How do YOU adjust intensity?

[ride525]

I came across a good Concept2 BikeErg article on intensity adjustments:
https://www.concept2.com/bikeerg/traini ... -intensity

So, when you are doing intervals, how do manage resistance and intensity when doing Intervals or HIIT?

1. Vary Damper Setting
or
2. Vary Cadence?
or
3. Some combination of the two?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Jeff

[Dutch]

I have had a bike erg for about 5 months now and have done numerous tests of spm at different damper/drag factors. I now just use cadence as my controlling factor for intensity once I found my ideal drag setting.
If I want an easy workout I go over 80 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 80 spm or maybe 85. I tried to find the best setting where my aerobic system was being pushed and the legs were not just getting a muscle workout all the time.

[Cant Climb]

Wanted to post this for awhile - hopefully it makes sense.

One of my favorite interval sets combines mixing the Damper Setting which then influences the RPM.
So i use the ReRide function ALOT.
And when using the ReRide function i have set smart coded so i can look at the workout and know exactly how to do it.

One of my Goto sets is 50 times xx5, Rest 5 seconds. Intervals.
Where xx can represent anything.
So a set i would see in my PM5 is - 50 x 745, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 225, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 965, Rest 5 seconds.
The '50' and the ending '5' are the key.
The 50 is 50 efforts and the '5' represents the groupings of '5' i do.
The 5 seconds rest is more for setting up in between the different Rep's
Here are the '5' reps broken down

Rep 1 - Damper setting on zero , so spinning with high RPM and fairly high perceived exertion.
Rep 2 - hands on lower portion of bars and Damper on 10 and fairly high perceived exertion.
Rep 3 - Damper still on 10 but now standing and fairly high perceived exertion..
Rep 4 - Damper on you're sweet spot and intense exertion.
Rep 5 - spin out recovery.

Then do that whole thing 10 times.

Key in the future is the ReRides. So can match or beat yourself.
Doing these i feel like time goes by faster and hitting more all around on the legs.

[ride525]

I have had a bike erg for about 5 months now and have done numerous tests of spm at different damper/drag factors. I now just use cadence as my controlling factor for intensity once I found my ideal drag setting.
If I want an easy workout I go over 80 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 80 spm or maybe 85. I tried to find the best setting where my aerobic system was being pushed and the legs were not just getting a muscle workout all the time.

Question, about spm. I'm used to a bike using rpm for cadence. In fact, when I looked, it appeared that Concept2 uses rpm for the bikeerg. Is spm strokes per minute, like on the rower and skierg? Is spm = rpm?

And your sentence, "If I want an easy workout I go over 80 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 80 spm or maybe 85."
makes more sense to me, if there was a lower number first like, "If I want an easy workout I go JUST over 70 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 80 spm or maybe 85."
or higher number second, "If I want an easy workout I go over 80 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 90 spm or maybe 95."

Thanks for your thoughts.

[johnlvs2run]

I tried all the different resistances at the start, from the lowest to the highest, and found that the lower DFs took way too much movement and energy for each given pace. Conversely, I was able to achieve a similar pace from the highest DFs down to close to 100. However, the lower DFs put quite a bit more strain on my knees, which has to do with the size of the cranks, the range of motion, and the dead spots in the cranks.

Gradually over time I narrowed the optimum range and have settled on a DF of 120 for all of the 10 distances from 200 meters to 40 kilometers. That settled the resistance issue, and going faster increases the intensity.

[Dutch]

I have had a bike erg for about 5 months now and have done numerous tests of spm at different damper/drag factors. I now just use cadence as my controlling factor for intensity once I found my ideal drag setting.
If I want an easy workout I go over 80 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 80 spm or maybe 85. I tried to find the best setting where my aerobic system was being pushed and the legs were not just getting a muscle workout all the time.

Question, about spm. I'm used to a bike using rpm for cadence. In fact, when I looked, it appeared that Concept2 uses rpm for the bikeerg. Is spm strokes per minute, like on the rower and skierg? Is spm = rpm?

And your sentence, "If I want an easy workout I go over 80 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 80 spm or maybe 85."
makes more sense to me, if there was a lower number first like, "If I want an easy workout I go JUST over 70 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 80 spm or maybe 85."
or higher number second, "If I want an easy workout I go over 80 spm, if I want a more intense workout I go to 90 spm or maybe 95."

Thanks for your thoughts.

Yes, sorry meant rpm, and if I want an easy workout I stay under 75 rpm and if I want more intensity I go up to 80 or more rpm.
Hope this is clearer. I will blame lack of sleep for errors!

[Spinal]

I set drag factor to suit my preferred cadence at FTP which is 88rpm for 240watts. This allows for long sustained tempo workouts around 80rpm and shorter V02 max intervals at 100rpm.

