Long bike rides are fun and healthy, but who has the time to do so in the city? We found four ways to work out on short bike rides. By varying the intervals of your bike ride, you can achieve your fitness goals in as little as 20 minutes. Interval training is a term used by cyclists to describe alternating easy and hard pedaling. The goal is to exhaust your body while allowing it to recover.
Try these bike routines for 20 minutes every day, before or after work.1. 30/30
This is 30 seconds of hard pedaling and easy recovery.
- arm up for 5 minutes. Begin with a slow spin and gradually speed up.
- Pedal hard for 30 seconds, then easy for 30 seconds to recover. Immediately resume your hard work. Rep this interval ten times for ten minutes.
- To cool down, pedal easy for five minutes.
2. Sprintsprint
- This is when you go harder than your hardest effort.
Warm-up for the first nine minutes. This higher-intensity workout requires a longer warm-up. Start with an easy spin, then slightly increase your pace for each subsequent minute. - Go all out and pedal as hard as you can for 15 seconds, followed by a 45-second recovery spin. Repeat this interval six times.
- Cooldown and pedal easy for the remaining 5 minutes.
3. One-leg drills
This will train your legs to spin the pedals in full circles instead of just pushing down. Your feet must be clipped or strapped onto the pedals for safety.
- With both legs first, a warm-up for the first five minutes. Start with an easy spin then slightly increase your pace for each following minute.
- Starting with your left leg, pedal for 60 seconds then switch to the right for another 60. Focus on pedaling full circles. Do five intervals for each leg to complete a total of 10 minutes. This workout will give our legs alternating work and rest periods, while your heart and lungs enjoy the excellent cardio workout.
- Cooldown and pedal easy for the remaining five minutes.
4. Ladders
In this routine, interval duration goes up gradually and then comes back down.
- Warm-up for the first seven minutes. Start with an easy spin then slightly increase your pace for each of the following minutes.
- While the interval duration changes, the rest duration remains the same. Here’s a Ladders routine you can try:
15 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy
30 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy
45 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy
60 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy
45 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy
30 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy
15 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy
• Rest for five and a half minutes.
The best way to complete these sessions without interruptions is on a stationary bike or turbo trainer. You can do two or more of these interval workouts in one ride if time allows. You can even run instead of the ride if you want.
Remember, these quick workouts are meant to test your limits and be very difficult. While fancy cadence sensors, power meters, and heart rate monitor measure your efforts, you can compensate by listening to your body and learning to feel your efforts. Don’t hesitate to stop or back off if you think you’re going too far.
