Indoor trainer?

Hi Everyone,
Is it harder on your body riding on the road as opposed to an indoor trainer.

 

Thats pretty subjective. I ride hours longer out on the road than on my trainer, but it's fun, I do more work, burn more calories, use more muscles. So to me outside usually feels easier. The trainer, for me, is just for specific high intensity workouts or as a cruch when the weather sucks. Plus I end up not moveing aorund nearly as much because balance is not a factor, thus my rear finds the trainer harder on it, because I usually sit longer in the same position.

As far as energy output, if you put out a 1 hour effort on a trainer at 250 watts average or a 1 hour effort outside riding for an average of 250 watts output, I would guess that you would use a little more enegy outside because of small muscle and balance movements. But it would be a nearly insignificant amount, with the exception being if your outside ride happened to be Paris-Roubaix. Then without a doubt your energy output would be much higher, and the ride much harder on the body!

 

outddoor is real, indoor is cardio.............

When you're outdoors your mind, and body work together. giving you a real work ou, you're in motion
indoors you're like well trying to simulate but only heating up the air you're in. great for the heart no matter what way you look at it.

 

indoors is boring as batshit...but as you cannot freewheel, you can't cheat and MUST put effort into the entire pedal stroke, so for cardio and leg muscles workout (as well as glutes, etc) I would classify it as heaps better value than the road.
But enjoyment factor- ZERO

 

I train a lot indoors. Proably 80% of my riding is done on a trainer or rollers. I also race and do group rides (outside of course) so I can see which type of training helps the most.

As someone who does most big efforts out of the saddle, rocking the bike, outdoors usually works more muscles. there are a lot of short steep climbs in my area and they offer resistance that even the fanciest of trainers can't offer. I have to ride outside to hone my sprint as indoors doesn't do anything for it.

indoors you can't rock the bike so you are limited to what muscles you can work. even the trainers that allegedly allow you to rock the bike (the Technogym comes to mind) made it feel like you were riding a flexy pogo stick, not on the road.

on a trainer I can't make prolonged high-resistance efforts without hurting my knees, but I can do them on the road. I think the rocking when outside allows me to align my knees better.

I am much more tired when I ride outside after a lot of indoor work, i.e. it's harder outside. But when I'm tired, I can goof off much better when I'm outside, i.e. it's easier outside.

indoor riding does not allow you to discover different, efficient pedaling form and position. At the tail end of a 6 hour road ride, you learn to optimize everything in a way that is not possible during, say, a 2 hour ride. The trainer does not allow you to go through this discovery period since your bike is relatively fixed.

I do find the trainer useful in position experimenting, equipment experimenting, etc. Testing things before going out on the road is nice.

My indoor rides are typically 1-2.5 hours, 1-2 hours being the norm. My outdoor rides are either a race (1 hour or so), group rides (2-2.5 hours), or "long" rides (2.5-7 hours).

I find most efficient:
easiest - outside
moderate - inside
hardest - outside

hope this helps,
cdr

 

Harder on the body? In of itself, is riding on the trainer harder - no. Many studies of real value are conducted on ergometers, which are obviously indoors. Anyway, changes related to inertia make the pedal motion a bit different and more demanding, unless you have a huge flywheel on the trainer.

Harder on the mind? Absolutely and what taxes the mind, usually will filter its way to the body quite readily. Some adapt or entertain themselves better than others, but for the vast majority of humanity, riding outdoors is far more stimulating/interesting than indoors. (Spare me the drafting behind the biker chick jokes)

I do one and only one kind of riding on the trainer....Level 4 intervals. Everything else I do outside, regardless of weather. The longest I've ever ridden the trainer for, at any one time, is an hour and 10 minutes. That's plenty for me.

 

How about rollers when compared with so called trainers?

How do you decide b/n the two as an indoor adjunct on foul weather days?

 

The trainer is harder on the body, so make sure you have plenty of chamois butt'r handy.

 

To save starting another thread!!!


My biggest complaint on riding a trainer is the darn wheelslip. But if given the choice of riding two hours in sub 30 weather orriding the trainer-I'll ride indoors. My question is: do the trainer tires have more traction than road tires? I realize theres NO WAY to eliminate slippage, I just want to reduce it so that NM or other types of workouts can be done better on the trainer.

I am also thinking about restructuring those short interval workouts so that I warm up say on the rollers in my riding kit (sans jacketbooties, etc) and then going outdoors just long enough to pound out a few intervals close to home. That way I am only outdoors maybe 40 minutes.

Ray

 

I would think that if you went outside after warming up it would be a hell of a lot more cold. Especially if you break a sweat. Its like jumping out of a hot tub into a pool.

 

I did this the other the other day so I could do a sprint workout (I can't generate enough power sprinting on a trainer). During the indoor warm-up I still used a fan so I wouldn't build up any sweat. Then I put my winter clothes on and headed outside where it was 34°F/1°C. It actually felt good, even though it was way past my usual temperature threshold (I'm a weather weenie ). Probably because my body was already generating it's own heat from the warm-up.

My body and head stayed warm for the rest of time outside (~30 min). Only my fingers got cold in the last 10 minutes. Then I came back in and cooled down on the trainer. It actually worked out quite well!

Here's my blog entry on it:
http://www.uhlalbert.com/couple/2006/12/cold_sprints.html

 

Thanks-great to read it worked for you. Now i need studded snow tires-a lot of snow just fell here in Cleve-burg.

And I agree-it pisses me off to see the lowly number on the PT after a max efforton a trainer. Not to mention sprinting is so freaking much fun to do!!!!!!

With practice I am sure you could sprint to your peak on the e-motion rollers, but thats a lot of money!!!

My other small issue is just getting back in-I dont have enough cold weather gear like balaclava or a thin skull cap to go under my helmet, etc. Hey its only money right lol