Just picked up Spinervals-27 Threshold Test and figured I’d give a quick review for anyone thinking of picking it up…
I have read a bunch of posts on doing the 20minute threshold tests. My HR seemed off on the spin bike but never seemed motivated enough to
put myself through that. I was kind of skeptical of buying a dvd just for a 20min test, but after doing the dvd glad I did.
The dvd starts out with a warmup and a few quick hard efforts to get you ready for the test by tiring you out just enough to give a consistent hard effort. All tricks to distract you, before you know it, the test starts and the dvd is pushing you along. He focuses on keeping a 90-95rpm cadence steady throughout the test, but resistance is left up to you.
It was a serious effort though. My max hr at a 1/2 marathon last year was like 185, with me going all out. The last miniute he has you go all out, and my max hr was 185ish, my 15min avg about 166. Way more than I expected; I never usually can get my HR over 175 even on the fastest group rides. I was expecting my cycling and especially my revmaster zones to be 10bpm lower, I ended up close to the same as my run zones. I was pushing a 105ropm cadence, maybe I should have increased my resistance and used a lower cadence. But it it will give me some numbers to start base training off.
The dvd definably helped me push through something I normally wouldn’t do on my own. It was easy finding the last 15minute average with the polar software and now I have a few zones to play with.