Zwift Workout

Wednesday Windtrainer Workout: Gareth’s 30min Lockdown Power Workout

I needed to develop a short, intense session for an athlete due to the position they have found themselves in due to changes in COVID-19 restrictions where they live. This session targets VO2 max intensity with very limited Rest Intervals (RI). This session is great to build your top-end intensity but also your ability to turn on the intensity with limited recovery and is great for both road cyclists and triathletes, as well as mountain biking.

Each Wednesday I’ll post a Windtrainer Workout that you can do in about 60 minutes to enhance your cycling. See a previous post about training intensity (Levels) to know how hard to work. If you are working directly with Coach Ray he will in most cases prescribe either a Power Zone or Heart Rate Zone to work within if you are training with these tools.

With the recent change to the COVID-19 Lockdown levels in New Zealand, I received a number of messages from my athletes, particularly around access to swimming pools. Gareth who is based in Auckland, all of a sudden found himself having to juggle training, family commitments and working from home. He no longer had the freedom to fit his training in as he liked and asked me if I could limit his training to about 30 minutes. This is the session I put together for him today. Hopefully, the COVID outbreak in Auckland has been caught by going hard early and this lockdown gets lifted later this afternoon.

Gareth’s 30min Lockdown Power Workout

  • 10min WU Level II;
  • 4x 2min Level V, 45sec Level II RI;
  • 10min CD Level I;
  • 10min Stretching

Start the workout with a ten-minute Warm Up (WU) riding at Level II. Keep your cadence above 90Rpm for the warm-up.

The main set is made up of four reps, two minutes long at Level V. Between reps you only get 45 seconds of Rest Interval (RI) riding at Level II. This is less than is normally recommended physiologically, but there are only four reps to get through.

Conclude the intervals with ten minutes of riding at Level II for your Cool Down (CD).

Finish with ten minutes of stretching to assist with your recovery.

Here is Gareth completing the workout. You can see his Heart Rate (HR) – red line – doesn’t come down much between reps, despite his power output – pink line – being right where it is needed (within the grey shading) most of the workout.

If you would like further advice feel free to contact me.

I am the Head Coach & Director of Qwik Kiwi – Endurance Sports Consultant.

I specialise in assisting first-timers and recreational athletes to achieve their sporting goals. I can be contacted at coachray@coachray.nz and 021 348 729. Make sure you sign up for my informative newsletter.

Share this post so your friends can benefit as well.

Download the Garmin (.FIT) and Zwift (.ZWO) files for this workout for FREE

Price: $ 0.00

If you enjoyed this workout, here is a similar session I published previously.

Get my great e-Book that is packed full of my most popular cycling workouts from 2020 for only $7 (save $20), normally this is $27.

This eBook is a veritable gold mine of workouts that you can do on your trainer, using Zwift or other platforms, or even just out on the road.

At the special price of only $7, you will save yourself $20.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.