Climbing the hill into Week 4 of our September Sweat Sessions challenge! Way to go!!! This workout is all about CONTRAST. You will be climbing hills, and you will be taking to the flats for a couple sprint sets mixed with active recovery. So saddle up, and ride this workout with a smile!

This workout is great for indoor cycling, stationary bike, recumbent, or elliptical machine. You can easily use this as an interval ride outdoors if you already have a perfect hill to hit for 5 minutes!

Here’s to Monday! Energy! Fitness! GO! (Workout below.)

XX, Megan

For this ride you really only have to choose two levels of resistance– the resistance level where you want your 5 minute hill to begin, and the resistance level where you will be sprinting. Ideally you will choose a “gear” somewhere in the middle for your hill so that you will be on a heavy resistance by the time you hit the top of that hill. You will increase the resistance with a right turn on your bike every minute.

After your hill, you will take the majority of your resistance off for a flat. However, make sure you leave some resistance on so that you are not spinning out uncontrollably, especially on the sprint sets! You’ll repeat these two 5 minute intervals 3 times consecutively. Have a great, workout!!!

Workout 4

Warm up– 3 minute stretch on the bike

3 minute cruise easily

4 minutes of pick-ups. 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off.

Profile

5 minute hill adding resistance every minute.

Now release most of your gear to maintain a flat as you recover and sprint.

1 minute active recovery

1 minute sprint

1 minute active recovery

1 minute sprint

1 minute active recovery

Do these two 5 minute sets 3 times!

*If you want to challenge yourself, just add additional sprints to your set on the flat. You could do 1 minute of spiriting on and then a 1 minute recovery alternating for six minutes. That will give you another 1 minute sprint to your flats, before you head up another 5 minute hill!