Today on  the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast we chat about how to get sufficient bike training in when you have time constraints.  Devlin Eyden, our cycling coach shares the value of interval training as well as how your time can be optimised. You don't have to compromise your training due to time pressures.

Transcript

Brad Brown:         Welcome back to the next edition of the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast, some great feedback from these podcasts as well. Don’t forget, you can subscribe to it, all you need to do is look us up in iTunes or Stitcher or Overcast, whatever the app is that you listen to your podcasts through and if you wouldn’t mind leaving us a rating, a review as well, it just helps us get in front of more eyes and ears and helps us spread the word as well.

We’ve got our cycling coach joining us once again, Devlin Eyden, welcome back onto the podcast. Devlin, the last time we spoke we touched a little bit on mileage versus intensity and today’s question was submitted by Johan and I think it is one that many cyclists struggle with, particularly us that work fulltime for a living. Johan is saying he’s pressed for time and can only really do one ride a week on the road, what would you suggest the shorter workouts during the week that’ll help him get better as a cyclist?

Don't let work rob you of training sessions

Devlin Eyden:      This is probably the most common question with regards to everyone working day jobs and time restraints and that. The first bit of advice here is make sure you are working on a structured training program.

If you’re working with a coach, the coach can take the time that you have available and optimise that, so get the most out of the training that you can be doing rather than necessarily just thinking, okay, we’ll get out for a ride once a week and hope it’s enough.

Secondly the shorter sessions, as you mentioned now, start looking at things like interval training. A typical interval session you can do and you can get done under a hour, you can get a lot out of that kind of training and good adaptation from that still, but at the same time you’re not necessarily having to be on the bike and get out on the road and kit up and everything which more than anything takes a really big chunk of your time out of the day.

The interval training as well is something that can be done on a stationary trainer in front of the TV in your lounge in the evening or early mornings or at the gyms on a WattBike for instance or some sort of stationary tool.

Short, intense intervals can add value to your training

I think the next thing, just with this though, is consistency is key. More than anything else, rather do a few more sessions in the week, even if they are shorter, but get on the bike a little bit more, be it a stationary bike or out on your bike, consistency is key.

We want to keep riding once a week, I realise time is of an issue and that’s obviously getting out on the bike, once a week, obviously we need to know that that’s not going to be doing very much for our training.

You can get a lot from shorter intense intervals and then make sure that we keep consistently training and keep that going.

BB:         Cool stuff and talking of a set training program, if you are looking for some help and perhaps you’ve got a big race coming up, maybe you’re working towards the 947 Cycle Challenge towards the end of the year, or if you’ve got a big mountain bike stage race coming up, it doesn’t really matter, we can help you.

Devlin has got a few training slots available, if you’d like to find out more about those packages, all you need to do is go to coachparry.com/cyclingtraining, that’s where you can get the details of those training packages. Various packages to suit various budgets, go check it out, coachparry.com/cyclingtraining is where you can get all the details.

Until the next time, from the two of us, it’s cheers.