The Dreaded Winter - Indoor Training Only

I don't have the weather problem like you, so can't speak from that perspective.

But I'll add in my 2 cents....

1. don't be overly concerned with hitting a modest CTL plateau. Quality over quantity when stuck indoors.
2. use the time wisely to maintain/develop fitness
3. consider 2-a-day efforts on weekends to break up the time on turbo into manageable chunks of L2 time
4. given you use a CT, then investment in motivational aids such as favourite course ergs etc might be helpful.
5. can you plan a trip somewhere more favourable as a motivation part way through winter for 3-4 days of solid riding?

+1 on Alex's reply.

In addition, great strategy to plan for indoor riding on the weekends, with the bonus being that you get to go outdoors, weather permitting.

Have you tested for your FTP indoors? Since nearly all of your riding will be indoors, you should test your FTP indoors, so that your TSS might be a bit more accurate.

Porkyboy said:

Hi

Sorry for the length of this posting, try not to be put off, I wanted to make my quandary as clear as I could :o

I wonder if anyone out there can give me some sound advice. I'm looking for someone who is very experienced, very knowledgeable, very well trained, and very helpful :-)

I'm also looking for someone who has achieved personally, or has seen someone else achieve, a very high level of performance living in a climate where the late Autumn, Winter, and early Spring mean you are stuck indoors because of the weather and can't reliably get out onto the road, basically you are stuck with your turbo trainer for 3-4 months.

Ok, I'm sure that narrows it down a bit! Seriously, can you help me, this is where I stand.

50 years old.
FTP 305.
CompuTrainer user.
Current CTL about 80.
Planning to train 8-12 hours per week.
Main events are long hilly sportives, looking to finish in top 10%.
Based in UK where weather is very unpredictable at this time of year.

What I've been doing is planning my training on the basis of L3/SST/L4 stuff indoors during the week and then trying to get out at the weekends and my longer weekend rides form a very significant part of my planned CTL build. What happens all too often is that the weekend rides, and therefore my training load, gets wrecked by bad weather. This weekend has brought this to a head with Saturday and Sunday being written off with the temperature not rising above zero, the roads are just too icy and dangerous particularly as I live in a pretty rural area.

I find when this happens that it's a very negative experience and what I want to do is develop a plan whereby practically 100% of my training is indoors and my CTL build is based in the presumption that I will NOT be able to get out rather than the presumption that I will. I reckon this way around if I can get out it's a bonus and a positive rather than the very regular negative experiences of frost, ice, snow, etc. mucking my plans up.

So, can anyone who's living in a similar situation offer me any general advice on the best type of structure for a planned 100% indoor schedule for the forthcoming months? The "problem" I seem to face it that as far as I can see it's going to be very difficult riding indoors with a 300+ FTP to be able to meet the right sort of volumes required to raise my CTL very much over the next few months, I find that my CTL rises so much more readily when I can get outside.

Is it just a matter of maintaining rather than building? What do those say who have years of experience of indoor only Winter training? How can I make the very best of the next few months. Fundamentally I'm looking for experienced help and advice to make the Winter a positive rather than a negative experience, if possible!

Thanks is advance.

Q

already sent you info last year which suits this situation perfectly ... I've been training 95%+ indoors for eons and seriously the past six years ..

Hi Alex

Alex Simmons said:

I don't have the weather problem like you, so can't speak from that perspective.

But I'll add in my 2 cents....

1. don't be overly concerned with hitting a modest CTL plateau. Quality over quantity when stuck indoors.
2. use the time wisely to maintain/develop fitness
3. consider 2-a-day efforts on weekends to break up the time on turbo into manageable chunks of L2 time
4. given you use a CT, then investment in motivational aids such as favourite course ergs etc might be helpful.
5. can you plan a trip somewhere more favourable as a motivation part way through winter for 3-4 days of solid riding?

Thanks very much for the input, appreciated.

Q

Hi Steve

Fightin Boba said:

+1 on Alex's reply.

In addition, great strategy to plan for indoor riding on the weekends, with the bonus being that you get to go outdoors, weather permitting.

