Indoor Trainers - Could it Be the Missing Link of Your Cycling Programme?

Another option is to go to a spinning class. These are a lot more realistic from a cycling perspective and there is the motivation that commits you to a 45-60 minute session. You just will not leave after 15 minutes of suffering when 20 other people are going to be looking at you leave. The only downside here is that you need to wait for a class which might not be convenient with your time schedule. Then there are indoor trainers. These are bicycle stands to which you connect your bicycle and then you can cycle in your living room. They also normally have some form of roller that tries to stop your back wheel from turning thus creating the impression that you are cycling up a hill.

Indoor Trainer Types

The different forms of rollers distinguish the different types of trainers. The main types that are currently available are:

Wind Trainers – Here the roller turns a fan of blades that then create air resistance.
Magnetic Trainers – Here magnets pass each other to form resistance. These also normally have a control unit to control the amount of resistance.
Fluid Trainers – These trainers use a fluid in a sealed chamber to provide the resistance when a fan tries to turn in the fluid. These trainers normally feel very realistic when compared to cycling on the road.
Virtual Reality Trainers – These normally have motorised rollers that are connected to a computer and provide a complete cycling simulation. The computer will then either tell the roller to give resistance or to roll the back wheel depending on whether the cyclist is going up a hill or down a hill.

Training Theory

Training for cycling follows a series of sessions that load your muscles and then lets them recover. It is this recovery phase after the strenuous breakdown that rebuilds them stronger than before. Thus you get faster and stronger.

If you do not exert yourself you just maintain your current fitness state and thus there is no improvement. The section below contains two workouts to get you started.

Keeping training sessions interesting is especially important with indoor trainers. It is easy to wake up in the morning and decide that you could rather do with another hour of sleep than an hour on a trainer. Below are some tips to keep your training on track:

Decide on a big goal when you start. For example pick a section of road that you would like to cycle in a certain time or a race that you want to complete in a certain time and work towards these.
Write down your sessions on a calendar over a series of weeks and keep these realistic. It doesn’t help thinking that you can train for 15 hours a week when you can realistically only put in 10 hours with your work and family commitments. It will also be very discouraging when you are 3 hours short for the week. You should also consider fatigue. It doesn’t help over training yourself which will only lead to injury and illness from a low immune system.
Try to have challenge sessions every once in a while to keep track of your progress over the weeks but don’t get discouraged if you don’t improve over a certain week. Remember it might be fatigue setting in if you over do it.
Keep sessions interesting by purchasing a DVD set of a TV series that you like. You can then watch an episode with each session. Just remember that you should be training during these sessions so don’t just cycle with no training goals when watching TV.
You can also keep things interesting with music. Choose a series of songs with differing tempos that you can use for interval sessions. Slow relaxed songs can help you rest and faster more upbeat songs can help you get over those hard power intervals. Load these onto your MP3 player and then listen to these when cycling.
Get out onto the road each week for one or two long rides with friends. This will help keep things interesting as well give you a form of gauge to see how you progress against your friends. It will also remind you of why you work so hard during those indoor sessions. Just enjoy the rides.

Workouts

Here is a workout to help you improve your Speed on the Bike:

Warm up on your trainer for 20 to 30 minutes at a moderate intensity
3 intervals of 30secs each, pedalling with as much power as possible followed by a 4m30s rest after each
3 intervals of 20secs each, pedalling with as much power as possible followed by a 4m40s rest after each
3 intervals of 10secs each, pedalling with as much power as possible followed by a 4m50s rest after each
Cool down for 15 minutes at the end

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Indoor Trainers – Could it Be the Missing Link of Your Cycling Programme?

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