Workout Wednesday: Sprint pyramid intervals to stay fit this winter
Coach Paul Duncan's challenging and stimulating sprint pyramid workout for the trainer or outdoors to keep fitness up in the winter months.
This is a gnarly bike workout that will test anyone’s limits regardless of fitness level. You can use this entire workout as a single ride, or you can incorporate the main set into a longer workout. This is a great way to stimulate your heart rate at the end of longer ride as well.
I suggest doing this one indoors on the trainer so that you can focus, but it can also be done outside.
Objective
This workout involves super short bursts of high intensity to build speed and strength. The short, all out efforts will force muscle recruitment and teach you to recover after a max effort. The efforts are short enough to have a positive training effect while not beating your body up too much for your next training session.
The key to making this workout as effective as possible, is to make sure that the HARD parts are really hard, and the EASY parts are really easy. Sitting in the grey area during this workout will not do you as much good.
Warm up (part 1)
- 10 to 20 minutes of steady pedaling at around 85 to 95 rpm, based on comfort. Slowly build to an effort where you are starting to breath a little heavy by the end of the warm up.
Warm up (part 2)
- 10 sets of 10 second sprints to get the legs pumping. Take a full 30 to 60 seconds of recovery spinning between each.
Main set
After your warm up, it’s time to start the sprint pyramid. I recommend doing this set twice.
Use a resistance that keeps you around 85 to 90 rpm while riding at maximal effort. I suggest staying seated for these intervals, but feel free to mix it up. There are many ways to mix this up, but this is a favorite way of structuring it.
- 10 seconds all out sprint, 50 seconds easy spinning
- 15 seconds all out sprint, 45 seconds easy spinning
- 20 seconds all out sprint, 40 seconds easy spinning
- 25 seconds all out sprint, 35 seconds easy spinning
- 30 seconds all out sprint, 30 seconds easy spinning
- 25 seconds all out sprint, 35 seconds easy spinning
- 20 seconds all out sprint, 40 seconds easy spinning
- 15 seconds all out sprint, 45 seconds easy spinning
- 10 seconds all out sprint, 50 seconds easy spinning
Repeat the above main set twice, take about five minutes of easy recovery spinning between sets.
- After completing both sets, complete 3 x 1:00 efforts at max effort. If you did it right, you will have nothing left to give. This would be a good time to test out your run legs by jumping off the bike and going for a short run.
Notes
It is very important that you stay well fueled during this workout. I suggest always training with the sport drink that you plan on using on race day. In addition to this, it’s very important that you consume a recovery drink after doing any type of intensity work. I suggest using a product that has a 3 to 1, or 4 to 1 ration of carbohydrate to protein. Remember, that growth and fitness happens in the recovery, so make sure that you do it right!
