HIIT Cycling & strength training

Only problem I would see is not enough recovery time from the cycling for your workout the following day. Especially if its a leg day. Other than that if you enjoy it go for it, there will be no other downside, you might even want/need to increase your calorie intake on your cycling days a bit if your goal is gaining weight as you will burn a lot more than your used too. Try it out and see how you do, deoending on your routine I'm sure you could make a change somewhere to add in something that's new and fun and great for your heart and lungs.

Fueling will depend entirely on intensity. I'm of the firm belief that adding cardio helps lifting recovery and rest time, as well as the other benefits. But if you are truly doing a HIIT type cardio session, keep in mind that it will eat into your glycogen reserves that you rely on during lifting days, as well as engage more leg muscle than most would consider.

If you are going to do spinning and the machines don't have any good data numbers, I'd find a way to estimate for calorie burn. Maybe see if they have a cycling ergometer machine to gauge against, or use a HT monitor and come up with a best guess average if it was steady state.

You can burn a lot of calories with cardio if you have a decent base, and most people can burn more calories per minute with the legs and glutes vs any other groups. Nail it down the best you can before you find out on a lifting day that you aren't eating enough for both. At my current weight of 180, killing 600 calories an hour is the low side on a bike or elliptical, and these days more like just a warm up pace.

dvis334 wrote: »

robertw486 wrote: »

Fueling will depend entirely on intensity. I'm of the firm belief that adding cardio helps lifting recovery and rest time, as well as the other benefits. But if you are truly doing a HIIT type cardio session, keep in mind that it will eat into your glycogen reserves that you rely on during lifting days, as well as engage more leg muscle than most would consider.

If you are going to do spinning and the machines don't have any good data numbers, I'd find a way to estimate for calorie burn. Maybe see if they have a cycling ergometer machine to gauge against, or use a HT monitor and come up with a best guess average if it was steady state.

You can burn a lot of calories with cardio if you have a decent base, and most people can burn more calories per minute with the legs and glutes vs any other groups. Nail it down the best you can before you find out on a lifting day that you aren't eating enough for both. At my current weight of 180, killing 600 calories an hour is the low side on a bike or elliptical, and these days more like just a warm up pace.

I'll look into getting an accurate count on calories burned. Can you elaborate on how cardio helps w recovery and its other lifting benefits?

Heart Rate Zones (and Power Zones) in easy to understand perceived effort:

1. Old lady pace
2. Chatty pace
3. Feel good hard
4. Feel bad hard
5. I am going to die
6. Flat out

The first two will aid in recovery, the latter four will be a part of HIIT if you go that route. Typically, using Zone 1 (old lady pace) and Zone 2 (chatty pace) are used to recover from hard efforts. Zone 2 is used to build a decent aerobic base.

Much better and more scientific explanations of the zones and what they are used for here:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/power-training-levels

Heart Rate Zones (and Power Zones) in easy to understand perceived effort:

1. Old lady pace
2. Chatty pace
3. Feel good hard
4. Feel bad hard
5. I am going to die
6. Flat out

Like your chart. I do wonder if it holds true for older people, or people who like cardio. Per the HRZ chart my max is 175 and I don't think I've seen anything higher in awhile. But 160 is "feel good hard".

I'm about 10 years older than you, ilex70 - and that chart holds true. One way to set your HR Zones is through what is called a FTP (functional lactate threshold) or LT (lactate threshold) test. I do this about every 6 weeks during training.

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like you are using a personalized chart then? Not something I was aware of. All I've seen is the standardized one that has 175 as the top line for age 45.

Pretty sure I can fit back into my padded bike pants now. Need to check out the gym schedule for spinning classes. Didn't have a heart rate monitor last time I was going to those, but the only time I recall hitting zone 6, or what felt like it anyway, was spinning.

robertw486 wrote: »

dvis334 wrote: »

robertw486 wrote: »

Fueling will depend entirely on intensity. I'm of the firm belief that adding cardio helps lifting recovery and rest time, as well as the other benefits. But if you are truly doing a HIIT type cardio session, keep in mind that it will eat into your glycogen reserves that you rely on during lifting days, as well as engage more leg muscle than most would consider.

