Originally Posted by
TinyBear
Great info thank you. Then for my purpose sounds like I may be best to continue switching it up. One day harder resistance shorter time next longer time lower resistance. And increase both as I get stronger.
I will push for a slightly higher heart rate as well. As other than some muscular and bone injuries and managed diabetes (pills, diet, and exercise) I’m heart healthy.
Before i I had gotten hurt I increased time on the bike and then when I went to the real bike. It was harder but my legs were strong and I could suffice with better cardio. And I lost 100lbs over the course of a couple years. This is possibly why I struggling to start again as I trying to do things the way I have before but I’m facing issues I never had before.
By the way -- nothing cheater in a V-strom.
I got back into cycling when motorcycling at pace was so much work I needed to improve my fitness, and I'm still more tired after riding the motorbike hard for 6 20m track sessions than a century on the bike. I think I'm doing it wrong.
Today im not nearly as heavy as I was but I want and need to continue the journey to a healthy weight. But today it’s my strength that’s my limiting factor it seems. But sadly my cardio is in need of work again as well.
If you are time-crunched, there may be significant advantages to a HIIT regime, depending on your end-goals. There's research around the Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) and it gets more into less time. You'll definitely want to be massively over that 110-120, however, to realise the benefits there. You'll want to be 90% YOUR max HR in the intervals -- so you better be heart healthy. What HR Max is is going to be pretty dependent on you, though there's a number of formulae that should be able to get you in the ballpark. (For reference, I can get to about 185 or so and I'm in my late-40s; that's fairly high for my age, I'm told, and 180+ is no fun at all. 2 years ago, I could get over 190 but that was genuinely less than fun.
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There's also little concept on the long-term benefit or harm to health from that sort of training, so YMMV. If you want to get stronger, faster -- it's the way. It may or may not do good long term; do the research and check it out. I've a few acquaintances who've had good results with the Tabata protocol, but I personally seem to do better at weight loss from longer, steadier exercise at a lower HR.