Top tips for better winter turbo training

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the weather starts to get worse, the roads are wet, and cleaning your bike regularly can be a bit of a pain. Additionally, with a second lockdown having just started and no group riding allowed, then training indoors can have some real benefits.

To get the most out of your turbo/indoor trainer and the training that you do, it’s worth getting a few things right, so that the time you spend training provides the most gains possible. Let’s look at some tips so that you get the most out of your training.

Goals
Each session should have a goal. Out in the real world it can be easy to just get on your bike and ride with no goal or structure in mind. Looking at the scenery can allow us to just float around taking it easy. On the trainer, our minds can wonder a little more - for most people it’s not as enjoyable as riding outdoors. Thus having a goal for the session is really important. This could vary from time based (e.g., ride for 75 minutes), through to doing certain intensities (such as complete 2 or 3 x 10-mins at FTP with 5-mins easy between), or something more challenging (such as expend 1000 calories of energy then ride as hard as you can for 5-mins).

Training Plan
Linked to the above is having a training plan whether it’s something you’ve created yourself, or something a coach has created for you. This will often be similar to the goals you may have above, and a good training plan will focus on helping you achieve your goals that you may have (such as increase FTP by 10% by April 2021, lose 2kg of fat by March, etc). Our HubCC coaching plan, detailed below, is a great introduction to coaching.

Turbo Equipment
Turbo trainers have changed significantly since I’ve been involved in cycling. They’ve gone from ‘A frame’ machines that wobble horrendously, and were extremely noisy through to all singing and all dancing electronic wheel-off trainers such as the Wahoo Kickr or Tacx Neo. Having the best turbo you can afford really will make a difference and make your indoor riding feel better. Turbos can now be linked to software such as Zwift or RGT which can provide an immersive environment to enable better training and a social aspect to what would be a solitary training session. You can also get additional hardware that simulates climbing gradients from Zwift, to add that extra bit of reality to your session.

Keep your Cool
Anyone who has ever ridden a turbo trainer for more than about 10 minutes will know, without doubt, that it’s an extremely sweaty activity! There’s no breeze blowing over you to keep you cool as there is outdoors and so your temperature increases and you sweat at a greater rate indoors. To a certain extent this can be counteracted by having a fan or two blowing air over you to try and keep you cool. Just recently NoPinz have introduced cycle clothing that actively cools you down and was designed to reduce overheating.

Stay Warm
On the other hand, there is evidence showing that exercising in hot temperatures creates additional physiological adaptations to training in the cold. These include greater heat tolerance, higher energy expenditure, and increased mitochondrial biogenesis (mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell). What I’d suggest is that most training sessions are done in cycle shorts and a vest/sports bra and/or cycling jersey and that you should simply get used to the heat. However, if you do some indoor racing I’d say that this would be an ideal time to use the cooling clothing from NoPinz, or for occasional indoor long rides which may be thermally challenging. It goes without saying that if you feel dizzy or unwell, you should stop riding, and find a cool place to recover in.

Testing
Like the rest of the year, testing is important if you want to make real gains. Too often, athletes will take it easy in the off-season, let their fitness decline and then come some spring testing or their first race find that they’re nowhere near where they need to be. Regular testing can spot where you may be slacking, and give you the metaphorical kick that you need to pull your finger out and get on with some quality training. Your testing should encompass a variety of different metrics on a regular or semi-regular basis, such as once every 4 to 8 weeks.

Nutrition
Just like training hard outdoors, you’ll need nutrition indoors as well for some sessions. Typically, if your indoor session is no longer than 90-minutes in duration then just drinking water should be fine. However, once you start going over that duration either some sort of electrolyte drink, or carbohydrate-electrolyte drink and some food will become increasingly important. The first time I used gels indoors felt a little strange to me, but now seems second nature. For many of us, indoor training can be harder than outdoors so you shouldn’t feel a sense of failure about having to eat for indoor sessions. For fluid intake you should be looking at around 500 to 750 mL per hour.

Ride Long
If the weather was perfect and you had the time, you’d want to include a long ride on a weekly basis. The endurance it builds, and the mental strength you develop as well as physiological adaptations such as mitochondrial biogenesis is important. Likewise, it’s entirely possible to do long rides indoors. Thermally it can be a challenge, and it may well be more boring, but a long ride every week should very well be doable.

Race
At the very least racing on Zwift or RGT should be done once per month to help keep you sharp. There’s no need to taper for these events (unless they were your main race goals) so going into them with some fatigue is fine. In lieu of racing you could substitute in specific hard efforts such as VO2max efforts around 4 minutes in duration, or some shorter, harder more anaerobic efforts over 30 seconds. For most athletes, occasional year round high intensity work is crucial, and this becomes even more important the older you become (e.g., for anyone 30 plus).

Strength and conditioning work
The evidence for including strength work to help with aerobic cycling (any cycling event that lasts longer than 90-seconds) is equivocal. However, being more athletic and having more all round strength can help prevent you from being very one-dimensional (I’m looking at cyclists here more than triathletes!). An all round strength routine that uses body weight exercises can be very beneficial, as can other supplemental work such as yoga. Including exercises, such as push ups, sit ups, unweighted squats, burpees, planks etc would very much help with this.

HubCC
Taking all of these training factors into account can be challenging, especially when you’re juggling work and family commitments too. Our £25 a month online-plan will tailor training sessions to your 2021 goals, as well as offering an online community to share ideas with. Our website (or link in our Instagram bio) will give you more information, and details on how to start with us. We also offer one-to-one coaching if this is your preference.

Hopefully, these tips will help make indoor training more enjoyable for you. Should you wish for a bit more motivation then I can often be found riding on Zwift or RGT - feel free to join me.

Want to dial in your training to a higher level so that you can smash 2021? Then sign up for HubCC Coaching here, or one to one coaching here