I’m posted abroad at the moment so forced off the bike and have been doing the Insanity course with only 1 week to go.
I’ve enjoyed it mostly, have lost weight and feel generally fitter. Question is, has anyone found it has benefitted their cycling in particular ways?

I’ll find out soon enough I suppose as I’m back from Bahrain for Christmas, will I find it chilly?

It’ll benefit you for sure. I do spin regularly, so pretty intense, and I definitely notice a benefit with cycling. However the type of fitness it promotes is more anaerobic rather than aerobic, so great for sprinting and grunting up a big hill but not so much for longer distance, lower intensity riding. The thing with training is that you’re only effective if you are training with a specific goal in mind. All training is beneficial to general fitness but if you want to improve in a specific area then you need to tailor your training to achieve that.

My brother has recently had the mid-life crisis that has lead him to take up Triathlons. He tends to immerse himself in whatever things he’s doing at that time so going at it pretty full on. He recently had a VO2 max test and the outcome was that his anaerobic fitness is very good, which mirrors his training – shorter duration but higher intensity. The advice from them relative to his Triathlon goals is to do more longer but low intensity training to improve his aerobic fitness. So depends what you’re wanting to do.

Thanks Wobbliscott, all god advice. I’m not really aiming at anything at the moment apart from surviving Insanity but it’s good to know it may have some benefit. I’ve always been a bit lacking in quad strength and I do seem to have made some gains there (lots of tuck jumps in the programme).

Reading with interest:

I tend to do long rides which are getting easier and easier. (Long is 3-4 hours, not mega mile epics, I do go up & down)

However I do often struggle with climbs. How much I struggle seems to be related to how much similar riding i’ve done. So if I focus on hills, I get better at them. However, I’m mostly a Weekend Warrior and the amount of climbing depends on where I’ve been riding and who I’m with.

Since I can’t ride from the door easily (I live on the coast, where it’s flat) what I’ve just started doing is a midweek exercise bike HIIT session. I read up on improving V02Max, and HIIT came up again and again.

I’ve been using a HRM and found a free app for my phone to program the intervals how I want. so a warm up, say 5 sets of 45 sec bursts, a rest period, 5 sets of 1 min bursts, then 5 sets of 45 sec bursts, a rest period, the a cool down period at the end.

I’m tweaking the intervals each week to push things along.

Cheap excercise bike, HRM, internals app, hour long tv program

It’s a bit early to say, but I think its made a difference already, but it could all be in the mind.

Depends how fit you are on the bike already really. If there is, er, ‘room for improvement’, then any additional fitness will be benficial.

If you’re already a whip-thin racing whippet, then you’ve probably gained a load of unhelpful muscle that will slow you down on the climbs 😉

I am not a whippet 🙂

My general opinion of Insanity is that it’s better than nothing but it’s the least useful form of training you could possibly do.

I’m back from Bahrain for Christmas, will I find it chilly?

Not if you dress like this

I found it chilly when I returned from Bahrain in February and walked off the plane into Snow…

Cheers, Steve

Least useful form of training in terms of what? That is a bit of a sweeping statement to cover a huge and complex topic. It all depends on what you’re wanting to achieve – you match your training to suit what it is you’re wanting to do. So not useful if you want to be a marathon runner, ironman triathlete or just improve over longer distances. But if you want to improve your sprinting performance, peak power output, sprint endurance, then Spin/insanity type of exercise is exactly what you want.

When I started spin I could only sustain a proper sprint for about 15 seconds, now I can do at least 3 or 4 times longer, at a higher power output. So it is beneficial for that. Though I don’t find myself getting entangled in many 45 to 1 minute full on sprints when out on my bike, so not useful for that – but I’m definitely better going up hill too – I can push a bigger gear for longer. But what else am I going to do in a 30 minute training window? You can’t do much aerobic (low intensity/high duration) training. For that my brother was advised to go on rides over 2 or 3 hours minimum keeping his heart rate below 110bpm.

Like I said – how beneficial it is depends what your specific training goals are. If you have no specific training goals then it is still beneficial – you’re going to get ‘fitter’ (again fitter is a relative term), it will aid weight loss if you can regulate what you shovel down your gob, and it will improve muscle tone, fitness, strength, cardio capacity. All of these things are beneficial for some elements of cycling.

Least useful form of training in terms of what? That is a bit of a sweeping statement to cover a huge and complex topic. It all depends on what you’re wanting to achieve – you match your training to suit what it is you’re wanting to do

Exactly. If your training goals are to prance around in front of your telly more effectively then crack on with Insanity. If you have any more concrete goals (e.g. sport of any kind) then specific training is always going to be more effective at improving performance.

Exactly. If your training goals are to prance around in front of your telly more effectively then crack on with Insanity. If you have any more concrete goals (e.g. sport of any kind) then specific training is always going to be more effective at improving performance.

He’s in Bahrain, its hardly like he has access to a muddy welsh hillside to prepare for slithering about in brittish mud. So in that respect insanity probably isnt the worst he could do.

Ive got the P90x dvds for jumping arround my living room. It’s not bad training for jumping arround on the boat. And probably pretty good for going downhill rapidly.

As finbar said, unless you’re in the 1% at the top its unlikely to actually make you worse. At worst it woild not be the best improvement you could get for the hours put in. But again, thats a problem for the 1%, not average joe who could probably do more training anyway.

All fair points and to be honest there’s no way I’m giving up now and letting Shaun win.

there’s no way I’m giving up now and letting Shaun win.

you bought it; he’s already won 😀