Have you tested for your FTP indoors? Since nearly all of your riding will be indoors, you should test your FTP indoors, so that your TSS might be a bit more accurate.

I hope the indoors only plan and outdoors if I'm lucky with the weather will make things on balance feel more positive, I'll let you know!

I did my most recent FTP test indoors on the CompuTrainer so I'm Ok on that front, though I wasn't at the time! 😉

Cheers,

Q

Hi

rmur17 said:

already sent you info last year which suits this situation perfectly ... I've been training 95%+ indoors for eons and seriously the past six years ..

WHAT!? I honestly have no recollection of ever asking the question before, I must have lost more grey cells than I thought and I thought I'd lost a few. I've checked my PMs and there's one from you in there on another subject but nothing on this one, not managed to turn it up on a search either so not sure where to turn.

Don't suppose you can shed any further light on this? I don't want to put you to any trouble but if you could point me towards your previous input I'd be grateful :o

Cheers,

Q

I do most of my training indoors as I'm a working dad with 3 young uns so during the week it's all turbo, all year round. And that's in Australia, where it stays pretty warm at night.

The main issue is comfort and motivation. A good training plan is useless if you can't face the bike for lack of stimulation or comfort.

If you haven't got the biggest mother of a fan, you're not giving yourself the best chance. You would be amazed at the difference in comfort between a standard pedestal fan and an industrial pedestal fan with a 3-prop blade which looks like it's just come off a Lancaster. The sheer flow of air over a large portion of your body (head and torso) is unbeatable. Smaller fans might cool the face or chest, but my big fella blows me backwards. Almost.

Then you need to keep the brain occupied. I don't know where you ride but since you have a Computrainer I'm guessing you have a PC. If you have a PC you probably have a DVD drive. Watch Tour de France videos, TV shows you've hired o DVD, films, anything to keep you amused. I find TV shows and movies work best when the workload is more steady ie SST or tempo, whereas there's nothing like following Carlos or Cadel or even (insert breakaway-winning rider's name here) to keep you going through the V)2 max intervals. You can't concentrate on Dr Who when you're writhing in agony on the bike and not listening.

Which brings me to... headphones. You won't hear a thing with the fan on so unless you want to irritate the whole street by having the volume on full (my wife and kids could tell what I was watching through several brick walls to the garage!). Get some big comfy cans with a decent seal around yer lugoles to keep windrush sound out. Noise-cancelling ones would be ideal, though I have some cheap ones and I'm not convinced of their cancelling abilities. The seal is good though, so I can hear. I sip a couple of pieces of loo roll over my ear to absorb sweat.

You need a toilet roll next to you for nose-blowing duties and to wipe sweat, and I regularly clear a mountain of tissues off the floor. You'll also need food and energy drinks - just because you're indoors it doesn't mean you won't deplete the ole glycogen.

And the final touch - a gel saddle cover. It makes an enormous difference when you're on your butt almost all the ride. Lower the seat cos these things are quite thick, but they're well worth it. Chamois cream is a must too, as you only get out of the seat when you choose to.

Right, now for work-outs. This is quite simple. I mix SST with tempo with L4, but from your posts and current ability you know what you're doing with these. Throw in a few VO2 max sessions and for fun some anaerobic goodness, but to build up CTL you're looking at 2hr steady sessions. I find 4x15min SST sessions quite beneficial, and if you can push them out to 6 at the weekend then you'll be well weary at the finish. Otherwise I try to manage 90mins in tempo plus WU and CD. SST and tempo will build CTL without taking too much wind out of your sails, but you'll need to listen to your body to determine when to take a week easy. A week of 45min-1hr recovery a few times a week provides as much a mental break as physical.

Enjoy yourself, I'll be thinking of you as I whirr away indoors!

Alex Simmons said:

1. don't be overly concerned with hitting a modest CTL plateau. Quality over quantity when stuck indoors.
2. use the time wisely to maintain/develop fitness
3. consider 2-a-day efforts on weekends to break up the time on turbo into manageable chunks of L2 time
4. given you use a CT, then investment in motivational aids such as favourite course ergs etc might be helpful.
5. can you plan a trip somewhere more favourable as a motivation part way through winter for 3-4 days of solid riding?

