Ask the Expert

You don’t have to cycle hundreds of miles to boost your stamina: by training smart you can enhance your endurance with surprisingly short blasts in the saddle

Take your cardio fitness to new heights

If the longer daylight hours have encouraged you to dust off your bike and hit the road, some good news: you don’t have to be slogging out gruelling sixhour rides to improve your endurance. “Even a few 30-minute rides will add up over the week to some good base miles in the legs, and shorter, structured sessions can really improve your fitness, stamina and power output,” explains cycling coach Phil Paterson. Big weekend rides are still essential, but there are ways to make quicker gains. “Long rides put your heart and lungs through a larger volume of work, and build up your body’s robustness for sitting in the saddle,” says Paterson, “but that doesn’t mean they’re the only way to improve endurance.”

STAMINA SECRETS

SIX WAYS TO MAXIMISE ENDURANCE IN THE MINIMUM AMOUNT OF TIME

TURBO-CHARGE YOUR COMMUTE Your humble cycling commute is more powerful than you think. Even a short ride, repeated twice a day, several days a week, adds up to some major weekly mileage. “I have used commuting as part of my training, adding in loops of a park and hill rep sessions,” says Paterson. “You will feel fresher in the morning, so consider using your morning commute to add in harder efforts and keep your evening ride home as more of a steadystate effort.”

PUMP UP YOUR POWER

Even if you only have 45 minutes to train, you can challenge your heart and lungs to fine-tune your endurance engine. • Start with a 10 min warm-up. • Follow that up with 4 x 1 min hard efforts at 115-125% of your Functional Threshold Power (the highest power output you can sustain for about 1 hour), with 2 mins recovery after each effort. • Take 6 mins recovery. • Repeat another 4 x 1 min block of efforts, followed by an easy 5 min warm-down. “The aim is to work into high anaerobic or VO2 max power zones to improve top-end power, which is crucial even for endurance athletes,” explains Paterson.

RIDE OVER AND UNDERS

Alternating your efforts from just above to just below your threshold power will also help to boost your stamina. “‘Over and under’ sessions encourage the body to keep switching between lactate accumulation and clearing, so you can spend more time working at threshold on longer rides,” says Paterson. • Complete 2 x 10 min efforts, switching between 105% and 90% of your FTP, with 5-10 mins of easy riding between the two blocks.

HAMMER THE HILLS

Hill reps will boost your strength, power and fitness to enhance your overall stamina. “Just pick a hill that will take five to ten minutes to climb, and repeat it for 30-60 minutes,” says Paterson. Try to pace your efforts evenly by following a fixed speed or a fixed power output. “It’s better to control your heart rate, instead of going full gas on your first rep then struggling to breathe on your sixth rep,” warns Paterson. That will help you to develop the consistency and efficiency required to complete longer endurance challenges.

CRANK UP THE CADENCE

A typical cycling cadence is around 8090rpm, but if you practise pedalling a bit faster and a bit slower you will increase your ‘cadence window’, meaning fewer gear shifts and better energy efficiency on long rides. Riding in a big gear at a lower cadence will develop strength endurance, while riding in a small gear at a higher cadence will improve your pedalling efficiency. • “Complete 3 blocks of 12 mins at 75-90% FTP and, holding this steady power, alternate 2 min efforts at 65rpm and 95rpm,” says Paterson.

JOIN THE FASTED CLUB

For a final endurance boost, try some fasted rides in the morning for up to 90 minutes. “Training fasted (before breakfast) has been shown to help endurance athletes,” says Paterson, “as it increases a protein called PGC-1 alpha, which aids energy metabolism by creating new mitochondria and improving lactate metabolism to make you more efficient.”