Cardio: intensity VS amount

[mxerhale]

Last year I got more serious about the quality and quantity of cardio I was doing, I bought a road bicycle (which I've always wanted anyways) and started alternating one week of mountain biking and one of road riding. By the middle of the season I was doing my normal 1 to 1 1/2 hour mountain bike rides and on the road 35 mile rides and I noticed that when I was out on the MX track practicing that I didn't get tired until I hit the 45 minute mark. Now I wish we could get 35 minute motos, but the longest race moto I've ever done was 20 minutes (Hangtown amateur day). That being the case for the last 2 weeks of last years races I backed the rides back to an hour at a little higher intensity and it didn't seem to hurt, but that was only 2 weeks and that's not nearly enough to tell what the effects would be. Anybody else have thoughts on this subject?

[Woody_393]

Do you wear a heart rate monitor when you ride your bikes?

I'm wondering what how many BPM (for your heart) you have when riding...

It's my understanding that in the sport we ride in, a lot of what we do, since our moto's are so short, is actually anarobic in nature. What I would maybe do (and I'll have to ask my brother in law what he things since he's into this stuff big time) is start doing ... I can't think of what it's called... Basically you pay attention to your heart rate, and increase the intensity to the point that you are about dead, then back it off for 5 minutes, then back at it for 10... or something like that. What this does is increases your bodies ability to work anarobicly.

I can't remember all the details, but I'll call him tomorrow and ask him what the goal is and tell him your situation and see what he says.

[Ranger_450F]

Mxerhale,

I think you’re onto the same type of conditioning the top motocross guys are now doing. Heart rate monitored workouts are great. The idea is to figure your Max heart rate, then based on your fitness try to maintain a given rate in a given range. You can pull all this info up via the web, but the heart rates will differ for age. Just have to figure out what want from your workout Weight loss, endurance, etc.. Then based off of your goal just try to increase the duration or the heart rate.

Woody,

We call that interval or when referring to a run Farklic “SP” training. Run or workout at a higher output for a short time then reduce that pace for a recovery period then back up to high output again. I can tell you from personal experience it works.

Heart rate Monitoring seems to be where it’s at as far as cardiovascular endurance goes.

[Woody_393]

That's what it's called... Intervals. I hear it works great too. You just have to be at a level to benefit from it. I'm not yet, but I think mxerhale certainly is.

[mxerhale]

Yeah Woody I do intervals during the season and yes you should have a good baseline fitness level before starting. I did have a heat rate monitor, but it didn't last very long and I haven't gotten another one yet. I'd really like one that keeps a record of your workout and wear it while I'm on the track to see what sort of outrageous rate I'm running at. I did my first real (outdoor ride) bike ride today so now I can start trying some new stuff.