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Garmin Ltd. has reported its Q2 earnings. The company has surpassed expectations with record revenues of $1.3 billion.

Garmin saw 53% year-on-year growth in net sales revenues, powered by upwards trends in all five of its key device categories.

Some of you may know Garmin primarily as the maker of desirable watches from the Fenix and Forerunner series, but these “fitness” lines are only part of the company’s wider business.

Its fitness division is the largest in terms of sales, and saw a 40% increase year-on-year. But relative increases in Garmin’s other areas were even greater.

Garmin outdoor, home to “adventure” watches like the Descent Mk2 watch, grew by 57%.

Aviation, Garmin’s well-established airplane equipment division, grew by 43%. And its marine category by 66%.

The largest gains were seen in Garmin auto , at 74%, although investments mean this part of the company reported an $8 million loss overall.

Reasons Garmin might prove to be one of tech’s big winners over 2020/2021 are intuitive. Gym closures and restrictive travel make a more self-guided exercise regime more appealing than ever.

However, Garmin still comfortably outperformed earlier predictions of $1.07 billion in this quarter.

Recent important releases for the company include the Garmin Venu 2, a relatively mainstream fitness watch with an OLED screen, and the ultra-long-lasting Garmin Enduro GPS. Rumors and speculative reports suggest its next flagship watch, likely to be named the Garmin Fenix 7, may appear next month.

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It’s one of the most common questions in cycling: what is the minimum amount of training time I need to put in to maintain or improve fitness? Sarah Hunter delves into this popular and often-queried topic here.

‘I’m a very busy professional…what is the minimum amount of time I should invest to build fitness, how should I go about this and can you suggest a basic training plan?’

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked this question I would be richer than an early Bitcoin believer by now!

Building and maintaining fitness is a very personal thing—there is no one size fits all program. So many factors influence a training plan for an individual, such as baseline fitness (where you are starting from), general fitness and injury history, age, sex, available time, other life stresses and cycling goals.

If endurance is paramount to your goals, then there is no shortcut to building the level of fitness required to achieve these goals. By endurance, we mean a Gran Fondo distance race or a multi-day stage race. However, if crits, short road races and beating your mates on the Saturday sprint are more your thing, then there is definitely a way you can structure your weekly training to cut down on the hours on the bike and still see improvements in your output.

For the time-crunched cyclist, there are ways to make your training productive with limited hours available to ride. And sometimes more is not better!

A recent (Jan 2020) study by Rønnestad, Hansen, Nygaard and Lundby titled ‘Superior performance improvements in elite cyclists following short‐interval vs effort‐matched long‐interval training’ looked at short interval High-Intensity Training vs longer interval HIT.

The shorter intervals were 30 seconds in duration and the longer intervals were 5 minutes in duration. The results of the study concluded that the shorter interval durations induced superior training adaptation compared with the longer intervals. One thing to note regarding this study was that the participants were all elite-level male cyclists. Professor Louis Passfield (Head of Exercise and Sports Science at Kent University) also agrees that 30-second efforts are incredibly effective.

He points out however that the number of efforts will be different for the individual rider depending on their initial level of fitness.
Now there is no right or wrong way to train. If you have all the time in the world and can dedicate hours to long slow distance, then yes, you will build a massive aerobic engine—however for most of us these days we do not have the luxury of that amount of time. So what is the minimum you can train and still get gains?

Determining Base Fitness

Firstly we need to determine your fitness. In this training plan I’m using the Ramp test not the traditional FTP test for a couple of reasons:

• The 20 minute FTP test requires an element of pacing which many people don’t nail the first, second or third time!
• Many people find the FTP test horrible—and will do anything to avoid it!
• The Ramp Test is shorter and almost a ‘fun’ workout in its own right.
• The Ramp test provides a more accurate number on which to base the shorter 30-second efforts.

