For those like me, you have two options....well three, I guess. The first is to layer up and head out into the cold. In some areas of the globe, this isn't that bad as winter temperatures don't dip below 50. In other areas, the eight feet of snow makes winter cycling difficult at best. Here in NC, we fall somewhere in the middle. Our days are are typically in the 30's during the winter, and there are times we see them climb into the 50's. I can ride in that, but freezing isn't that much fun for me. The other option is to mount a bike up to an indoor trainer, or rollers, which will allow you to pedal in the warmth of your home, basement, shed, whatever. There are advantages and disadvantages to this plan as we will get into shortly. The third option, is to tuck your bike in for the winter, and do another activity, like running (not unless somebody is chasing me). You could also catch up on all that high quality television you missed while achieving your current level of fitness. Yeah, I didn't think that sounded like a good plan either.
What Will a Stationary Trainer Do For Me?
Lets talk about that indoor cycling option. What can it do for you? Well, the
If you are starting from square one, using an indoor trainer is a great way to get conditioned in order to start out strong when Spring hits. If you are new to clipless pedals, you can use the trainer to get used to the motions associated with clipping in and out without fear of falling. Speaking of clipless pedals, you can learn a whole new method of pedaling which is specific to having your feet surgically attached to your cranks. By pulling up on the pedal in addition to the standard pushing down, you can engage your hamstrings in order to assist, and take the load off of your quads. You can also engage the glutes more effectively with this type of pedaling. Essentially, you can learn to pedal in circles rather than in straight lines, or boxes. To do this on a trainer is simple, and safe. Start easy, by unclipping on foot and pedaling for 30 seconds at a moderate tension with the remaining foot. Pay attention to your pedal stroke, you should be able to pedal at a smooth rate all the way around the stroke. At the end of that 30 seconds, swap feet and repeat. Do this for about 5 minutes or so total and then pedal easy to recover. Repeat as you deem necessary to train the muscles. When you master the 30 second repeats, move it up to a minute on each side for a total of 6 minutes. The more you do it, the better you will get at it.
As you are mastering the pedal stroke, you will be becoming more and more efficient with your pedaling as a whole. This will help you be able to increase your cadence. Some might not need to worry about increasing their cadence, but I would suspect that most cyclists start out pedaling way too slow. By too slow, I mean below 70rpms. I was guilty of that for a very long time, and I've seen it with many other newbie cyclists...and some seasoned ones as well. It might feel good to push the big gears and feel the muscles in your legs swell with power. It won't feel good for long though. Your muscles are what burns the calories, and create heat. This means that you aren't going to be able to ride for a long period of time before getting fatigued, and slowing down substantially. With a higher cadence, you are actually doing the same amount of work, but taxing the muscles only a fraction as much. Power is just work over time. By increasing the pedal strokes, you are reducing the work per stroke while achieving the same power. The faster you pedal, the less fatigued you get over the course of a ride. Ideally, the average cyclist will want to maintain an average cadence between 85-95 rpms for the course of a "normal" ride.
In addition to getting some of the basics down, an indoor trainer can also be used to maintain your fitness in the "off season." This might be the most useful function for this piece of equipment. The time that you can ride outside in the Winter might be limited due to weather and shorter days, so you can easily supplement those rides with a few rides indoors each week. Depending on what you are able to do outside, you might just need to get on the trainer and spin for a bit to keep the legs fresh, or to recover from an all out effort on the road the day before. If your outdoor rides are limited to a few per month, you will need to add some higher intensity workouts to your plan indoors.
HIIT is where the love/hate relationship with a trainer is rooted. Again, you are trying to replace volume of your rides (workouts) with intensity. When I go out for a road ride, I am typically out for over an hour, up to 6 hours. I'm not going to dedicate that kind of time to riding indoors, and that is fine. Using intervals, I can hit all my target zones in a shorter amount of time, and get my metabolism racing. I can also keep my muscles active at a level that will keep me from losing my fitness from the previous season.
