Written by Bobby Griffith Thursday, 04 March 2010 03:18

Interval training has, in recent years, become a staple in the training tool box of most coaches and athletes. It has been proven time and time again to be the most effective in terms of time, conditioning and sport specific training method out there.

Interval training at it's core it meant to pack as much effort in to a short period of time with an on and off pattern. Intervals can be done either inside on a trainer or outside on the bike. The goal is set a pattern to facilitate a desired outcome. Many times these patterns are used to bust the muscle recruitment and contractile strength with out creating mass amounts of fatigue and soreness.

On Wednesday evening I was planning on doing such a workout. The goal was an hour of high end, muscle burning, heart wrenching intervals to work on my anaerobic intensity and capacity. With this in mind I remember a great site I found only recently... www.thesufferfest.com. David over at TheSufferFest.com creates down-loadable interval based cycling videos online. I heard about them from Neil over at Road Magazine. He just raved about them... so I thought, "I'll give that a try."

So, instead of my usual self inflicted torture test, I decided to give The Downward Spiral a shot. I have to say first off... that was the hardest ride I think I have ever put out on my trainer, period!

The Downward Spiral is a two set interval workout starting with kick ass warm up followed by two 17 minute on again, off again efforts. The efforts during the two main intervals are maximum or near maximum efforts starting with 2 mins on, 2 mins off and work down in 15 sec increments to 15 sec on, 15 sec off.

The videos during the session were great. The effort sections during the first set were shots of Paris Roubaix and the recovery sections were of a smooth crit with a long pace line. The nice thing about the recovery video clips is that the designer used the same clip over and over each time. The only difference was how long they were. Each recovery clip always ended in the same spot so mentally you have a cue when the next effort was going to start. The second set effort videos were of La Fléche Wallonne.

During the first set I really had to dig down in order to get through them. Ever since my heart surgery last June I have had issues with really high efforts with only a few minutes warm up. I was able to drag myself through the 1:30 and 1:15 min efforts but only just. However, when I got to the 1:00 and 0:45 min efforts I know I would at least make it through the first set with at least some energy left.

The two main sets are separated by a 5 min cool down. I needed just about 3 minutes to feel human again and the last to minutes I was itching to get going again.

It was pretty amazing how much better I felt during the section set. While the time seemed to pass a little quicker I didn't have that over whelming desire to get off the bike and die. I diffidently felt the efforts afterward and through the next morning. TheSufferFest videos are a worth while expense at only $9.95. They are full of good music, great video and even the right amount of motivation.

While I did love the ride I did have a few concerns about the production. First off I was running the video on my Mac Mini which is attached to my Samsung 1080p HD display. Due to the video size and sample rates I was not able to view the image full screen due to excessive amounts of pixelation and gitter. To counter act those issues I simply ran the video in 2x mode with much better but still a little jumpy.

The other concern I had was the lack of vocal instruction. As a group fitness instructor and coach for a number of years I have come to learn that people response best with they hear a friendly, encouraging voice. It would have been great to hear a voice for the cues instead of having to read everything on the screen. Also, I do have to say the horse noise, the alert sound you hear telling you to look up, was getting pretty annoying toward the end. A simple beep of some sort would have suited me better.

All and all, the Downward Spiral was a great was to get to a hard, focused ride while being stuck in doors. I applaud TheSufferFest for the effort and look forward to riding the Fight Club. It too promises to be bear as well.