Week one starts with this Ramp Test which is a short sharp way to determine your baseline fitness level and what power output you will be aiming for in your intervals. The test will determine your MAP (maximal aerobic power), then thereafter, all the intervals will be a percentage of this MAP number.

The test involves incremental wattage increases every minute, and you ride until you cannot ride any more!

The best way to do this is on the indoor trainer. On the Wattbike there is a comprehensive test menu: select the Max Ramp Test. In Zwift there are two ramp tests—the Ramp Test Lite for riders under 60kg and those that are fairly new to cycling, or the Ramp Test designed for a larger rider or those with more experience. The test should take between 5 and 15 minutes—make sure you get a good warm-up and cool down.

Gym Once A Week

For all riders, especially those over 40, I am an advocate of doing at least one gym session per week; this helps on so many levels, but predominantly assists in maintaining bone density. This session does not need to be long and can be combined with a bike session straight afterwards.

The protocol is known as post-activation potentiation and refers to a short term improvement in cycling performance after lifting heavy weights. The heavy load exercise needs to use the same muscle groups recruited in cycling (so a squat, lunge or Bulgarian split squat would all work well) and it needs to be heavy—we are talking less than 5 reps.

One thing to note here is that heavy for someone just starting out in the gym is very different to heavy for a well-seasoned lifter. If you are not sure about form then get a couple of sessions from a strength and conditioning coach to make sure you are lifting correctly.

Ramp Test

The results of your Ramp test will be used to calculate your MAP. MAP is calculated as Watts of final completed stage + percentage of uncompleted stage

If you are not sure then there are a few calculators online that can help. I tend to use the Zwifthacks MAP calculator, as it is very comprehensive and easy to use.

Tuesday session:

• 10 minutes warm up in the gym—make sure your hips, back and legs are warm.
• LHS (Lift Heavy Stuff) protocol:
• Choose one exercise e.g.: Squat, Split squat (lunge) or Bulgarian split squat.
• Start at a very manageable weight, complete 5 reps, then take a break, add a bit more weight. Work your way up to your ‘working weight’.
• Once at the working weight (heaviest weight you will be lifting), complete 5 sets of 3-5 repeats. Make sure you get enough rest between the sets. If you are lifting heavy then you should feel fairly gassed at the end of each set.
• That LHS session should take about 20 minutes.
• Have your bike or Wattbike ready to go.

Bike session:

• 5 minute warm up.
• Either on a small incline or a 20-30 second sprint leg in Zwift (e.g., the first sprint in Watopia Hilly Route) complete the required number of sprints, going as hard as you can. Get a full recovery in (normally 3-4 mins) before repeating. Use the on-screen metrics in Zwift to try to beat your previous sprint.
• 10 minute cool down.
• The bike session should take about 30 minutes.

Thursday and Saturday sessions:

• 10 minutes warm up.
• Sprint efforts to be completed at 90-95% of MAP and followed by an easy 15-second spin recovery.
• These intervals need to be hard enough that you feel like you are working, but no so hard that you can’t complete them—hence the 5% range in the target watts.
• If you don’t have a powermeter, then use RPE (rate of perceived exertion) rather than heart rate.
• The intervals are too short to be able to effectively use heart rate due to the heart rate response lag in relation to the effort.
• Repeat this 3 times through with a 5 minutes easy recovery spin between each of the 3 blocks.
• 10 minute cool down.

Sunday session:

This ride is optional. If you are really short of time then this is the one to ditch. But for most of us this is the ride we look forward to the most—an opportunity to catch up with mates, ride in beautiful countryside and most importantly have coffee afterwards.

Who is this example training plan for?

This example 4-week training plan is for someone that has been riding for a couple of years, may have lost some of his fitness but has very limited time to ride.

Adjustments to this plan would be made for riders with an initial higher or lower level of fitness, and for female riders the plan would be modified to make the most of the hormonal changes month on month.

As with starting any high-intensity exercise, you should get the all-clear from your doctor if you haven’t trained in this way for a while.

