My New Pain Cave. How I spent My Saturday.
Posted by FLATOUT JIM in Training
Not My Place Really!!! I used this picture for effect only.
Last Monday was registration for our winter spinning sessions. The good news for our local cycling community was that there were a ton of new people. More new faces than I ever seen before. The bad news for me was that despite showing up 10 minutes early, my preferred time slot filled before I could register. Due to outside obligations, my preferred slot was the only slot that I could make. So no winter spin classes for me.
That left only one alternative. Do my own spin program. To do that, I had to overcome 2 challenges. Finding a good solid indoor cycling program, and finding a place to train.
Regarding the second, the main obstacle was that my basement looked like it was staged to film a trailer for the new reality show, Hoarders. So in order to make space for my trainer, and entertainment centre, I needed a major cleanup and re-organization. 4 hours and a trip to the city landfill later. I had my Pain Cave.
The second was finding a solid program. There were many options including simply scrolling the net for different spin workouts, but I was really looking for a set program with a purpose, and settled on a 12 week Power Builder program by Coach Fred Matheny of Roadbiker.com.
The program mostly consists of 2 weekly 50 to 60 minute powerbuilding sessions per but recommends a third aerobic session. The sessions don’t look terribly challenging, but according to the program description, the key is to do the intervals at Super high intensity, and then take adequate recovery . The result is supposed to be an increase in power that can be taken on the road, after the snow melts, and the spring outdoor season starts.
So now that I have a program and a location, tonight is my first session. Two intervals. The first consisting of 5 sets of 30 second single leg intervals per leg with 60 seconds spin in between. The second is 5 sets of 15 second seated sprints with high resistance and 2 to 3 minutes recovery in between. Both sets are bookended by a good warmup and cooldown, and are seoerated by a 10 minute recovery spin. By late this evening, I’ll know tomorrow if it’s a waste of time or not. Check back for the review.