So what exactly are intervals? This is a form of workout that includes segments of intense riding, followed by active recovery periods. They are repeated throughout the workout. For example, a simple interval workout would include a warm up phase at the start that is pretty much easy pedaling for 10 minutes or so. Then you would step into three sets of max efforts that last one minute each, followed by a one minute easy pedal to catch your breath. Then you move into three more sets of threshold output (anaerobic level) for eight minutes each followed by a four minute recovery period between each set. The end of the workout is a cool down segment to bring your heart rate back to normal. This workout would last an hour, and in that hour, your body has done an incredible amount of work.
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| A graph of my heart rate for the above interval workout |
3 minutes zone 3 (aerobic)
3 minutes easy spin
2 minutes zone 4 (anaerobic/threshold)
2 minutes easy spin
1 minute zone 5 (max effort)
1 minute easy spin
2 minutes zone 4 (anaerobic/threshold)
2 minutes easy spin
3 minutes zone 3 (aerobic)
3 minutes easy spin
repeat or cool down for 5 minutes
This interval set could be done in a lunch hour at the office, or at home after work. It doesn't have to take long, but you can go until you have had enough, and make it as long as you would like. It is very effective, and simple to execute.
Using those same HIIT workouts, but at a higher volume, you can improve your fitness from whatever level you started from. Personally, I was going from a condition that took 10 months away from riding to achieve. I was overweight and out of shape. By sticking to a program that had me on the bike between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours at a time for six days a week, I had both the intensity and the volume needed to not only achieve my previous level of fitness, but to exceed it before the next cycling season. I credit most of my success with following a plan I found through Bicycling Magazine called Fat Frying Intervals. This is a five week long program that is an adaptation from a nine week program created by James Hererra. It is too involved to list it here, but I can say it will kick your butt, and bring quick results. In just a matter of months, I was near to my former performance, and my body was getting back to its riding weight. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had put this much energy into the trainer sessions at a top level of fitness. This is where riders come back after the winter stronger and faster than they were before. Even if you can ride outside in your neck of the woods, it is a great idea to incorporate some HIIT sessions into your weeks for this very reason.
This is also a time when you can work on your riding weaknesses. Everyone has their niche on a bike. Some are sprinters, some love the climbs, some go that extra mile, but it is rare to find a cyclist that can do it all well. Using a trainer, you can pick and choose your interval program (a Google search away) to address your weaknesses. For instance, I have never been a great climber, and have always felt very uncomfortable standing out of the saddle. I was able to locate two different hill workouts that incorporated standing intervals, as well as a lot of tempo work. True, I wasn't actually climbing, but I was stressing my muscles as if I were. I learned to stand more confidently, as well as put power down for longer periods of time under strain. Doing these workouts once a week each, for a month really made a difference in my climbing times. I was actually able to sprint up hills that I had formally had to drop into the little ring to climb up. That is a huge difference!
What do you need?
OK, you have the bike. You also need a trainer. There are many different types of trainers available out there. Some are even computer based and hook up to a laptop. The basic types are wind, magnetic, and fluid. They each have their pros and cons. The wind and magnetic are the cheaper options, but they lack a road feel, and are very noisy. The fluid ones are much quieter, have a progressive resistance, and feel very close to the road. The computer based ones are the most expensive and can either be fluid or magnetic based. The program will adjust the resistance in most cases to match the workout. Of course, for these, you will pay a premium. They are usually used by pros. For the average rider, magnetic or fluid will be the way to go.
I am currently using a Cycleops Fluid II stationary trainer, which is a fluid based trainer. As you can see from the picture above, it has a nice footprint, and attaches to the bike by way of a skewer through the rear hub that mounts to clamps on either side. This is a very secure way to attach the bike. There is a flywheel that is then pressed up against the rear wheel which turns the impeller through the viscous fluid. The faster you pedal, the more resistance it gives, just like pedaling on the road. This is essentially all you need, but there are quite a few accessories that will make this trainer more functional and dare I say...fun.
