“Hi Tim, I have entered the Etape/Marmotte/Dragon Ride next year and have just bought a bike and turbo trainer. I have a heart rate monitor and a computer and am really keen to get a Silver standard for my age group. There’s just one problem……I have a full-time job with a 50 minute each way commute by train, two children who have an active social life doing after school clubs, parties, swimming, horse riding etc AND I have a very understanding partner who may not understand any more if I have to train for 12 hours a week!”

A fairly typical enquiry for www.blackcatcyclecoaching.com ! Cycling, quite rightly, is the number one fastest growing physical activity choice for adults in the UK. I was in London recently and was totally blown away by the amount of people riding near Richmond and Kingston on a Sunday. Beautiful bikes and fabulous jerseys everywhere! For someone who was attracted to the sport as a boy by the colours and the “difference” to what I saw as the “greyness” of football, rugby and cricket this incredible upsurge in popularity is just wonderful to see. And the events on offer! Great closed road race circuits like my own local Fowlmead Country Park (http://www.fowlmead.co.uk/) and Gravesend’s fabulous Cyclopark (http://www.cyclopark.com/) are purpose-built for cycling and cycle racing and would never have existed “when I were a lad”. The sportive scene is phenomenal with brilliant British events like the Etape du Dales and the Dragon Ride, not to mention the opportunity to ride abroad in the “classics” of this genre: again, not something that was around in my youth …though the club runs in Wharfedale had a similarly epic feel back then. I remember being 12 and riding from Leeds to Malham with my two pals before heading off-road over Mastiles Lane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkYReL1Vxc4 to Grassington. This was all on sprints and Lion tubulars and I ripped 3 spokes out of my back wheel on the rough track of Mastiles. I vaguely recall ringing my parents from a red phone box in Appletreewick to inform them that I might not make it home for tea (For those of you who don’t know these roads, why don’t you pop up to the start of the Tour in 2014 and try them? Pack a compact chainset.). Ah, to have all day to ride again…Which brings me somewhat long-windedly to my point!

You want to train. You have the bike and the kit. You have limited time! You read generic training plans that say “start with 2 hour rides, build up to 6-7 hours…”. Does this work? Well, yes. BUT not if you can’t give the time over to riding. So, give up on the goal? Not necessarily. I have been telling anyone who will listen for a long time now that you don’t need as much time as you might think. Even in this information age where answers are as easy as a touch of a button, cycling (and cycle racing in particular) is still steeped in tradition when it comes to training. It’s hard not to get dragged along with it and, as I said previously, you can do it with good conscience if you have the time to devote to it. So, an alternative? I’m a big fan of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), researched and promoted by Dr Ross Lorimer and Dr John Baraj. Look them up and you will see their research. Or you may well have seen the Horizon programme fairly recently which detailed this form of training and the effect it has upon sedentary and trained individuals. My own opinion of HIIT is based solely upon the effect is has had on 2 of my coaching clients over the past 12 months. In short, for a much reduced volume (hours) of training, and by increasing the frequency (number of sessions) of high intensity (hard) training they have achieved the same effects on raising FTP (Functional Threshold Power – the power you can sustain for 60 minutes), MAP (Maximal Aerobic Power – the power you can produce over the final minute of a RAMP test to exhaustion) AND Peak Power (Sprinting power) as a higher volume, more traditional training approach. Less hours, same result. Oh, and as a bonus they both lost weight (shed fat) like they were training for more hours.

Now I can’t offer this as a scientific study where lots of people have been using the protocol under the same conditions etc. It is just my observations of progress made. But it really has made me think again about how to train and what is the best way to do so?

You may want to make up your own mind. Perhaps your time is limited, or you are just getting a bit stale and want to try something new. Here’s an example of what you could do using the HIIT principles (A similar programme appeared  in The Journal of Cycle Coaching issue 4 2012 – written by Drs Lorimer and Baraj and I reproduce part of it here but tailored slightly to represent the sessions my clients have been doing ).

Each of the repetitions requires a resistance load of between 7.5% bodyweight to 11-12% bodyweight (level 15-20 on an exercise bike, or a 1 in 10 gradient hill with increased gearing. Resistance on a turbo? Your top gear should feel a little over geared to start with – increase from there). I would advise you to warm up for 10-20 minutes (20 minutes if you are over 40) steadily.

Try 6 x 6 seconds flat out (seated) sprints with 1 minute rest between each one. Each repetition should be at your absolute maximum. You should experience a diminished recovery as you work your way through the reps – you should feel not 100% recovered by the end. Not hard enough? Increase the number of sprints and/or cut the recovery (max 12 reps, min 30s recovery). Want longer reps? Try 10 seconds, work up to 30 seconds ( 4 reps max, 2-3 min recoveries). These are very unpleasant indeed but the nice thing is that, according to the research, there is no benefit in making the reps any longer (or doing any more of them).

Sceptical? Already trained? Apparently research has indicated that adding 3 sessions of HIIT per week to  the programme  of a high-level athlete will elicit a substantial improvement.

Like most things, you won’t know until you try. So why not give it a go? Clearly, as with all exercise programmes, you shouldn’t undertake these intervals if your health may suffer as a result: this is particularly true of the over 40’s. Check with your GP first if you are in any doubt.

As I said before, I am a convert and by way of thanks I offer a plug to Drs Lorimer and Baraj’s publication High intensity Workout 2012, Dundee University Press. Now, where did I put my Wattbike? Time for some 10 second reps before I get the kids ready for ballet…..