Pyramid Intervals

[TheUnk]

Am I doing this right? I'm cycling.

30s max effort, 30s cooldown

After each cooldown I increase both by 30 seconds until I reach 2m or so of max effort, then I decrease each by 30 secs until I'm back to 30s max effort.

At the end I feel like dying.

 

[KMc]

Basically yes. What are you trying to accomplish with your training? Sprint speed, attacking, overall fitness, endurance, etc? I only ask because 30 seconds is a really short interval for cycling. The idea is to accelerate and then hold that output without fading. 30 seconds barely gets you at full speed before you are stopping. I would suggest maybe working in minute-sized blocks - 1 min, 2 min, etc. Now you are REALLY going to feel like dying, but I think you'll see better results.

Oh, and why aren't you recording your miles on the AT Cycling Log?????? (see below)

 

[TheUnk]

Well I haven't been doing cardio for a few months now, but want to start going mountain biking again - single track stuff. It's not that hard but even the brief uphill parts always kill me. The trails I ride average about 10miles and have lots and lots of ups/downs.

I know 30seconds is short, but when I first tried doing minute sized blocks I felt I was taking way too many pauses/breaks and was fried under 10minutes and had to stop. No way am I gonna be able to do a good 3 mins at max speed yet

 

[KMc]

Right, but here's the thing - you don't want to do max speed in your intervals. That's not going to help you out at all right now and in your mountain biking, how often are you really going at max speed? What you want is consistent power, with some reserve in the tank for hills, etc.

Pick a speed that you think you can maintain for 3 minutes. Do a simple 1/2/3/2/1 set at that speed with corresponding recovery times in between. If you don't make it all the way through, go a little slower. If you don't have any difficulty, go a little faster. You will quickly find your available power and average speed going up over time as you do these. When you feel ready, through in a 4 minute, and so on.