Using a Turbo in the summer

[Graham O]

All,

Interested in some advice. This year I have changed my cycling a little. Last year I used to do loads of commuting, whereas this year I am sticking to 3 rides per week in my own time. I am doing the the club run and rides on a tuesday and thursday.

Anyhow to my point. Over the winter, I started using a indoor trainer, just doing some simple reps. Once I found a way to overcome the boredom, I found it was very easy to make sessions progressively harder.

I basically built up to doing 5 mins off (in a lower gear) and 5 mins on (in a higher gear) four times. Once I got good at this I started to increase the on time and reduce the off time. Didn't get too far with this last bit this year but there you go.

Anyhow, since the evenings have started to get better I have been going out on rides. I did the trainer again last week and noticed that I couldn't do the same level as before, so had got less fit. This suggests that trainig on the turbo is much more effective.

Do people generally continue to use the turbo in the summer ?

If I start using the turbo again, my three sessions would be as follows.

1) Saturday Club run - hard as I can go (usally 3 - 4 hour riding)
2) Tuesday - Training ride for 1.5 hours going as fast as I can go. This generally leads to periods of going fast following by periods of recovering. Hopefully races at palace some weeks.
3) Thursday - Turbo

Target would be hogs hill / crystal palace and maybe a time trial...

Any thoughts ?

Ta,

Graham.

[huw williams]

[quote="Graham O"] Anyhow to my point. Over the winter, I started using a indoor trainer, just doing some simple reps. Once I found a way to overcome the boredom, I found it was very easy to make sessions progressively harder. I basically built up to doing 5 mins off (in a lower gear) and 5 mins on (in a higher gear) four times. Once I got good at this I started to increase the on time and reduce the off time. Didn't get too far with this last bit this year but there you go.

[color=#0040FF] This is the key to good training (especially on the turbo), it's called progressive overload. So you're thinking on the right lines. Try and go further with it. [/color]
Anyhow, since the evenings have started to get better I have been going out on rides. I did the trainer again last week and noticed that I couldn't do the same level as before, so had got less fit. This suggests that trainig on the turbo is much more effective. Do people generally continue to use the turbo in the summer ?
[color=#0040FF]Don't panic. if you've done no training on the turbo for ages you can't be expected to be so good at it. You'll soon get back in the groove and show improvements. The more serious riders' get about training, the more they'll use training aids such as turbos because it's easier to control and monitor the progressive overload. For example "hard as I can go (usally 3 - 4 hour riding)" doesn;t mean a great deal as one week the ride might be much harder than another, depending on your state of recovery and who else is in the group (although this is still a good session and should be continued). Turbo sessions allow you much greater control over the intensity (especially if you use HR/Power as a regulator. Rider's aiming to peak for the traditional summer season will be using turbos to add speed and power work into their training now as the main part of the season approaches and many do indeed keep using them through the summer, but not too often if there's a lot of racing going on. [/color]

If I start using the turbo again, my three sessions would be as follows.

1) Saturday Club run - hard as I can go (usally 3 - 4 hour riding)
2) Tuesday - Training ride for 1.5 hours going as fast as I can go. This generally leads to periods of going fast following by periods of recovering. Hopefully races at palace some weeks.
3) Thursday - Turbo

[color=#0040FF] Thursday could be a very specific progressive overload session on the turbo which would add a bit of structure and you'd have in the region of 6-7 hours per week of high intensity riding there, which is more than enough to get you round Hog Hill/Palace quite quickly if used correctly. I won't suggest any specific turbo sessions without knowing what kind of level you're already riding at which would give us an idea of what you need to do to improve, but if you're interested PM me and we'll put you through the mangle [/color]

H

[quote="Graham O"]I did the trainer again last week and noticed that I couldn't do the same level as before, so had got less fit.

[Graham O]

[quote="Toks"]
With only three sessions a week you need to be working at least moderatley hard in all your rides. The turbo is a very effective tool but at this time of the year unless your training time is very very limited get out on the road and ride hard gawd damn it

[Toks]

[quote="Graham O"]

I'd say that for the moment, I don't want to do much more as it would knacker my family life.