MattTheHat 

Then just ride as much as possible. If the ride you’re describing helps motivate you to do that, keep doing it. I’d focus on longer rides if possible. Maybe you can work in multiple 5 minute intervals into those ride from time to time.

MattTheHat 

That was my point in my previous post with the 3 minute race comment. I’m not judging. Any motivation is good.

pgjackson

A key aspect of long term fitness and exercise is to mix it up. The body tends to adapt to stressors which leads to stagnation. If your normal routine is to go ride your bike at a comfortable pace for 20 miles every day....eventually it will become less effective as a method of weight loss and performance improvement (if those are your goals). HIIT is a great way to introduce stress. Think about this...on a typical 20-30 mile ride how long do you spend going at absolute max effort? I mean hammering away to the point where talking is impossible and breathing is painful. For most the answer is probably not very much if at all. HITT ensures that you reach those elevated stress levels in a controlled way over and over. It literally shocks the body to improve performance. It also tends to jump-start the metabolism so that you burn more calories throughout the day.

livedarklions

I think you've gotten distracted by the fact that OP mistakenly put HIIT into the title of this thread and completely missed the point. CheGiantForLife can correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that they are essentially a beginning rider coming back to the activity, so mixing it up isn't a real consideration right now, it's getting started.

As to my riding habits, on a typical after-work 24.8 mile ride, I spend a lot of it pushing a 53x11 gear ratio fast enough to go 23-24 mph on level ground. I'm not talking much on those stretches.

I have no interest in HIIT for me, and really have no need to be convinced otherwise. I asked another poster about his habits because I find it interesting what other people do.

PeteHski

No problem. What I like about the structure is the variety it introduces and the gains in fitness can be quite rewarding.

I'm not racing competitively, it's more about achieving personal targets and a bit of friendly banter with friends who I've ridden with since we were teenagers 40 years ago. We still race each other up the same hills today!

We did the Peaks Epic Sportive last month, which is a really tough UK event (see below). Not the sort of thing you can just turn up and complete without training. To be honest I'm not the strongest climber at 6'1" and 175 lbs and these climbs were brutally steep (25%+ steep), but I still completed it in relative comfort in just under 9 hours non-stop. Without a structured training plan I would have truly suffered for sure because the climbs (21 in total) required sustained efforts well above threshold just to barely keep moving. The longest endurance ride I did in preparation for this was around 5 hours, plus all the much shorter structured interval sessions. But it works for me. I had both the endurance and the reserve power to haul myself over the climbs. I think the latter is where the interval training really helps most as it boosts all your higher level power systems, which have a knock on effect at lower power levels too. For example I raised my 1 min power by just under 30W and my 5 sec power by 150W in the final build-up. I did a much easier local Sportive last weekend and I've got a few more events coming up this month so still carrying that fitness forward.

https://darkwhitecycling.co.uk/sportives/peak-epic/

pgjackson

HIIT isn't for everyone, but it is effective. It's hard to do on a bike because you really aren't 100% in control of your pace for specific periods due to traffic, stop signs, terrain. When I did it I used a treadmill and a stationary bike. One minute all-out effort then 2-3 minutes slow paced recovery then repeat. HIIT doesn't really need to be super scientific to be effective The goal is to periodically push yourself to your limits for brief periods followed by longer periods of low intensity recovery. At the end you will have spent X-amount of time working in the 90-100% intensity range which rarely happens on longer medium intensity workouts. Sounds like you are doing it. I dropped 3 minutes off my 5K run time by doing this on a treadmill without even running 5K in training. Instead of going out and running 3-5 miles at an 8 minute pace for years and wondering why I wasn't getting any faster, I incorporated HIIT like this on a treadmill:

3 minutes slow warm up at level 5
1 minute at level 6, 1 minute at level 7, 1 minute at level 8, 1 minute at level 9 (level 9 is almost a 6 minute pace). Then drop back to level 6 for active recovery. A total of 4 minutes per cycle.
Repeat this 2 more times.
The 3rd cycle it's 1 min at 6, 1 min at 7, 1 min at 8, 1 min at 9, then one all-out max at level 10 for a minute.
Then drop down to level 3-4 for recovery and you are done.
The whole thing took about 20 minutes and the distance was usually around 2.5 miles. But 5 minutes of that was at 90-100% effort. It took a while to get to the point where I could max out at level 10 which was about a little under a 6 minute pace, but I got there and I went from running 24 min 5Ks to 21 min 5Ks. I had to get my body used to running very fast instead of just plodding along for miles on end at a comfortable pace.

It might sound complicated, but once you do it a few times it makes sense.

PeteHski

Yeah, I do nearly all of my interval training on a smart trainer. I do the odd one outside too, but most of my outdoor training rides are endurance or tempo efforts.

