3:2 Minute Interval Turbo Trainer Workout

It’s always good to mix things up a little on the Turbo Trainer. Also, I had coffee with Jon the other day, my friend who did the various tests on me at the Sports & Exercise Department at Aberystwyth University. Whilst chatting about training he said that the session to do out of the ones he’d given me were the 3:2 minute intervals. I hadn’t tried these before so I though I’d give them a go yesterday.

The idea is that after a warm up you do up to 7 repetitions of 3 minutes at a pre-determine, hard workload and then have 2 minutes rest. John had set me a target of 275 Watts for the hard 3 minutes. I can only set the power output in increments of 10 Watts on my Tacx Flow Turbo Trainer so decided to give it a go at 270 Watts. My workout therefore was:

Warm Up:

  • 5 minutes @ 140 Watts
  • 4 minutes @ 200 Watts
  • 1 minute @ 100 Watts

Main Set

  • 3 minutes @ 270 Watts, 2 minutes @ 100 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 270 Watts, 2 minutes @ 100 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 270 Watts, 2 minutes @ 100 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 270 Watts, 2 minutes @ 100 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 270 Watts, 2 minutes @ 100 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 270 Watts, 2 minutes @ 100 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 280 Watts, 2 minutes @ 100 Watts

Cool Down:

  • 4 minutes @ 180 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 140 Watts
  • 3 minutes @ 100 Watts

Here is my heart rate trace during the workout, peaking at 164bpm (90.6% of my maximum)

Todays Turbo Trainer Workout

Todays Turbo Trainer Workout

As you can see although it was quite hard, I still felt OK on then final repetition and actually did it at 280 Watts rather than 270 Watts. Next time I shall have to try it at 280 Watts throughout. In fact, talking to Jon last week, he was saying that if I can do all 7 repetitions of any of these interval sessions then the idea is to up the wattage immediately as they should really be so hard that you can’t quite complete them. That sounds like torture to me but I shall start increasing the wattage until I can no longer complete the whole set.

I did enjoy this set of intervals though as they seem to be working a little on endurance as well as power. 3 minutes can actually seem like quite a long time!

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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