Listen to Alex. He's smart! 😄 Seriously, I've done the things that I highlighted above and I totally agree.

For #1, IMHO, focusing too much on CTL is not a good idea. You need CTL, of course, but it's not the only thing that matters. Consider re-spinning your plan with a more modest CTL goal in mind if you think that you are relying too much on outdoor stuff that is unlikely to happen.

However, if you insist...

For #5, consider Spain: Majorca, the Costa del Sol or Tenerife in the Canary Islands. I can tell you Majorca is loaded with Brits and Germans. Even though airline ticket prices are a big guessing game right now, it can't be that much money to fly from the UK to Majorca given its popularity. There's something to be said for a place where you can fly to in the early morning and be on the bike by noon. You can rack up some serious TSS for a week in the sun and even with some recovery time afterwards, you'll still have a very good CTL bump as a result.

Or maybe Alex needs a new neighbor in Sydney....😉

grahamspringett said:

Then you need to keep the brain occupied.

IMO, this is the biggest challenge of indoor training. In the US, we have a through-the-post DVD rental service called Netflix and I keep them busy keeping up with me.🙂

Graham

grahamspringett said:

I do most of my training indoors as I'm a working dad with 3 young uns so during the week it's all turbo, all year round. And that's in Australia, where it stays pretty warm at night. ...**snip**... Enjoy yourself, I'll be thinking of you as I whirr away indoors!

Thank you very much for taking the time to share all this experience, it's greatly appreciated and it will be put to good use.

Regards,

Q

Porkyboy said:

Hi

WHAT!? I honestly have no recollection of ever asking the question before, I must have lost more grey cells than I thought and I thought I'd lost a few. I've checked my PMs and there's one from you in there on another subject but nothing on this one, not managed to turn it up on a search either so not sure where to turn.

Don't suppose you can shed any further light on this? I don't want to put you to any trouble but if you could point me towards your previous input I'd be grateful :o

Cheers,

Q

maybe I'm thinking of the calibration file I sent you! Sorry about that :o ... I'll drop you the file via email.

grahamspringett said:

....there's nothing like following Carlos or Cadel or even (insert breakaway-winning rider's name here)

Has Cadel ever been in a race winning breakaway? 😉 You could put a mirror opposite your bike and perfect the "I'm Cadel and have a face of pain" look whilst riding at 20 mph. :p

Personally, the only entertainment I can deal with on a bike is music and even then it has to be something fairly fast and aggressive. I have a cheap mp3 player and some in-ear headphones (but the ones with the headband and not the ones that rely on friction to stay in as those don't work too well when wet...)

A big fan is a must. You might not need it on the highest setting all the time but there's no need for added thermal stress and sweating like a pig on a roasting stick. If you start sweating too much then that's your cue to turn up the fan.

A huge towel, for me anyway, works better then those rather silly looking and expensive "sweat catchers". Drape it over the front half of the bike. For me it does three things. It's handy for wiping of sweat, it stops the bike from being covered in sweat and rusting and it also stops the fan from blowing on my legs - I hate cold legs on the trainer, I dunno why, but it's a personal pet peave. Racing around the Trough of Bowland in a hailstorm in March freezing cold is fun - cold legs in the garage... NO!

You can look for other things to concentrate on whilst on a trainer that are often more difficult to do whilst out on the road. Working on your bike position, learning to ride on the drops or tr-bars is a bit more challenging as you don't have the added support of the "wind pressure" that you'd get when outdoors - but you can have a cleverly positioned mirror or if you're fancy a video camera and tv when you're indoors. Instead of spending all the time looking for ways to improve the number of watts you can crank out - you can also look for ways to save those watts too. If you can ride for an hour straight with hands on the drops with a nice flat back on the trainer then chances are you can ride like that for a few hours out on the road.

Hi

rmur17 said:

maybe I'm thinking of the calibration file I sent you! Sorry about that :o ... I'll drop you the file via email.