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A group of Tongan-Australians have banded together to break the cycle of over-eating in their community.

After a serious health scare earlier this year, Toni Tu’ulakitau knew he had to change his life. 

Recovering from surgery and with a young family, the Canberra lawyer decided to prioritise his wellbeing.

So he started training with a group of friends at 4:00am. 

“Some of the blokes were weighing in at 160kg and I was recovering,” Mr Tu’ulakitau said.

Word soon got out and more people came along to train – three months later and the group has grown to more than 50 active members – from teenagers to the elderly.

They train six days a week, starting in the early hours of the morning, and have expanded the workout program to include cardio and fitness classes like Zumba, yoga, and Boxfit.

“It happened by accident, we sort of decided to expand the message about looking after your health and driving positive health in our Pacific community, but more importantly our own community, the Tongan community,” he said.

The expansion has seen the group name itself Brumby Fitness: Kalapu Kau Vaivai, which means Club of the Weak or Elderly and it has also set up a leadership committee.

“If you have a look at the dictionary [Brumby] means unbroken horse, we are unbroken people, spiritually and in every way,” Brumby Fitness committee president Fihi Kivalu said.

“But we all love to eat … we wanted to counter that.” 

Group acts as circuit breaker to over-eating culture

Members of the group said weight-related health issues were a big challenge facing the Pacific Island diaspora in Australia.

High rates of obesity put the community at high risk of non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, kidney and heart disease.

The group hopes Brumby Fitness will help act as a preventative health platform.

Richard Taumoepeau is a third-year medical student and the group’s medical adviser.

Each week, he weighs and measures the members to help track their progress.

He also gives basic diet and health advice while urging members to visit their GPs for ongoing issues.

“Just little things, to encourage them, little small changes, something that can be sustainable,” he said.

“I encourage them: ‘Don’t get bogged down with the scales’, [focus] on the other improvements like finding more energy during the day, feeling a lot better.”

Mr Taumoepeau said it had been satisfying to see success across the generations.

“Then they will start working on their diet because we’re monitoring their weekly weight and then they start seeing the correlation between tweaking their diet and the changes on the scale and their waistline.”

Forging stronger community connections 

The group is not just about physical fitness.

It is also about building a community and improving mental health through social engagement.

“There is a big barricade in our culture where a lot of the oldies and women are left behind.

“This platform here allows them to come here and express themselves, to come here to exercise, to come here to do training, but also to mingle with other people in the community – that is important.”

Expanding the model interstate and overseas 

Brumby Fitness has also made waves on social media.

The group has followers across Australia and overseas in New Zealand and the United States.

It is working with groups in Sydney and Melbourne to set up similar programs in those cities.

“This is an opportunity for Brumby Fitness to excel, not only in exercising but also to reach out to the Pacific, the whole community,” Mr Kivalu said.

“We will continue to push, to do everything we can to assist and make sure that they can help the community and reach out to them.

“It’s about helping others, and that there’s nothing else besides getting healthy, staying healthy and living a healthy lifestyle.”

Gym welcomes group with open arms

Gym Club Lime added 5:00am classes to its timetable to accommodate the Brumby Fitness group in recognition of its success.

“Normally I put on a class, check the numbers, work with time slots that normally work,” Club Lime Woden manager Diane Patch said.

“But when you’ve already got a group of 30 people who want to do a class, I was quite happy to find an instructor and make it work for them.”

Ms Patch even became a member of the group herself after coming in early to help with memberships.

“Once I was here at 5:30am, saw the energy of the group, I just thought: ‘There’s a bit of weekday motivation in there for me to just come along and join in,” she said.

She said she had seen communities develop in gyms before, but never this quickly.

“Usually it takes time, consistency, but this group has just grown really fast and it’s actually going really well,” she said.

“Definitely huge satisfaction, seeing that happening on such a large scale in a gym that was empty at 4:00am before.”

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