I think most of us know that to improve at anything, we sometimes have to go outside of our comfort zone. 

This is usually associated with increasing effort while doing hard workouts. On the bike we do intervals at power levels well above our normal riding effort.  Pushing very hard like this is definitely outside a comfort zone, what about cadence?

Each of us have a natural cadence when it comes to cycling.  For me that natural cadence is roughly 75-80 rpm.  Doing workouts outside of that range is another way to challenge myself.  It is another way to help me become a better cyclist.

The charts above are from my bike workout this evening.  The upper pink chart shows my power.  You can see that after a warm of 20 minutes, I did four, high power intervals, of six minutes each. I had four minutes recovery after each interval and finished up with a 20 minute cool down.

The lower, orange chart is from the same workout.  You can see that I did my warm up and the first interval at about 90 rpm. The second interval was done at about 60 rpm; the third at about 90 rpm and the fourth at 60 rpm.  I did the recovery periods and the cool down at my natural riding cadence.

This was a tough workout.  I was not only pushing high power, but I was doing so at a non-natural cadence.  At the higher cadence, I was putting more strain on my cardio vascular system. At the lower cadence, I was working my legs very hard.

Getting used to these different ways to push power makes you a better all around cyclist.  At the same time, it allows you to stress different systems during training.