You’d think that after 46+ years of cardio, I would know better. But then you would also think that after 46+ years of running, I would not have run myself into a metatarsal foot stress fracture in late January, causing me to rethink my dedication to running now that I have aged sufficiently to take Social Security without a penalty. If you thought either of those thoughts, you would be wrong, very wrong.
While Covid has been a devastating year for so many, it has been a watershed year for me, especially as it relates to my exercise routines. As I have written about before, I am now more focused on strength training than cardio for the first time in my exercise life. Most of that switch relates to my weight training on my Tonal, but part of it relates to my stress fracture, which caused me to skip cardio for about six weeks, as I was waiting for it to heal and was waiting for my Peloton Bike to be delivered.
So here I am in late April after my first Tabata workout on my Peloton, with my heart rate still high as my body tries in vain to return to homeostasis by metabolizing the lactate in my muscles. Of course, I am also waiting for a serious amount of DOMs to hit me tomorrow. DOMs, more accurately known as delayed onset muscle soreness show up between 24 and 48 hours after the workout causing them. I have had them many times over the years. As I mentioned above, you would have thought I would have known better, but sometimes shit just happens.
I have been spinning on my Peloton for just about eight weeks, long enough to graduate from the beginner and advanced beginner classes, long enough to begin to take the regular classes and learn about the various instructors, and long enough to get my legs into a modicum of cycling shape after not having ridden in over 20 years. To put it bluntly, I have been sort of babying myself, coasting by on light resistance and high revs as I got my body into cycling shape. In other words relying on my cardio base while my legs start to strengthen. I even faked my way through a power zone test using the same strategy. My power results were pathetic, as my heart rate never entered zone 4 even though my legs were sobbing. But, hey, I met myself where I was, and I earned the score I got.
I am not interested in using my Peloton as a way to enable me to ride outdoors on the weekends, having given up outdoor cycling in the late 90s. I am not interested in using my Peloton as a way to replace live spinning classes or as a way to make spinning into the cornerstone of my exercise regime. I am interested in using it as a way to replace running as my go to for cardio training and as a way to complement my strength training which means I need to avoid the dreaded cardio zone 3 muscular destruction and spend lots of time in cardio zones 1,2 and 4.
That is why I subjected myself to a Tabata workout. I have done lots of interval training in my life, having run with a track club in my early thirties and having swum with a masters swim team for almost 20 years. But I have really not done many intervals since the early 2000s, except for a few treadmill classes at Equinox. While I had heard of HIIT, I had never heard of Tabata. Maybe I should have read more about it before I decided to do a 30 minute Tabata class. DOM me.
In my eight short weeks of Peloton, I have learned that there is enough variability in the bikes to detract from relying too much on the leaderboard for specific positioning. But it is accurate enough for me to get a pretty good perspective on where I fit relative to the population of riders taking a specific class. It is also really good for understanding a class’s popularity, as least after the fact. Lately, I have been taking classes where the leaderboard informs me that well north of 50,000 people have taken them. After my Tabata class, I was not surprised to see that only about 6,000 people had taken it. I knew why: It was tough. But, DOM, it was effective.
I learned just how effective as I watched my heart rate get well into zone 4 and nudge zone 5 for over 10 minutes during the 30 minute ride. The first time I had entered these cardio zones since I started with Peloton. I also racked up about 10 minutes in zone 3 while I was either on the way up into zone 4 or back down into zone 2. Due to the two to one work to rest nature of Tabata, I did not stay in zone 2 very long.
So as I sit here writing this with my heart hammering and my DOMS lurking on the horizon, I wonder when I will have the courage to knowingly subject myself to this level of self abuse again. Knowing me, it won’t be long enough.