One-Hour Workout: Hour of Power
Boost your bike fitness—and improve your cadence—with this targeted session.
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This week’s one-hour workout comes from cycling and tri coach Jesse Moore, of Moore Performance Coaching. It’s designed to help improve your cadence and muscular strength to not just boost your cycling, but also help improve your running off the bike. You can check out his Dear Coach column, which is all about improving cadence, here.
After a good and thorough warm-up (15-20 minutes progressing from a Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) 4/10 through to RPE 6/10), you’ll then alternate five-minute intervals for up to an hour, going from five minutes at 60-70 RPM in zone 3 (think RPE 6-7/10 ) to five minutes at 90-100 RPM in zone 2 (RPE 5/10)—with no breaks between. When first starting with this session, it might be advisable to target 30-35 minutes of alternating cadence, with a longer term goal of building up to 60 minutes.
Moore said: “There is scope for lots of variations here, depending on how challenging you find this. As my athletes get fitter and stronger and start adapting to this workout, I generally like to keep increasing the low cadence zone 3 durations while keeping the high cadence duration the same.”
Wrap up the session with 5-10 minutes of relaxed easy pedaling.
RELATED: The Search For the Ideal Cycling Cadence
One-Hour Workout: Hour of Power
Warm-up
15-20 min. progressing effort from RPE 4/10-6/10
Main Set
Alternate:
5 min. @ 60-70 RPM, zone 3 or RPE 6-7/10
5 min. @ 90-100 RPM, zone 2 or RPE 5/10
No breaks between, continuous riding, for up to 60 min.
Cool-down
5-10 min. easy relaxed riding
Jesse Moore is the owner of Moore Performance Coaching. He has a graduate degree in exercise physiology from UC Davis and is a USA Cycling certified coach with more than 15 years’ experience helping athletes achieve their goals. He has raced at the Ironman World Championship, finishing in the top 10 in his age group, and also enjoys ultra running, gravel riding, and SwimRun racing.