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The Best & Worst Cycling Sessions To Get Faster

The Roadman Podcast

35,485 views

Which cycling sessions actually make you faster — and which ones are wasting your limited training time? In this episode, Anthony ranks seven of the most popular workouts from worst to best, using the science, insights from WorldTour coaches, and one simple question: how much fitness do you get for every hour invested? From group rides and sweet spot to VO2 max, fasted training and Zone 2, some of these rankings might seriously challenge how you structure your week.

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Study I talked about

Saris et al. (1989) — “Study on food intake and energy expenditure during extreme sustained exercise: the Tour de France.”

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20 Comments

@dkeener13 10 days ago

your criteria at the beginning listed fitness per hour, because "if you're like me you're not training 25 hours per week, you're doing 6-8". but your S-tier protocol actually needs a LOT of hours. it's really only S-tier for people who ARE training 25 hours, and the zone-2 is coupled with a handful of hours that are absolutely brutal.

@phronesis1642 10 days ago

Fair point on 80/20, but that ratio comes from elite rowers/skiers training 10h+/week. At lower volumes (5-7h/week), the picture changes: a Korean RCT with recreational runners found HIIT (90-95% HRmax) produced significantly bigger VO2max and threshold-speed gains than low-intensity continuous training at half the time. Gunnarsson & Bangsbo (2012) had recreational runners cut mileage 50% and replace it with short intervals — 5K times still improved by 48s in 7 weeks. Esfarjani & Laursen (2007) got a 12% threshold-speed improvement from just 2 HIIT sessions/week.
But important caveat: all these studies run 7-12 weeks. They show intensity is efficient short-term, not that it's the better long-term strategy. Mitochondrial density, capillarization and fat-oxidation enzymes respond mainly to cumulative time under aerobic load — that can't be substituted by a few minutes near max HR, however efficient the short-term VO2max gains look. Years of pure high-intensity work never builds the aerobic foundation that eventually raises the ceiling for everything else, including threshold/VO2max performance itself. There's also an injury/adherence angle: overuse injury correlates more with total load/monotony than intensity per se in endurance sports, and non-competitive exercisers tend to find constant near-max efforts harder to sustain psychologically than a mix with easier days (J Sport & Exercise Psychology, 2016).
So for someone with 5-7h/week: a short block (6-10 weeks) of intensity-focused training makes sense before a specific goal. As a year-round strategy, 2 (occasionally 3) quality sessions/week plus the rest as moderate aerobic riding — not strict 80/20, but not all-intensity either — builds the base while still getting the efficient stimulus the studies show.

@drmitofit2673 10 days ago (edited)

According to Greg LeMond's mitochondrial-based book "The Science of Fitness: Power, Performance, and Endurance", the main trigger for mitochondrial biogenesis is the AMPK Pathway which is switched on when the AMP:ATP ratio increases with cellular energy depletion. Intervals have to be intense enough to deplete energy and more than just a few seconds to activate the enzyme cascade. The analogy in the book is that the cell is like a city powered by mitochondrial power plants. When energy demand exceeds energy supply, brown outs occur, and the government (AMPK) allocates more resources to the construction of more power plants. I am following his advice and have settled on hill repeats on a single speed bike to maximize this effect. This happens to be S Tier in this video. I alternate days between hill repeat cycling, powerwalking 1.5 hilly miles carrying 70 lbs of added weight, and high rep pull ups and push ups. My PB is 70 pull ups in a row at age 63. These exercises train for more type 2A muscle fibers (emphasized in the book) which have a combination of power and fatigue resistance (having more mitochondrial density than type 2 fast twitch fibers).

@ralzalychhoeng 8 days ago

So my take away is to use the ASS method. Vo2 interval (A), long z2 (S), and low cadence torque (S). Got it!

@alex9046 4 days ago

12:14 vrots-love :)

@Sunnydaypicnic 8 days ago

Sometimes the S tier, is simply whatever you aren’t doing. As in, the areas you neglect are the low hanging fruits to include to get better. That has always been the case for me. However, it’s hard to do the sessions you don’t want to do! (I hate sprints!)

@bobjones-bt9bh 9 days ago

yup. If you can have a conversation during the effort, if you're not on the bars afterwards not even doing a ridethru, you didn't work out hard. VO2 and supra VO2 has always been the gold standard. Regardless of the sport, minute intervals all-out, running rowing riding, whichever, you get a nearly immediate improvement in fitness

@JordyJayHomer 10 days ago

How about maximum time trial-type efforts of 10+ minutes (or whatever length)?

@calvingraham8132 10 days ago

I would be interested to hear if you could explore how recovery times impact low-hours cyclists and their training plans. I find I can ride more pyramidally where I do spend time hopping across Z2-5 on rides but, because I only train 6 hours a week I do have the liberty to take an extra day to recover if I want to go into the next hard session fresher. I have personally seen really good results doing this, but interested if there is science around optimising recovery windows between rides to maximise gains and effectively ride harder more often? Good video, thanks.

@ianezzi9212 10 days ago

Low torque intervals for UNtrained amateurs sound like knee injuries waiting to happen! 😆 Any cues for locking in a good pedal stroke in the warm-up before trying these?

@TyronGyde 10 days ago

Isn't zone 2 long-ride only S-tier if you are riding longer hours every week? I.e. if you have time, build out zone 2, if you dont, focus on harder efforts in a pyramidial style training program

@michaambroz6148 10 days ago

Seriously? Over/unders? 30/15s or 40/20s anybody?

@TheCameltotem 2 days ago

I got a job and kids. I can only train during my lunch. So i do around 1-1:30 hours during lunch and maybe 2 hour max on weekend. Whats best for me? I cycle around 5-6 days a week.

@AP-yr7ks 10 days ago

Should those low cadence sessions be entirely seated?

@christoph_m_yt 10 days ago

30/30s and 40/20s combined with sweetspot at low cadence are THE S-tier combination

@lageonD 8 days ago

I drive a 2010 Mercedes E350 3.0L V6 diesel, I get it serviced at a Mercedes specialist and plan on keeping it for many years to come. I cannot understand why so many people spend a fortune continuously buying new cars when they are pure scrap.

@robertlankester1422 9 days ago

In running, threshold sessions are hugely valuable, S tier, think Jacob Ingebritsen's Norwegian double threshold. For marathon training, Zone 3/Tempo is basically "race pace/effort", S tier for them. The heart and lungs don't know whether you are on a bike or not, so there must be decent aerobic benefits in these if they are part of a balanced training week. Zone 1-2 long run with some harder efforts intentionally inserted is another S Tier for longer events, a session never talked about in cycling as far as I know. What do you think?

@powys12345 10 days ago

Italians have been doing sfr for years

@99cya 10 days ago

shocker. endurance needs volume.

@Tomcat1970CH 10 days ago

4x8‘ is definitely not a VO2max session, it is a Supra Threshold session, which is good but for sure not the best for maximum aerobic power. Rönnestad 30/15 or classic 5-6x4‘ is still considered as the best protocol for it. There are also studies that shows low cadence drills are not to compare with power lifting 1-2 times a week.