Ah yes, I've got that message still. Please don't apologise, not necessary at all, you should see the corkers I do sometimes. I once sent an email to person A saying what a pain in the a**e person B was. Problem was, you've guessed it, it went to person B's email address. Now that took real talent :eek:

What did I do? Picked up the phone to person B and said sorry.

Cheers,

Q

Porkyboy said:

Hi

Ah yes, I've go that message still. Please don't apologise, not necessary at all, you should see the corkers I do sometimes. I once sent an email to person A saying what a pain in the a**e person B was. Problem was, you've guessed it, it went to person B's email address. Now that took real talent :eek:

What did I do? Picked up the phone to person B and said sorry.

Cheers,

Q

Ah okay. We're all capable of making mistakes! No problem

rmur17 said:

Ah okay. We're all capable of making mistakes! No problem

Yup, my problem is they never seem to be small ones! 😄

Q

porkyboy i feel your pain.
the uk is a hellish place to be a cyclist. training takes a lot of motivation at the best of times, but factor in near-freezing temps, rain and, well, it's the wonder we ever get out in winter. there are 2 kinds of days i think...clear and utterly freezing, or cloudy, milder and wet. (a lose-lose situation!)

i tend to go in for a sort of "semi reverse-periodisation" of my training. it just makes more sense to be doing all the high intensity turbo based interval work during the winter, and leaving slower road based stuff for warmer days. in a twisted kinda way i think that you can land in march or april with the same sort of FTP whether you do the base miles in the cold months then ramp up the intensity in the spring, or do the intensity now and then wind it down a bit to recover some freshness as spring arrives.

the road will never be totally avoidable though... muscle recruitment on the turbo seem to be very different to the variability of real terrain and if you dont aim for at least one road ride every week then there is a danger the numbers will look very good on the turbo but when you get out on the road in a competitive situation a "mysterious" absence of form will be experienced.

robkit said:

....the road will never be totally avoidable though... muscle recruitment on the turbo seem to be very different to the variability of real terrain and if you dont aim for at least one road ride every week then there is a danger the numbers will look very good on the turbo but when you get out on the road in a competitive situation a "mysterious" absence of form will be experienced.

That certainly hasn't been my experience. If you're targeting variable riding (like crits) then train that way on the turbo with HOP style microintervals. But there's nothing intrinsically different in terms of how you use your muscles assuming your position and bike fit are the same indoors and out.

FWIW, last winter was one of the coldest and longest we've had for many years out here (you think England is tough on winter cycling, try 2000 meters above sea level in Wyoming, it was 10 F this morning as I headed to work and it hasn't gotten cold yet). I did 100% of my riding indoors on a trainer from October to April and lined up at my first race of the year with nothing but trainer hours. I did quite well in that 3 day stage race coming straight off the trainer including a very spirited road race and short circuit course. But my winter training did include some microinterval work in addition to the more conventional SST/L4/L5 stuff.

Getting out on the road bike in the winter is great if you can do it but I disagree that it's necessary for competitive sucess.

YMMV,
-Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

That certainly hasn't been my experience. If you're targeting variable riding (like crits) then train that way on the turbo with HOP style microintervals. But there's nothing intrinsically different in terms of how you use your muscles assuming your position and bike fit are the same indoors and out.

FWIW, last winter was one of the coldest and longest we've had for many years out here (you think England is tough on winter cycling, try 2000 meters above sea level in Wyoming, it was 10 F this morning as I headed to work and it hasn't gotten cold yet). I did 100% of my riding indoors on a trainer from October to April and lined up at my first race of the year with nothing but trainer hours. I did quite well in that 3 day stage race coming straight off the trainer including a very spirited road race and short circuit course. But my winter training did include some microinterval work in addition to the more conventional SST/L4/L5 stuff.

Getting out on the road bike in the winter is great if you can do it but I disagree that it's necessary for competitive sucess.

YMMV,
-Dave

I love it when I can get out once a week this time of year - gives the legs a 'break' from the very steady CT efforts and refreshes the mind of course. If I go a couple of months 100% inside, I feel a bit o/o sorts on the road but just a few rides takes care of that. .