If you are going to do spinning and the machines don't have any good data numbers, I'd find a way to estimate for calorie burn. Maybe see if they have a cycling ergometer machine to gauge against, or use a HT monitor and come up with a best guess average if it was steady state.

You can burn a lot of calories with cardio if you have a decent base, and most people can burn more calories per minute with the legs and glutes vs any other groups. Nail it down the best you can before you find out on a lifting day that you aren't eating enough for both. At my current weight of 180, killing 600 calories an hour is the low side on a bike or elliptical, and these days more like just a warm up pace.

I'll look into getting an accurate count on calories burned. Can you elaborate on how cardio helps w recovery and its other lifting benefits?

In hindsight poor wording on my first reply. What I intended to say was that cardio work helps with recovery and rest time between sets while at the gym, or would help if you do circuit type stuff some days. For actual rest days and recovery after the fact, the only thing really beneficial there is that for some people light cardio helps avoid the stiffness and/or DOMS after heavy lifting days.

You can burn a lot of calories on bikes or spin bikes if you are putting in the effort, so make sure to see where your fueling is and figure out at least some rough calorie estimate based on your cardio level.

SingingSingleTracker wrote: »

ilex70 wrote: »

Heart Rate Zones (and Power Zones) in easy to understand perceived effort:

1. Old lady pace
2. Chatty pace
3. Feel good hard
4. Feel bad hard
5. I am going to die
6. Flat out

Like your chart. I do wonder if it holds true for older people, or people who like cardio. Per the HRZ chart my max is 175 and I don't think I've seen anything higher in awhile. But 160 is "feel good hard".

I'm about 10 years older than you, ilex70 - and that chart holds true. One way to set your HR Zones is through what is called a FTP (functional lactate threshold) or LT (lactate threshold) test. I do this about every 6 weeks during training.

At age 54, here are my HR Zones...



Using my handy dandy perceived effort chart (I do use a HR monitor and power meter for training on the bike so I know exactly when and for how long I spend in each heart rate zone and power (wattage) zone) with my HR's at age 54...

1. Old lady pace - under 138
2. Chatty pace - 139 - 153 (known as Zone 2)
3. Feel good hard - 154 - 160 (known as tempo pace or Zone 3)
4. Feel bad hard - 161 - 170 (known as Zone 4 and is used in races)
5. I am going to die - 171-181 (known as Zone 5 and is used in races)
6. Flat out - (Short 30 s to 3 min, high intensity intervals designed to increase anaerobic capacity. Heart rate generally not useful as guide to intensity due to non-steady-state nature of effort. Severe sensation of leg effort/fatigue, and conversation impossible. Consecutive days of extended level 6 training usually not attempted.

I did 90 minutes on the bike yesterday averaging 146 HR (Zone 2 ride). Today I am doing a 3 hour ride in Zone 2 and Zone 3. Monday is one of my traditional lifting days which is a day of squats, deads, seated rows, knee extensions, hammy curls, and lat pulls.

Great charts to go with the perceived effort ratings. What do you use to do your LT testing and set your personal zones? I've seen different methods, and always like to see how people prefer to set things up for their personal training.

I sometimes wish I had meters and/or a better cycling computer to look at more hard data on my bike. With my elliptical, having that data in front of you is very telling. At some point you reach a level where the power output to change your HR up to the next zone really isn't all that great, and knowing where it is can be a huge help. For me, I also like experimenting to figure out just how long I can sustain that higher output before it will have a longer term impact when I ramp back down. This is especially true as you go from the upper end of your zone 3 into the zone 4 and 5 for periods of time.

There are two rather "in the ball park" testing protocols that I use which get an athlete close enough in terms of the proper training zones - at least for my needs. Road cyclists tend to use a 30 minute to 60 minute TT protocol test, but here are the two methods that I most commonly use...

This first one is the test I prefer to use because it feels very similar to my race efforts during a mountain bike race. I do this one every 6 weeks, once when I start my training at the end of December/early January - and then every 6 weeks during my 24 week base training/race training structured training to measure progress.

