Short bike workouts on a stationary spin bike

Triathlon Forum
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At work there is a stationary spin bike which I can use for about 40 min (I brought my mtb shoes/cleats because I can clip into the underside of the spin pedal). Does anybody have any good workouts that you would do to increase strength without skyrocketing the heart rate? I get enough of the skyrocketing during the week swimming and running, and on the PowerBeam on the weekends.

Today I did some low cadence work at a high tension (60-65 rpm, 30 min, high z2/low z3), but I’m no expert. Thanks in advance.

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Mike,
I teach spinning at a gym in Austin. I take my classes through a semblance of periodized training, with rotation between 3 months of aerobic base; 2 months of hills/power and 1 month of speed rotating through these twice per year. I say that as a set up to your question. It sounds like you want this to be a hills/power type workout. I’ll assume your bike has NO powermeter but I’ll make some allowances below if it does. I’ll also assume it has a gear lever vs. a tension knob, but either way the process would be the same. Here are 4 workouts you can pick from and / or rotate through each month.

  1. Hill build:
    10 min. warmup at a base gear with some cadence surges; 20 min of a steady build climb starting at a gear that is +3 above your base gear and work up to +7, holding each gear for a 5 minute block. 10 minute ez spin at -1 gearing to help disperse lactic acid and recover. The last 10 minutes of the build will be excruciating. Feel free to adjust it to go from +1 to +5 and then gradually increase over time.

  2. Power sets:
    IF you have a power meter do the 10 min warmup / cooldown as above and do 5-10-12-15% blocks of holding power above your base power number on the 5 minute. If there is no power meter, set your gear at +2 above your base and do long intervals (about 2 min each) holding +10-15 extra RPM with 1 minute breaks in between.

  3. Hill repeats
    10 min. warmup / cool down; set a +4 gear or one that is moderately hard and do 3 minute climbs all out with 2 min rest (x4) = 20 min.

  4. False flats
    10 min warmup / cool; take at look at your RPM number at your base gear. Go to +1 gear for 2 min and hold that SAME RPM number. Recover 1 minute. Then go to +2 gear and hold the SAME RPM number as your base cadence for 1 minute, and recover for 1 (x4).

Definitely take advantage of that option of having the bike there. Hope that helps.
-Doug