3 Indoor Trainer Workouts That Will Make You Faster Come Spring

Feb 4th, 2010 | By coolbiking | Category: Cycling Tips

By Winston Endall

Rather than spending endless winter hours on the trainer doing slow, base training, focus on quality workouts that will build speed, threshold power and aerobic capacity. The idea that some how hard training limits you ability to develop your base fitness has no merit. There isn’t some magical fitness that comes from doing a lot of so called base training. Analogies about the wider the base (the more moderate aerobic miles) the higher the peak don’t play out in real life like has been pushed on us for years.

There is a need for longer training if you do longer races or Ironman triathlons but it doesn’t mean you have to spend endless hours on the trainer. Let’s be completely honest here, if you are anything like me, long outdoor rides are awesome but spending much more than 90 minutes on the trainer is mentally draining and hard on your butt. Distance is easy to build but speed takes time so putting the time into getting faster will pay off in spades next spring.

The training adaptations that you get from progressively longer aerobic riding can be attained with less time training doing various Stacked Workouts. These are sessions with more than one type of workout stacked together. Because we hit more than one system in a single workout you get a synergy effect.

Cardio builder Stack

15 Minute Warm-up with 3 X 30 second accelerations
3 X 10 minute time trials (105 % of threshold power or as hard as you can for the time duration – Cadence of 90-100) with 15 second Sprint finish
3 minute easy spin recovery between efforts
8 X 20 seconds all out – cadence 90-100/ 10 seconds recovery
10 minute Cool Down
Total Time: 64 min

Speed builder Stack

15 minute Warm-up with 3 X 30 second accelerations
3 X Acceleration Ladders (accelerate as fast as you can in a hard gear hitting a high cadence of 120-140 rpm)
5 seconds Hard / 5 seconds easy
10 seconds hard / 10 seconds easy
20 seconds hard / 20 seconds easy
30 seconds hard / 30 seconds easy
3 minutes recovery between Sets – you can stretch out the recovery a few seconds to make the timing land on the minute
3 X Stomp Sets
10 X 10 second Seated Sprint / 20 second Recovery
3 minute recovery between sets
10 minute cool-down
Total Time: 64.5 minutes

Fatigue Resistance Builder Stack

15 minute Warm-up with 3 X 30 second accelerations
4 X 30 seconds Acceleration ( 140 % threshold power / hard attack and hold) / 90 second recovery
4 minute recovery
20 Muscle Fatigue Time Trial (90-100% threshold power at 75-80rpms)
4 minute recovery
4 X 30 seconds Acceleration ( 140 % threshold power / hard attack and hold) / 90 second recovery
10 minute cool down
Total Time: 69 minutes

Overview

Depending on your recovery ability you can do 2-3 sessions like these per week with 60 minute moderate aerobic rides on days in between. You make a lot of progress from workouts like these as long as you recover. When you are needing a heavier load do the Cardio Builder one day and the Speed workout the next. Training blocks like this are not something you want to do very often but can be the thing to bust through a training plateau.

Winter Cycling Workout

–About–

By Winston Endall – My name is Winston Endall. i’m a bike shop owner and cycling coach. Over the last 12 years I’ve worked developing my Speed Factory Training System to allow real people like you to maximize their fitness. My system lets people with jobs and families build a high level of cycling performance with the minimum time spent each week. Speed Factory combines bike workouts, cross-training and flexibility work to make you a stronger overall athlete in as little as 4 hours per week. For more information go to my site http://www.cyclecambridge.com

Source: Cool Biking Zone – Your source for great cycling, sports and fitness articles!

Liked this article? Read another similar article.

Cool Biking Zone Recommends

Leave Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.