If you’re anything like me then you have a love hate relationship with the assault bike. It’s an amazing conditioning tool, but it does exact a price. As someone who’s been coaching athletes for years, I think it’s the best all around conditioning tool you’re likely to find in the gym. You need to use the assault bike. In this article I’ve included 30 brutal assault bike workouts that I’ve found to be very effective. Keep reading to see if they’re just what you’re looking for.
Unlike other articles you’ll find on the internet, these aren’t just random workouts I’ve thrown together. This is a progression of assault bike workouts that are designed to increase your aerobic capacity, and anaerobic fitness. I’ve included a wide variety of workout styles, from hard EMOMs, to longer intervals. Here is a quick overview of these workouts.
Supplemental Assault Bike Program: Overview
- These workouts supplement your current program
- Each session averages around 20-25min with some longer, and some shorter
- They can be done on an Assault Bike, Echo Bike, or any similar piece of equipment
- These sessions are designed to be done in order
- This supplement is ideal for athletes getting ready for a competition or looking for weight loss
As I’ve alluded to above, these 30 workouts are really designed to enhance your aerobic and anaerobic capacity. This will allow you to maintain a higher work rate on your WODs and metcons, and it will also allow you to recover faster.
If you’ve read any of my other articles, or followed any of my other programs, you’ll know that I like to base my programs off of research, as well as my years of experience in the gym. These assault bike workouts are no different.
Which Types of Intervals are Best for Performance?
Most research shows that high intensity interval training can be very effective at improving your overall fitness, and your bodies’ ability to use oxygen. However, I’ll tell you a little secret. All interval training increases your fitness. If you don’t believe me, check out this excerpt from a meta analysis of many research papers.
Conclusions: Short-intervals (≤ 30s), low-volume (≤ 5min) and short-term (≤ 4weeks) HIIT represent effective and time-efficient strategies for developing VO2max, especially for the general population. To maximize the training effects on VO2max, long-interval (≥2min), high-volume (≥15min) and moderate to long-term (≥4-12weeks) HIIT are recommended.
Effects of different protocols of high intensity interval training for VO 2 max improvements in adults: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
If you go further down the research rabbit hole, you’ll find that many different types of interval training can be effective at increasing fitness. We can see from this conclusion that longer intervals, and more overall time at interval pace, are actually the best predictors of increasing performance. Most people intuitively understand that more intervals and more time spent working out will lead to better results. However, that doesn’t mean that these are the best intervals for our particular purposes.
The Best Types of Intervals for Functional Fitness Athletes
Sure, we could do a lot of longer intervals, and increase our performance, but that does come with a big time penalty. It will also interfere with our strength training. Check out this article where I cover the best methods to combine cardio and strength training. You’ll find that longer intervals cause a decrease in muscle mass, and strength. Shorter, more intense intervals don’t cause these problems.
I’ve chosen to write these assault bike workouts, focusing on hard interval training, in volumes that will increase fitness, but won’t wreak havoc on the rest of your training program. That is one reason why the assault bike is such a good tool. It’s low impact, and because it uses a lot of muscle mass, it allows you to achieve very high power outputs. Most importantly, these workouts are easy to recover from, which allows you to continue to lift hard, and crush your WODs.
Can You do These Workouts On an Airdyne or Echo Bike?
Yes you can, but you need to realize that the assault bike measures calories somewhat differently than other pieces of equipment. The Echo Bike will be roughly the same, but the Airdyne is a little more generous with it’s calories. This means that any workouts where you have to hit a certain amount of calories are going to be a little easier.
If you want to pick up your own Assault Bike you can do so from Amazon. Tier Three Tactical is an affiliate of Amazon so we actually get a small commission for referring you to them, if you purchase anything after clicking on the link. It doesn’t cost you anything and it helps keep the free programming coming your way! Let’s get to the 30 brutal assault bike workouts.
If you want a great program to pair with these assault bike workouts, check this out!
Assault Bike Session Advice
I’m going to cover some ground rules very quickly, before we get into the WODs. First, I expect you to do a reasonable warm up before you start the assault bike workout. While you aren’t likely to injure yourself if you don’t warm up, you certainly won’t be able to push as hard during the workout without it. Here are some sample warm ups.
