The Six Minute Secret to Fitness

Its this time of the year that we all need to take a break and we get lazy. But what now racing season start late January and then we are still very unfit.
So the question is : How to get in shape fairly quick ?
The answer: Intervals!!

What are intervals ?
Intervals are successions of maximum efforts followed by short rest periods. It is a very strenuous exercise because you have to push yourself to the limit until you literally think you are going to bonk. The positive side is that it don't require much time but be careful to much of this may ruin you for the whole year. You will however see that after a month your max heart rate will increase and you will find hills easier to climb.

How to Start:
First get acquainted with your body. You need to build a training base like either riding, running or spinning before your body will be able to handle intervals. The total time on the bike is not that much but choose a day that will give your body enough rest before your next race like Tuesday or Wednesday. Second you will need  the area to be relatively free of cars, hikers or anything that may obstruct you.

Choose your Place: 
Warm up for about 30 minutes to get your heart rate up. There are three type of intervals. The roadie technique, the mountie technique and the hill-repeat technique. You may choose to rotate between the different intervals.
Roadie technique - (The boring one)  Find a long stretch of flat road. It's very simple, just start riding until you feel at ease then jump out of the saddle and sprint as hard as you can for 1 to 3 minutes ( depending on your fitness level). After the sprint period sit down gear easier  and let your heart return to an easy riding level (that is when you breath fairly normal again if you don't have a heart rate monitor)
Repeat  the exercise again for 3 to six times at your preselected 1 to 3 minutes. Start with short sprints and work your way up to 3 minutes.
Mountie Technique -  Same as the roadie technique except you do this on  piece off road. You may use a single track. Sprint one way and cool down the other way. Just beware single track may proof to be a bit steep for beginners.
Hill Repeat Technique - This is where the pain starts to get real! Hill repeats are more strength than speed but still do wonders for aerobic threshold. This technique is just what it sounds like: Find a hill that will take 3 to 4 minutes to climb. Put your bike in a way to big gear and go. climb the hill 2 to six times and recover while you coast back down to the bottom. After this cool down by doing 30 minutes of easy riding.

So what the heck what do I benefit from this ? You may Ask :
If done correctly  you can get on your way to a perfect cardiovascular fitness with only six minutes strenuous  training a week that is excluding the warm up, cool down and resting periods in between. But still few minutes for best results. the big secret here is rather under train than over train. By overdoing it you will quickly burn yourself out and all benefits will be lost.

You will find that during the easy riding time you will feel energized.  Many times you may not even feel tired after the session and wan to go for a hard ride. Forget that !! You will first feel the results the next morning.