staving off the boredom of indoor trainer workouts

[matt s]

I'm a late convert to maintaining fitness over the winter using the turbo trainer. It can be very effective, I've realised, with a heartrate monitor.
But it is always pretty tedious, even with the radio playing and your heartrate to monitor. I have a couple of my own routines for a 30-40 minute workout, but if anyone out there has some of their own they're willing to share, I'd love to hear about them. My own current favourite is the criss-cross lactate threshold thing - if anyone's interested, let me know.
Anything to liven up the prospect of another session of going nowhere fast!
Thanks, Matt

 

[djg21]

Anything to liven up the prospect of another session of going nowhere fast!
Thanks, Matt

I use the Spinervals and CTS videos.

Spinervals publishes workouts of the week that is available at:

http://www.spinervals.com/spinlive.asp

You may give those a try if you have the gumption to do them on your own.

 

[matt s]

Dear djg21
Thanks for that url and tips. Looks useful.
Although I slightly doubt I'll be getting off the bike to perform vertical jumps as recommended this week!
My own latest discovery is a 'criss-cross LT' workout. I won't bore you with details unless you specifically want them.
Best, Matt

 

[ouzo]

Would love to hear about your criss cross lt work out.

I normaly do a 20 - 25 minute ride in the morning maintaning 60 - 70 % HR. This is normaly at about 80cadence

In the evening I do sprint training.
- 5 minute warm up
- 15 second flat out sprint
- 4m45s easy ride (normaly 70-80 RPM)
- 15 second flat our sprint
and so on until you dont have time left, then do a 5 minute cool down. I normaly only do between 30 and 45 minutes though.

 

[matt s]

Man, you are keen: two sessions a day!
I should work on my sprints, I know - I'll give that one a try.

As for the criss-cross thing, it works like this: I'm assuming for this purpose that lactate threshold is around 88-95% of your MHR. The purists will jump on me for saying that: some will say you should determine it by doing a 30-min TT test; others that you can't base it on HR at all, but on a power measurement. Only owning an ancient HRM, I'm stuck with the low-tech approach, and I find 88-95% of MHR functions just fine for this workout.
So, set your HRM with lower limit at approx 88% and upper limit at 95%, then (if you feel you have a reliable LT number, then lower is 8-10 below, upper 5-7 above)...

5-10 mins warm-up, winding it up until you're in the zone (at my age, that's 155bpm).
Then accelerate gradually over approx 2 mins until the alarm goes off at the upper limit (170bpm for me).
Then wind down gradually over 2 mins until you're back down to the lower limit.
Then back up again. Repeat until you're fed up/knackered. 30 mins is plenty.

The good thing about it is, I guess, that it replicates somewhat the accelerations and plateaus of actual racing, while at the same time making you work pretty hard at near-to-maximal aerobic level.
Let me know how it works for you.

Happy sweating!

 

[ouzo]

Originally posted by matt s
Man, you are keen: two sessions a day!
I should work on my sprints, I know - I'll give that one a try.

As for the criss-cross thing, it works like this: I'm assuming for this purpose that lactate threshold is around 88-95% of your MHR. The purists will jump on me for saying that: some will say you should determine it by doing a 30-min TT test; others that you can't base it on HR at all, but on a power measurement. Only owning an ancient HRM, I'm stuck with the low-tech approach, and I find 88-95% of MHR functions just fine for this workout.
So, set your HRM with lower limit at approx 88% and upper limit at 95%, then (if you feel you have a reliable LT number, then lower is 8-10 below, upper 5-7 above)...

5-10 mins warm-up, winding it up until you're in the zone (at my age, that's 155bpm).
Then accelerate gradually over approx 2 mins until the alarm goes off at the upper limit (170bpm for me).
Then wind down gradually over 2 mins until you're back down to the lower limit.
Then back up again. Repeat until you're fed up/knackered. 30 mins is plenty.

The good thing about it is, I guess, that it replicates somewhat the accelerations and plateaus of actual racing, while at the same time making you work pretty hard at near-to-maximal aerobic level.
Let me know how it works for you.

Happy sweating!

sounds like I'm going to have to rig up a fan to keep me cool during this one. I sweat easily and my sweat towel is normaly drenched after my sprint workout, but staying in the upper HR like this is going to take some work. I'll give it a try and let you know how it works out. But as you say,a nd as it looks to me, it simulates my race HR pretty well.

Thanks for that.