Celebrate Tour De France with this Tour De Sweat Cycling Workout

The Tour De SWEAT is back! Get in the spirit of this year’s Tour de France and celebrate the cycling season with our very own cycling workout! Check out this fun, HIIT-style cycling workout that you can do on any spin-style bike that has adjustable resistance. 

This workout lasts a total of 30 minutes and consists of three phases: warm up, conditioning and cool down. While it might sound short, it is definitely challenging! 

Do you prefer to follow pictured instructions? Scroll straight to the bottom of this blog to find all of the riding intensities in a graphic. 

Phase 1 - Warm Up Spin-Bike Ride

Get your body warmed up and ready for the ride ahead! Ride easily for 4 minutes and be sure to keep the resistance on low, if at all, when pushing the pedals in a circular motion. This first ride should get you warm and your legs ready for the main workout! Unsure if you’re riding too fast? Imagine riding at a pace where you can still maintain a conversation with someone — that’s the warm up pace you should aim for!

Phase 2 - Conditioning Spin-Bike Workout

The aim of this phase is to get your sweat on and your heart rate up! This phase is an interval workout, meaning you will need a timer to track the intervals and break times. 

Spin-Bike Exercise 1: Ride Fast, Ride Hard

Ride as hard as you can for 30 seconds with the bike’s resistance on low. Push yourself in this time — you should find it difficult to maintain the pace.

Once 30 seconds are over, slow down immediately and ride easily for 30 seconds. This should be at a similar pace, if not slower, than your warm up.

Repeat for another 4 laps, so that you complete 5 laps in total.

Rest for 1 minute.

Spin-Bike Exercise 2: Power Climb

Once the rest period is over, you enter the power climb stage.

Move the resistance on your bike up so that it becomes difficult to power the pedals while remaining seated. One way to measure this is to imagine that you’re on an outdoor bicycle and making your way up a hill. Set the resistance high enough that when you try to pedal forward with your backside still on the seat, it is really hard to do.

Raise your backside off the seat and power climb as hard as you can on this high resistance setting for 30 seconds. Push yourself in this time — it should not be impossible for you to push the pedals through but you should find it more difficult than the previous stage. Adjust the resistance as necessary if it is too easy or too hard for you.

Once 30 seconds are over, slow down immediately and ride easily for 30 seconds. This should be at a similar pace, if not slower, than your warm up.

Repeat for another 9 laps, so that you complete 10 laps in total.

After completing 10 laps, ride easily for 1 minute.

Spin-Bike Exercise 3: Combination — Ride Fast and Power Climb

This final exercise is a combination of the two previous ones.

Ride as hard as you can for 20 seconds with the resistance on low. 

After 20 seconds are over, push your resistance up and immediately begin your power climb. Raise your backside off the seat and power climb as hard as you can on this high resistance for 20 seconds. 

Rest for 20 seconds.

Repeat the above steps for another 4 laps, so that you complete 5 laps in total.

Phase 3 - Spin-Bike Cool Down

Cool down by riding easily for 4 minutes with the bike’s resistance all the way down. Once you’re done, make sure you stretch as well to avoid your legs being sore and stiff tomorrow!

Do you want to give this workout a go? Have this graphic open on your phone while you spin so that you can follow the exercises with ease!

We would love to see you trying out this workout — be sure to tag us on Instagram using #tourdesweat!