Add these 1-Hour Bike Workouts to Your Training Plan

Stay on track with these 1-hour bike workouts for busy triathletes

Training for a triathlon is well-known for taking up a decent amount of time. Between swimming, cycling, running, brick workouts, and recovery your schedule can seem like a lot. Especially when you add in a family, career, and social life. The key to triathlon training is to be efficient. Strengthen your triathlon training with cycling sessions that are fast and effective. If you’re looking to save time, this list of 1-hour bike workouts is a great addition to your training.

Kitchen sink

In less than 60 minutes you can increase your strength with this routine. It involves five minutes of easy spin to begin followed by a 10-minute single-leg drill. Spin with one leg at a time while your other leg rests on a chair. Alternate legs and repeat. Follow that up with 10x 20-second all-out sprints with recovery spins in between for five minutes. The last 20 minutes of the routine involves a 20-minute time trial. Learn to build your mental toughness so you’re ready to push through the end of tough workouts.

Trainer speed pyramid

The purpose of this workout is to make you faster. The training is broken down into short intervals. This means if you give a hard effort for one minute during warm-up, the next minute is for recovery. The warm-up session lasts 15 minutes. The main set is 26 minutes long, divided into 2/2 minute, 4/4 minute, 3/3 minute, 2/2 minute, 1/1 minute on and off in producing cadence. Make sure you flush your legs after the main set. Focus on stretching your hip flexors. You can also use a foam roller for your sore muscles after the main set.

Menagerie

This workout involves a combination of single-leg drills, 100 cadence spin divided into 8 sections. The sections last for 15, 20, 25, 30, 30, 25, 20, 15 seconds respectively. It is recommended to maintain 100 RPM for the spin-up followed by 90 RPM recovery spin. The last chunk of the workout involves 5×15 seconds climbing action and two minutes of recovery spin to wrap things up. If you have some more time after this workout, add one of these 5 core exercises to the end.

Smooth pedal stroke 

This involves a warm-up of 20 minutes of single-leg and both-leg drills. You should increase your RPM gradually. For example, you produce 90 RPM for two minutes and then increase it to 95 RPM. The goal is to produce 110 RPM at the last stage followed by recovery spins and cooling down. 

Steady-state trainer session

The first 10 minutes of this workout are spent on building up your strength. The next 20 minutes are spent focusing on high cadence. The main set is broken down into 4 sets (3×2 minutes/2). Focus on giving maximum effort, followed by recovery spins and cooling down. 

Incorporate these quick workouts to become stronger and faster. You’ll also save time by focusing on the workout and the needed effort. Build these rides into your busiest days so you can reserve your non-busy days for workouts that take more time, like brick workouts and longer weekend rides.