WhyFi

Not worth it without Spandex™

Also, a 5 min mile isn't quick unless you're running rather than cycling.

livedarklions

I never doubted it's effective, although I've noted that there used to be some wild claims about its fat-burning that haven't held up. Nobody here is making such claims, so don't see that as any kind of recrimination.

Since my goal is just maintain general fitness, it's not a training method I need, and I cannot run due to congenital foot problems.

I freely admit this is just a personality thing--if I'm on a machine, I need the exercise to be as mindless as possible so I don't have to focus on how dull it is, and if I'm riding outside, I really want to focus on my riding, the road, etc. I just ride like a bat out of hell where and when the conditions permit, which is generally several times during any ride of more than a few miles length. My strategy is to get the most activity out of myself possible by making it enjoyable. If I'm on an elliptical, I'll just set the resistance on high and grind at it for hours while watching movies, if I'm riding outside, I just want it to be fun for me, that motivates me to ride more. If I do something that makes it seem like a chore, I know myself well enough to know that's when I'm going to find excuses for not doing it at all.

My habits are admittedly weird. I've never met anyone who rides regularly in the gears I ride in, for example.

pgjackson

HIIT is definitely not for everyone. When I was doing it, man it was brutal. Every workout was intended to be harder than the last one. A process of constant improvement. If I ran at level 6 last time, next time I'll bump it up to 6.1. I did it for 3 months. Some of the hardest workouts I ever did. I got very lean and fit, but I couldn't keep it up much longer. And at age 51 now I really have no interest in doing it again. But, it is effective. Really gets the metabolism going. My favorite part of it was the short duration. Instead of lifting weights for 2 hours or running 5 miles, I was in and out of the gym in less than an hour lifting or 20 minutes for cardio. I hate running, so being done in 20 minutes was great!

pgjackson

One of the ways is used to incorporate HIIT training while cycling was using a huge hill near my house. I'd do an easy ride out to the bottom of the hill to warm up, then I'd start up the hill as fast as I could for a minute then turn around and coast back down. When I got to the bottom I'd cruise around a bit to catch my breath (but never fully recovered), then I'd head back up for another minute and repeat the process for about 30 minutes. Those were some brutal workouts. It also ended up really helping my climbing ability as each workout I was able to get a little further up the hill in that one minute. Instead of using specific time you could use markers like telephone poles or intersections. Whatever it is that you can repeat frequently. High intensity, low intensity.

livedarklions

So, trying to get off the totally not relevant to your op sidetrack, you just came back to riding after a long time off, right?

Besides that 5 minute ride, which you obviously liked, how is it going?

Not quite the same thing, but I had a major health issue involving my lungs that kept me off the bike through late fall and all of winter which made me very nervous about getting back on the bike--it was a little scary sorting out whether the shortness of breath was normal exertion or I was about to have another attack, so I started by doing my 2.4 mile commute to work by bike (I normally can't do that because I need access to my car during the day in case I'm called to a distant court on an emergency, but that was all be done by phone and Webex last spring). As I was able to start slowly and speed up my short ride gradually, I could see I wasn't dying if I got out of breath, so was upping the speed in a couple of weeks, then duration.

Long way of saying short rides might be just the ticket to getting your feet wet, so to speak. I did 135 miles last Saturday, some of it pretty damn hard, didn't die. Think I'm good now.

Maelochs

Best way to Start to get in shape riding a bike is .... riding a bike.

Do it. Do it again. Keep doing it. Eventually you will increase your capacity and if you enjoy riding, you will use the increased capacity. This will increase your capacity ...

It is about goals.

If you want to lose weight, look at what when how and why you eat. You cannot exercise your way past bad eating habits---I can attest to this.

If you want to lose weight and get a little more fit, cycling is great because it is low-impact and easily adjustable intensity. But don't make the mistake of thinking that you can eat more because you went riding .... I can again attest that that will not help you lose weight.

If you reach a point where you want to be athletic .... you might want a structured training plan. it isn't necessary--I'd say @livedarklions is pretty athletic, given the stuff he can do---but if you want to be really athletic, actual structured training will help. HIIT is good because it provides its benefits in a short period of time, with less impact on the body, but it takes dedication. it isn't just that it shocks the body---it demands that the body work Much harder and recover Much more quickly than it would otherwise need to do (say, on just riding around rides, where you might go fast when you felt like it and slow when you felt like it.)
HIIT, as @pgjackson describes it, is great because it places such high demands on the body in a short time frame. Burst power and recovery naturally improve if you demand them of your body now and then.

Endurance is best trained for by longer efforts, but performance during endurance rides can be greatly improved by HIIT.