The mat under the bike is also a nice bit of equipment, especially for those working out inside the living area of your home. This mat keeps some of the noise down, but more importantly, it helps to collect the sweat that pours off of you while doing your HIIT workouts. You will be sweating...A LOT! If not, you are doing it wrong. The mat will also help to save your carpet, or hard wood floors from the constant movement of the trainer and riser blocks due to the force you are applying.
You will also need a fan. It is very easy to get overheated while doing intervals. You don't have the advantage of the breeze drying your wicking clothing off, so you should manufacture your own breeze. It isn't as effective, but it does help. Keep the fan close and don't skimp on the speed. It will be chilly to start with, but after about 15 minutes it will feel great. By the end, you will want to be immersed in ice.
Something else you might be noticing in this picture is the red tire on the rear wheel. This is not a fashion statement by any stretch. Actually, it looks a little tacky. That is a good thing because this tire is not meant for road use, and the color is a readily identifiable warning to that fact. This is a trainer tire and it is specifically designed for use on a stationary trainer. It is a much harder compound than a road tire, and there is a tread pattern on it that is designed to dissipate the heat buildup that is caused from the tire rolling on the drum of the trainer. In many cases, they are also quieter than a road tire would be. This one is a Vittoria tire, but most tire manufacturers make their own version of a trainer tire. Pick the one at the price point you can afford. Since the compound is harder on these tires, they will last a nice long time. A road tire will be torn to shreds long before it would wear out being used on the road. This tire will save your expensive road tires for your road rides.
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| Garmin Edge 500 Computer mounted in front of the bars |
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| Garmin GSC-10 Speed/Cadence Sensor mounted to the chain stay |
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| Cycleops Powercal heart rate monitor mounted to me |
At the very minimum, you will need a speed and cadence sensor. What typically comes bundled with the Garmin units is their GSC-10 all in one unit. It works off of magnets which are mounted to both the rear wheel (the only one rotating when on a trainer), and the crank arm. This allows the head unit to see how fast the rear wheel is moving which gives you speed and distance. It also allows you to see exactly what your cadence (pedal stroke) is at any time. Garmin has recently come out with a magnetless set that I think works much better overall, and is easier to switch between bikes. The speed sensor mounts to the rear hub with a rubber strap. The cadence sensor mounts to the crank arm with another rubber strap. There is no receiver unit with this and that cleans up the chain stay quite nicely. Either way, you will have the same information going to the head unit. Any sensor will work as long as they are Ant+ compatible. Other units use Bluetooth, or other connectivity. Just check to make sure that all of your equipment will talk to each other before deciding to purchase.
Another piece that comes bundled with the Garmin units is a heart rate strap. This is a great way to keep track of what your heart is doing while working out. It also gives you a very good target to set for your intervals. There are many straps out there that will work, again, just make sure that they are compatible with your head unit. I have replaced the standard Garmin strap with a new Cycleops Powercal monitor that not only monitors my heart rate, but also gives an estimate of my power output. This is reportedly fairly accurate over a long ride, but is not of much use for short, hard efforts. However, for about $60.00, I can live with that versus $500+ for a dedicated power meter. That would be a much better option honestly, but I haven't made the plunge just yet.
That should be pretty much everything that you need to get the bike set up for your indoor trainer workouts. The nice thing about the Garmin units is that if you get the bundles, you have all the sensors included to make the unit effective for indoor training. Of course, all of the sensors are still very useful for road riding too, so don't think that that extra money is just for trainer season.
Setting Up Your Training Environment
Since I have only used Garmin equipment, what I will be talking about directly applies to them. I would assume that other websites would be about the same. When you purchase your Garmin device and set it up through the Garmin website www.connect.garmin.com, you are asked several biographical questions. Based on the answers to your age, weight, height, and activity level, Garmin assigns a max heart rate which is an average for your group. Averages are only right occasionally, and more often wrong. I think that based on my age, my max heart rate should be 184 bpm. Well, my own testing has put it 199 bpm, which is significantly different. On the other hand, I've seen the Garmin data way over the max heart rate of others. While this won't affect your riding, and you can still look at the numbers after a ride, if you are targeting a certain training zone, this will cause you to either not push enough, or push too hard. Your best bet is to establish your own training zones.
