Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Workouts?

Yesterday, while participating in my usual indoor cycling intervals class, an interesting discussion ensued amongst the participants.  The workout happened to be an extremely difficult one - interval builds reaching 120% of FTP - not once or twice but 5 times in a row.  It was hard.  My legs and heart were burning, and I was definitely challenged.  There were five of us pounding through the same workout modified only by individual FTP’s and it was a challenge for all of us.  Yet, when the hour finished, we were all happy to have reached the completion goal for the day, happy to have a solid workout behind us, another step in our journey complete and an additional brick in our foundations.  

The discussion that surfaced as we were completing the workout was if our coach assigned this exact workout to be completed at home on our own trainers or on our own at the gym would we have pushed with the same intensity that we worked as a group or would we have given up when it got hard and made the specs of the workout easier?  The consensus seemed to be the later.  We don’t want to admit it but we tend to put more effort forward with others around us.  Competitive instinct.  On our own, it is easy to say I am going to back off or to convince ourselves that what we are doing is working hard enough.  

We were provided with guidelines to focus on cadence maintenance.  When the going got hard, we all wanted to slow our cadence but we all pushed to keep it up!  I found out that the more I slowed my cadence the harder the pedaling actually became.  Who knew…  

I leave you with a challenge.  Ask yourself - am I pushing myself to my maximum?  Is my RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) where it needs to be to get the most benefit from the workout in front of me?  What do I need to be accountable to myself and to my workout to gain the most benefit.  

Challenge yourself this winter as our training comes inside to push yourself hard and don’t back down.  If you need more accountability - find a group to challenge you!

Enjoy the journey.  One Day...One Step!