there. It's a way to work on both your skill and your efficiency and your economy and your pedal stroke as well as your force. The way the workout works is It's a simple one hour workout. You can shorten it to be 30 minutes or 45 minutes as the case may be. But first part of the workout involves super fast spins where you're taking your spinning cadence up to 100-100rpm. Work on your cycling economy and all you do is you warm up with one minute at a fairly easy wattage, and you do one minute of 100 to 110 RPM. You add 5 to 10 watts every minute and you continue that up to the 20 minute mark. Think about a minute breather and then go into 1 minute of pedaling with focus on the right, 1 minute pedaling with focus on both legs, 1 minute pedaling with focus on the left leg. And you continue that for 20 minutes and then you finish with some force. This is going to be anywhere from two to four minute hills. You're going to use a one to one work to rest ratio. So you'll climb from say the 40 minute mark to the 42 minute mark, recover to the 44 minute mark. These climbs are done at a fairly high wattage or fairly high resistance, but a cadence that's anywhere from about 50 up to 60 rpms. Pedaling very slow, mashing the gears, so to speak. So basically it starts off with alternating between regular pedaling and super fast spinning. Then you go back and forth pedaling with just the right leg and just the left leg. One leg's still attached, but your focus is on the involved leg and you finish with those hill repeats to the finish. Cool down. So that's the winter highly effective cycling workout I do about once a week in winter. Over now.