Chris Carmichael DVD's

I use them quite a bit and have no complaints. I get good results from the workouts. They come in pretty handy when I can only train when it's dark out, or when the weather isn't playing along. For a longer workout, I have added more warm up like a 30 minute cadence ladder, an extended tempo interval, or just more cool down time. Other times I just played back through them again back to back or just to repeat the intervals portion. That is where the DVD version comes in pretty handy; it makes it really easy to do. This week I have been using them for a pre-dawn ride to supplement my lunchhour hammerfest.

The CTS climbing video came with my trainer, and it was a good workout but I don't use it anymore. If you're to the point where you're making up your own workouts for specific training purposes, then the video would be merely entertainment (in place of music etc.). I feel it helped me that first year on the trainer.

franco1 said:

I would like to know if anyone has these DVD's and have found them benefical.
I train in my study and usually just use my pc to listen to music, so perhaps Chris DVD might be worth it then rather?

If you're in a groove training to music then you may not need the motivation. I have one of his Dvds and find it really motivational. It helps maximize my training effort.
I also have eight or ten of Troy Jacobson's Spinerval Dvds and I like them a helluva lot, in particular his 90-minute time trial (I forget the proper title).

rule62 said:

I use them quite a bit and have no complaints. I get good results from the workouts. They come in pretty handy when I can only train when it's dark out, or when the weather isn't playing along. For a longer workout, I have added more warm up like a 30 minute cadence ladder, an extended tempo interval, or just more cool down time. Other times I just played back through them again back to back or just to repeat the intervals portion. That is where the DVD version comes in pretty handy; it makes it really easy to do. This week I have been using them for a pre-dawn ride to supplement my lunchhour hammerfest.

Thanks for the reply, winter is setting in over here and I've been on my wind trainer for a month now.

I do intervals on Tuesday and Thursday and they are 2 hours long. So the DVD being 60min long was one concern and having read Joe Friel, Edward Burke (I think that was his surname, sorry if its wrong) and Chris books.

I structured my 2hr intervals for eg. 3 sets of 4 x 4min with rest and they
usually let the time go by, so maybe I'm expecting to learn more or see something in it which I might be missing in my training at the moment.

franco1 said:

So the DVD being 60min long was one concern ....

I don't know about all of Charmichael's offerings, but Jacobson has them of varying lengths. I also have his 2-hour and his 3-hour Dvds (He has others as short as 45 minutes.)

http://www.spinervals.com/