Testing Protocol:

20 minutes: warm-up
5 minutes: ride as hard as you can
10 minutes: ride easy
20 minutes: max effort time trial
10 minutes: cool-down

The data used for setting the zones - not only in HR, but also in the power zones (watts) is taken from the 20 minute max effort time trial segment. I plug in the data which is 20 minute average power (watts) and 20 minute average heart rate to set the zones. The chart pictured above is from LWCoaching's calculator because my training plans are from LWCoaching:

http://lwcoaching.com/power-level-heart-rate-zone-calculator/

To make this test accurate and useful to measure my progress, it must be repeated on the same bike with all conditions being as equal as possible (same stretch of road, etc.). I do the test on my indoor LeMond G-Force UT because it has a power meter and I can upload the data into Training Peaks for analysis. I also do the test on my road bike outside because the power meter readings are different due to me not being able to calibrate the LeMond G-Force. The LeMond reads low in terms of power compared to everything else I have tried. We also have another LeMond that my wife uses and it reads much higher, so I don't use that bike as I think it is off on the high side. Therefore, I have two different sets or charts of power (HR remains the same) that I use depending on if I am training inside, or out on the road bike.

The other type of test is a MAP Test (ramp test) from British Cycling and is shorter (8 - 15 minutes), but grueling as heck. I would use a stronger word than heck if I could and not set off the censorship. Trust me - this one is very tough. Words that come to mind - brutal, utterly relentless, not for those who fear failure. I have yet to do it this year, but will be doing it in a few weeks once I finish my base training. I do this one only on my LeMond indoor bike. It's not my preferred test compared to the other one, but it does give you a quick and easy result in spite of the brutal effort required.

I usually use the non-elite male rider protocol by ramping up 25 Watts every minute -1 ramp rate (25 watts per minute steps). However, elite cyclists use a 15 Watt ramp for females and 20 Watt ramp for males.

20 minutes: warm up (include a few brief race efforts)
Start: Pedal at a power of 100 watts for one minute (I usually start at 150 watts for this test)
Ramp: Every minute ramp it up 25 watts (you can use what is called a "smooth ramp" by slowly getting that ramp of 25 watts up by increasing with small increments every 12 seconds. You can change cadence and gears, but you cannot rest - and do not stand up!)
Failure: continue ramping every minute until you finally cannot increase or hold the power level for a minute. The final full minute of power that you were able to sustain is the data used for calculating your zones.

There are videos from British Cycling on how to do the test and plenty written about it that turns up in a search. Here are a few to get you started...

http://semiprocycling.com/map

http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2006/12/map-testing-where-failure-is-success.html

http://cyclingtips.com/2010/01/how-to-do-a-map-ramp-test/

robertw486 wrote: »

@SingingSingleTracker

Good stuff. If I had meters or a test method that was solid it would be interesting to see the results.

I do have a power measure on my elliptical, and going by actual one hour testing could convert the numbers. For the charts you use for HR zones, I'd have to "cheat" the test number from the 20 minute test up, but out of curiosity might do the 20 minute test on the elliptical to see how the numbers line up.

I find it interesting that there are so many test methods people use, when really they are usually trying to get to the sustained 1 hour effort LT/FTP. I guess I can understand flaw in longer tests, but if people have some type of power measure surely a known 1 hour effort is a better measure?


The ramp MAP test sounds brutally interesting. I'd have to do a cheat sheet on the wattage to get my numbers lined up, but if I did that I think I could do it on the elliptical. As long as I don't hit the max output I'd be good. The machine shows wattage and strides per minute with no wattage average, so I'd have to calculate from calories per minute and use that as my watt gauge. I haven't been able to figure out what the company uses for efficiency, but even based on 25% I think the display for calorie per minute equates to maxing out at about 430 watts. I've pegged it doing Tabata protocol, but I'm assuming the ramp test will be more brutal in the increments.

I'd think I'd actually be more efficient on the bike. Though the elliptical can alter resistance and thus cadence vs power, the motion isn't nearly as fluid as the circular motion of a bike crank. I guess until I can find a measure for the bike it's better than nothing, and though different muscles come into play figuring out the HR zones would still be helpful.

Depending on where you live, you could get a Threshold Power Test done by a professional. In my area, one can have it done for $50 at one of the coaching services for athletes businesses.

Although the shorter tests may seem like they wouldn't be as accurate as the 60 minute test, every race file I have from mountain bike races in the 60 minute to 90 minute range confirms that the 20 minute is accurate.

I know LT testing is done and used all the time for cycling and running, but have no personal knowledge of it being used for an elliptical.