Do Micro-Bursts on Endurance Rides Help?

Upgrade your cycling in 2 minutes per ride.

Nearly every cycling training manual, guide, and book includes a version of “3hr Endurance with Micro-Bursts” somewhere within it. Based on the famous City Limit Sprints that mark nearly every group ride, this type of workout has been around since structured training began. But what does it do? I don’t believe in doing any training blindly. Everything should have a reason and you should know why I’m asking you to break up your 3 hour cruise around town with random 15 second sprints every 30 minutes. Fortunately, this type of training now has great data to back it up. Let’s explore it.

What Micro Sprints Do To Your Body

The immediate effects of the micro-sprints are obvious. Shortness of breath, muscle burn, increased fatigue, etc. All of these are markers of a workout’s effectiveness, but none actually demonstrate what a workout is doing to your body. A pile of researchers from Norway recently dug into the details of this and discovered the long-term, ergogenic effects of this type of workout. They put twelve elite cyclists (VO2max 73.4±4) through two separate workouts, one of 4 hours of cycling at 50% VO2max and another with 4 hours of cycling at 50% VO2max with three sets of 3 x 30sec sprints, one per hour after the first. I’d…