Example Assault Bike Warm Ups
5min Continuous
Min 1 at 50% effort
Min 2 at 60% effort
Min 3 at 70% effort
Min 4 at 80% effort
Min 5 at 50% effort
3min Continuous
3 cal for 30 sec
6 cal for 30 sec
9 cal for 30 sec
12 cal for 30 sec
9 cal for 30 sec
6 cal for 30 sec
5min Total
Start at easy pace and at the 50 sec mark of each min go at 90% effort.
Before we get too much further into this article, I want to include the PDF. The link below is a drop box link. If you can’t use that because your work IT department are real buzz kills, then you can simply screen shot the image further on. There’s no difference, but I know some people like to have a PDF.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE 30 BRUTAL ASSAULT BIKE WORKOUTS PDF
30 Brutal Assault Bike Workouts
This graphic is meant to be read left to right. You’ll start out this series of assault bike WODs with the 10min for max calories test. This is an excellent overall test of your aerobic and anaerobic capacity. You’ll also end with this same test, and hopefully you’ll have shown some great improvement.
Your next session will be a simple tabata with the assault bike. Obviously, this will occur after a warm up. Normally I will do my warm up, and then I’ll pedal for a minute or two at a very easy pace, around 60-80 watts. At that point, I’ll start the assault bike workout. If it’s an easy interval to program, or like this tabata, I’ll reset my monitor so it counts the intervals for me. The last thing I want to be doing when I’m exhausted is trying to count intervals!
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How Should You Pace Yourself on the Assault Bike?
Notice each session has some notes on the pace you should be aiming for. If I give you a percentage based pace, like 80%, I want you to push to whatever you feel is an 8 out of 10 pace. Don’t over complicate this.
During your rest intervals, you simply need to keep the bike moving. I don’t specify a pace. You need to remember that you should be aiming to recover for your next interval, not pushing the pace during your rest period. Normally this is a self correcting error, but every now and again I have an athlete who goes too fast on a rest interval.
For those paying close attention, you’ll see that there is a bit of a rhythm to these workouts. After a few days of very hard sessions, I’ll throw in a longer session at a lower pace. These long sessions have the added benefit of focusing on your aerobic capacity, so don’t just blow them off, or think you aren’t improving because of them.
If you want to work on building muscle as well as conditioning check out this program!
How Often Should You Do These Assault Bike Workouts?
This is the golden question. These assault bike WODs are designed to be an addition to your current program. That means you need to be judicious when you add them in. If you’re doing a very demanding program like my competitor series, then you might only add in 2-3 a week. If you’re doing something like my 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program, you might choose only 2 per week, as it’s designed to increase muscle mass primarily.
Personally I think this pairs the best with my 7 Week Competition Prep program. Its overall programming volume is moderate, and will match nicely with this additional work. If you’re doing these assault bike workouts to help kick start some weight loss, you might combine them with my 12 Week Functional Fitness Weight Loss Program.
At the end of the day, they can be paired with any number of programs, but you need to be smart. If you’re feeling beat up, and have zero motivation to train, then you might need to take an extra rest day. Even my hardest training athletes need at least one complete rest day a week.
Final Thoughts
I think most athletes should be able to get through all 30 assault bike workouts in around 6-8 weeks. Some might be able to do them in as little as a month, but that will be very challenging. Make sure you’re paying attention to your nutrition, and your recovery, so you reap the maximum benefit from these workouts.
If you have any question or concerns, put them in the comments section below, and I’ll get you an answer. Now get out there and get training!
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55 year old male who discovered the echo bike 6 months ago. I’ve been able to work up to 30 minutes on it but was looking for a HIIT program. Previously, I did 10 second all out sprints on the minute for 10 minutes so I decided to give this program a try. It took me 2 times to do the 3rd workout. The minute sprint is no joke. I climbed off it today feeling victory. This is going to be fun, The program might be 50 workouts for me, but I’m going to finish! Thank you
Keep after it Brian! Good Luck!