It is easier than it sounds, but will take a bit of effort in the saddle. You can Google "setting training zones" for different methods of getting the right numbers. Most are based on FTP, which is your functional threshold power. What I have done is to do my own field test on the trainer. After a brief warm up, I will have three different max intervals of 2 minutes each. I don't expect to stay in that max effort for all of that time, but I do want to go as hard as I can until I start to get dizzy and loose the ability to see clearly. Obviously, this is best done on the trainer. Out of the three intervals, I should be able to get to that point at least once, and that should be my max heart rate. When I start to get dizzy, that means that I am no longer able to pump enough blood to keep my brain fueled. I don't need to go any harder than that. After a brief recovery period, I will then do a 30 minute interval as hard as I can go for that time period. Essentially, this is a time trial pace for 30 minutes. The idea is to have a constant output for the entire 30 minutes. After the first 10 minutes, my body should have calmed down and settled into a steady rhythm. That is when I press the lap button resulting in a 20 minute segment that I can record an average heart rate. That is the number that I am interested in. I want to see that number equal to zone 4.4 or 4.5 when I get my zone map created. That is my threshold power, right between aerobic and anaerobic.
Once I have these numbers, I will input my max heart rate into the grid (pictured above, from Garmin's website). It will automatically fill in the remainder of the zones based on Garmin's percentages. Since I was setting up my heart rate map for use with the James Herrera interval sessions I had mentioned before, I decided to go with his percentages instead of Garmin's. Essentially, I can set the percentages to what I want them to be and Garmin will fill in the actual heart rate numbers in the left column. I've found that they work perfectly, not only for the intervals, but also on the road. It's nice to keep an accurate idea of how hard I'm working on the bike.
Once you have your heart rate map completed, you are all set to create your interval workouts with target heart rate zones. You will know exactly where you need to be for each workout, and if you have it programmed into your Garmin, it will alert you if you are outside of your intended zone.
For those training with power, you can also do similar things with the power map (pictured above). It is a little more intensive to get the zones created, and you have to adjust it regularly through the season as your fitness changes. While I have a power map completed, I use it primarily for intensity and training stress of my workouts. For these to be as accurate as possible, I do have to keep my functional threshold power (FTP) updated. For simplicity, not accuracy, I pay attention to my max average power over 20 minutes which is a metric available when recording power through the Garmin head unit. This will fluctuate according to my effort on a ride. When I know I've had a hard ride, and have pushed myself to the breaking point, I will see what that number is. That becomes my new FTP number.
Since I am using a heart rate based power meter and not a dedicated power meter, I don't put a lot of weight on these numbers, but they are good for comparison. With a dedicated power meter, you could be doing intervals based on power instead of heart rate. That is the most accurate way of doing intervals because it takes the variable of how you are feeling out of the equation. 300 watts is 300 watts no matter what you feel like. Heart rate can fluctuate with stress and illness, and is not always the best indicator of the work you are actually doing.
Conclusion
You can opt to spin on your trainer, and you will still burn calories, but you will be missing out on all the benefits from intervals. Plus, by doing intervals, you will be burning those calories much faster than by just spinning, so even if that is your only goal, you have the option of spending less time on the trainer with the same benefits. If you are not fond of just listening to music and letting a workout program guide you in your intervals, you do have other options. There are spin classes out there where you can do a veritable group ride indoors. You can also buy videos, much like any workout video, but directed at cyclists on their bikes. There are Internet subscriptions to web based workouts you can do. There is also an interactive "game" that can be played with virtual or real opponents called Zwift. All of these are designed to make the time pass quicker, and guide you through a workout in a pleasant way. Personally, I tend to lose my focus and can't hit my zones when I am watching a video. I like to embrace the suck and wait for the Garmin to beep at me and tell me what to do next for the workout. But then again, I am a glutton for punishment. However you make it work, if you can stick with an interval plan, you will be much stronger, or at the very least won't have lost any fitness from the previous year.
One last thought....if you are crazy enough to have read all of this, then you are crazy enough to create your own pain cave and suffer. ENJOY!!!
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