Apologies if this has been discussed before: am sure it has but I can’t seem to find the precise advice I am after.
I’ve been using TR for about 18 months to 2 years with the goal of getting generally faster and fitter, and with specific goals of completing 2 century (miles) rides and a big 150 mile ride coast to coast across the north of England. I’ve done centuries before. All my goals this year were wrecked by COVID19 so I’ve basically started my training programme again via plan builder with SSBLV1 initially.
I can manage low volume most weeks (3.5 hrs, 3 sessions per week) but with job, home, kids and other priorities there is no way I can move to mid volume. However, I am planning to get up 30 mins earlier and do a short workout of 15-20 mins before starting the day, on the days when I don’t have a low volume ride. Not necessarily on the bike. I tried Yoga before and liked it but while it increased my flexibility a bit, I don’t think it does much for cardiovascular fitness, and was wondering about some HIIT sessions… however some people seem to actively discourage these saying that it will interfere with the rest needed in between the scheduled TR sessions and might actually detract from training rather than enhance it…
Thoughts welcome. Thanks. What do other people do when you have not enough time for MV but a little time to spare to add to LV.
My two cents are to add either a Z2 spin like Dans, Taku, Volunteer, or West Vidette -1, or weight lifting. The Z2 ride will add to your overall weekly TSS and endurance without adding significant fatigue, thereby not jeopardizing the quality of your planned workouts. Weight lifting, on the other hand, has been shown to effectively help burn body fat if changing body composition is a secondary goal / supports completing the centuries.
I’d give both a shot- it’s hard to know how it affects you until you try it, and you can always adjust the extra sessions if needed.
Obviously there is some concern about HIIT affecting the quality of your TR sessions, but at 15-20 minutes long I don’t think that should be too massive an impact, and it does give you an opportunity to get a lot of “value” out of a short workout. If you ride in the afternoon, i’d do the HIIT the following morning and maybe yoga the morning of a sweetspot session so you’re coming into those relatively fresh.
I don’t know how you feel about running, but a 15-20 minute easy jog is another good option if you’re after cardiovascular fitness, and it does transfer somewhat to cycling in my experience. I probably wouldn’t start out with doing that every day though.
I do both. It is one of the benefits of raising children off the sessions on the bike. Chasing them around the house and making sure they don’t break everything = HIIT. That and the fact that changing nappies is essentially a Yoga session for me as I have to contort my body to some really crazy angles to perform the task at hand.