It’s Tabata time (sort of)! After an extended warm-up, coach riders through seven 2:30 Tabata efforts and one 3:00 challenge. Between, riders have 3:00(ish) to recover, refresh and prep for the next interval.
Why not the typical 4:00 Tabata intervals? Two reasons: it was easier to find shorter songs that fit the bill, and to me, five sets is about my limit for repetition before it feels like “enough already”! If that’s not you/your riders, swap out the songs and use 4:00 efforts. If your ride needs to be longer than 45:00 it’s easy enough to add intervals. And if you feel like you can’t call this a Tabata Ride using 2:30 intervals, call it HIT IT!
Intensity is hard to very hard (but not max.) effort. Use the songs between intervals for recovery, a reset of form and focus, with at least 10 seconds to gear up and be ready to hit the next interval.
Give riders a choice of seated or standing efforts, mix it up, and/or be prescriptive. I had riders do the first three sets seated, then rider’s choice for the remaining intervals. You’ll notice the first two sets of Tabata have 45 second, sort-of-hard, seated prep times. I used the :45 to have riders find a resistance level that they can accelerate from to “hit” the hard/very hard effort. For the remaining Tabata’s, we prep at the end of the recover/refuel song so we’re ready to go when the Tabata interval begins.
Have fun and Stay Awesome!
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