However, as for as miracle weight-loss .... yeah, instead just buy whatever miracle berry pill is being advertised at 3 a.m. on basic cable ..... and eat the box, not the pills in the bottle. There is no miracle weight loss. You need to eat less than you burn, and you need to eat what your body needs and not much else .... There are lots of fad diets, some of which work for some people, but you will have to try each one, and sometimes none of them will work. I recommend a balanced diet and learning to eat enough food but not more than that---which I find very hard to do, but there really is no short-cut.

As far as raising metabolism, I have been told (which means nothing) that you need to do at least 15 minutes of aerobics to kick in a metabolic boost (I am sure it differs for different people, but apparently there have been studies and such and averages and all that .... and about 45 minutes of aerobic exercise .... where you have to work a little to breathe but aren't out of breath---can increase your metabolism for several hours. Five minutes is worth it if you end up smiling .... but 15 would be a lot better ..... when you are able.

Cycling can Help weight loss, and it is great fun, which improves life, and seeing yourself improve as a rider can motivate you to make other changes .... so I am all for it. Short blasts, long, lazy rides, whatever. Do something not on the couch which you like doing and your life is already better.

(Warning: I have been told that as we age, HIIT can be a little more dangerous, as our bodies lose some capacity and recover more slowly. For people who are already fit, not so much of a problem, but for people starting over, the chance for injury and the longer recovery can almost balance out the benefits. Get a good base of fitness, or plan easier recovery days, and be very careful when pushing hard ... the brain can ask the body to hurt itself and make it sound smart, until afterwards when you realize the brain can be pretty dumb (again, personal testimony.)

I am considering ( when I get a better base of fitness) hill repeats on a couple very short hills nearby, because I can always bail out, turn around and ride away .... but mostly I ride like a very slow version of Livedarklions .... whatever pace I like, fast when it feels good, slower when I get tired. I know that eventually i will stop increasing performance if I just ride however I feel, but experience has shown me that I can get plenty of performance just riding for pleasure.

it is all about Your goals, and your definition of a good ride, and a good life.

Broctoon

I'm with those who prefer rolling hills for high intensity intervals.

I don't get to do this workout as often as I like, but I believe it's quite effective...

I have a track bike (no velodrome within 1000 miles of here, booo!). Stiff frame/steep geometry. 48 x 17 fixed gear drivetrain.

I go to a city park with a nice paved loop about 1.4 miles long, which includes two short, steep climbs and descents. So each lap I ride around this park, I get to climb twice and descend twice. I stand up and sprint as hard as I can on the climbs, and take a moderate pace the rest of the loop, except one of the descents, where I go max cadence.

I usually do 10 laps, which takes me about 45 minutes (I've done it in as little as 43, but that's tough). In that 45 minutes, I get my heart rate to spike at or near its max 20 times, and settle into troughs between the spikes.

This is a fun workout, but it leaves me totally exhausted. Seriously, I average 18, sometimes 18.5 MPH over the 14 miles, and when I say there are hills, I mean one of them is pretty steep. The fixed gear setup requires me to always move--no coasting, and the steeper of the two descents encourages/requires a pretty high cadence (150-ish RPM for maybe about 20 seconds each lap).

I don't have a power meter, but I plan on getting one soon (probably pedal-based). I'm really curious to see how many watts I can put out on this ride, especially on the steep climb when I sprint for all I'm worth. I also want to do an FTP test, just out of curiosity--find a long, flat route where I can go for an hour without interruptions and see how many watts I can sustain.

I have a desk job, and I've read that it's not good to sit still for too long. The idea is to wake your heart up about once an hour, even if it's just briefly. I sometimes discipline myself to get up every hour and jog up and down several flights of stairs in my building. I can't tell if this helps or hurts me. Honestly, when I've done it diligently for several days, I feel my overall energy is reduced. But when I do the 10 laps on my bike about once a week, I feel myself getting stronger over time.

PeteHski

I'm not surprised!
I find the same with high intensity intervals. A sub-1 hour session like this can be very draining and needs quality recovery time. But you do get faster!

CheGiantForLife

Maybe HIIT was the wrong terminology,
but I am loving these short daily 2 mile loop rides.
Great way to get the heart rate elevated briefly.

I ride 1 mile
stop and run up some hills
ride 1 mile back home

livedarklions

That's what matters, isn't it? You enjoy it and it seems to work for you.

I think you should call it RUTH (Run Up the Hill).

caloso

I would call it the Kate Bush.

Maelochs

I would call it too old and too obscure. That is from back when MTV had music ........

livedarklions

Here's the cheat sheet:

coffeesnob

a mile a day keeps- - ( fill in the blank) away.

livedarklions

Read closer--he's up to 2, now!

I think it's great, sounds like a pretty good wake up routine.

Maelochs

Good for him---now he can dodge two (fill in the blank)s each day.

livedarklions

As his speed increases, his (fill in the blank) dodging capabilities will only get better.