[johnlvs2run]

One of my Goto sets is 50 times xx5, Rest 5 seconds. Intervals.
Where xx can represent anything.
So a set i would see in my PM5 is - 50 x 745, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 225, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 965, Rest 5 seconds.
The '50' and the ending '5' are the key.
The 50 is 50 efforts and the '5' represents the groupings of '5' i do.
The 5 seconds rest is more for setting up in between the different Rep's

I've looked at this a number of times and still don't quite understand what it means.
Here's a wild guess:
Each 5' set is 5 minutes. Thus repeated 10 times = 250 minutes.
But I don't understand what the 745, 225, and 965 refer to. Would you please explain this to me?

[CaseyClarke]

One of my Goto sets is 50 times xx5, Rest 5 seconds. Intervals.
Where xx can represent anything.
So a set i would see in my PM5 is - 50 x 745, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 225, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 965, Rest 5 seconds.
The '50' and the ending '5' are the key.
The 50 is 50 efforts and the '5' represents the groupings of '5' i do.
The 5 seconds rest is more for setting up in between the different Rep's

I've looked at this a number of times and still don't quite understand what it means.
Here's a wild guess:
Each 5' set is 5 minutes. Thus repeated 10 times = 250 minutes.
But I don't understand what the 745, 225, and 965 refer to. Would you please explain this to me?

Convoluted as hell, but I still understand it.

No, hardly anyone does 250 minute workouts.

The 745, 225, 965 are metres, so 745m, 225m & 965m.

So, a workout could be 50 x 745m / 5 secs rest, totalling 37250m, or somewhere between 70 and 90 minutes for most people.

The '5' denotes the groupings of 5. These are the groupings of 5:

Rep 1 - Damper setting on zero , so spinning with high RPM and fairly high perceived exertion.
Rep 2 - hands on lower portion of bars and Damper on 10 and fairly high perceived exertion.
Rep 3 - Damper still on 10 but now standing and fairly high perceived exertion..
Rep 4 - Damper on you're sweet spot and intense exertion.
Rep 5 - spin out recovery.

Repeated 10 times over, that would total 50 reps, which is the limit of the PM5.

And there's me thinking the BikeErg is the simplest of all three C2 machines!

[johnlvs2run]

Casey, thank you for the clarification.
I tried it this morning by doing 2 sets of 1k's for a 10k.
The plan was 3 more 10ks but I wasn't sure how the low resistance would be on my knees.
So I did the second 10k at 75df (setting 3?), the third one on 10, and the 4th one on 0 which was 44df.

To get going on 0 was quite slow as I'm not used to a setting that low but the pace got faster.
Each of the 10k's were about the same pace and there wasn't a significant difference between them.
However, I wasn't going fast, and question whether I could do a reasonably paced time trial at a 44 drag.
This was interesting to do though so I will try it more often, as long as my knees will be fine with the change.

[Cant Climb]

One of my Goto sets is 50 times xx5, Rest 5 seconds. Intervals.
Where xx can represent anything.
So a set i would see in my PM5 is - 50 x 745, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 225, Rest 5 seconds or 50 X 965, Rest 5 seconds.
The '50' and the ending '5' are the key.
The 50 is 50 efforts and the '5' represents the groupings of '5' i do.
The 5 seconds rest is more for setting up in between the different Rep's

I've looked at this a number of times and still don't quite understand what it means.
Here's a wild guess:
Each 5' set is 5 minutes. Thus repeated 10 times = 250 minutes.
But I don't understand what the 745, 225, and 965 refer to. Would you please explain this to me?

Convoluted as hell, but I still understand it.

No, hardly anyone does 250 minute workouts.

The 745, 225, 965 are metres, so 745m, 225m & 965m.

So, a workout could be 50 x 745m / 5 secs rest, totalling 37250m, or somewhere between 70 and 90 minutes for most people.

The '5' denotes the groupings of 5. These are the groupings of 5:

Rep 1 - Damper setting on zero , so spinning with high RPM and fairly high perceived exertion.
Rep 2 - hands on lower portion of bars and Damper on 10 and fairly high perceived exertion.
Rep 3 - Damper still on 10 but now standing and fairly high perceived exertion..
Rep 4 - Damper on you're sweet spot and intense exertion.
Rep 5 - spin out recovery.

Repeated 10 times over, that would total 50 reps, which is the limit of the PM5.

And there's me thinking the BikeErg is the simplest of all three C2 machines!

100% correct Casey - So it's essentailly (50 x 745) or( 50 x 225) or (50 x 845) ...etc.....with 5 seconds rest between each interval.

I think it's simple because when i reRide and see the 50 x 745 for example, i know exactly what the workout is.