Training But Getting Worse.

KellyT said:

I have been heading out onto the trainer most nights since the weather became too crappy to go out properly. Basically since 6 weeks ago my cycling has been mainly trainer based.

I checked through my i Magic times, and on a 'like for like' comparison on the same circuit I have gone back by an order of 7 minutes on a 1 hour 20 circuit. Really disappointing.

Any ideas what's up here? How can I get it back? I have zero plans to be a competitive cyclist, but I really didn't expect, or want, my times to be deteriorating in the face of persistent training.

right now you just need to be doing endurance as it is winter.

[font='Times New Roman']For the issue I think it is because in a road ride you can stop and coast but in the trainer people keep telling you to not to stop pedaling and you end up getting tired and really bored. [/font]
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[font='Times New Roman']I broke my arm and went on the trainer. I found it did not help at all. But then again I was not doing any intence workouts. [/font]

I agree tune it down a bit. I know some people don't believe in just taking it easy when you need to but it really works. You can easily overtrain expecially on an indoor trainer. You need long steady rides way below your hard efforts and then one day of hard but still very short riding. Follow each ride with huge amounts of rest. You will be greatfull trust me.

FloydLandis said:

I agree tune it down a bit. I know some people don't believe in just taking it easy when you need to but it really works. You can easily overtrain expecially on an indoor trainer. You need long steady rides way below your hard efforts and then one day of hard but still very short riding. Follow each ride with huge amounts of rest. You will be greatfull trust me.

Hope you're right, and I have taken the advice. Partly because of strains at work anyway, I haven't had a lot of freee will in reducing my trainer nights.

Thanks for taking the time.

KellyT said:

I have been heading out onto the trainer most nights since the weather became too crappy to go out properly. Basically since 6 weeks ago my cycling has been mainly trainer based..

Kelly,
The warning from others to watch out for overtraining is right on target, but you could be undertraining as well. You haven't described what sort of workouts you're doing on your indoor trainer. Just accumulating lots of trainer time at low levels is another path to losing or at best maintaining fitness while also burning out mentally. Check out the threads on Sweet Spot Training (SST) in the power forum. Even without a power meter you can do this sort of work indoors to maximize your trainer time.

I've been doing three to four SST sessions a week for the last 12 weeks and my sustainable power has increased substantially during that time. I've also been taking a day or two completely off a week and a day or two of other aerobic activities(mostly XC ski skating or backcountry skiing). The SST work is hard enough to require concentration and gets me breathing steadily, deeply, but still in control and not so hard I can't sustain it for 15 to 30 minutes per interval.

Lacking a power meter you can take the good advice others have posted on these forums, ride easy enough during the on intervals so that you can still take a swig from your water bottle, but just barely. If you're getting bored and your mind is wandering during the on intervals you probably aren't going hard enough. If you can't complete at least 10 minutes or better yet 15 minutes or you feel like retching, you're going too hard. With a rear wheel speedo you can equate that effort to a speed and do your SST repeats at that target speed until they become easy enough to bump up the speed a bit. That kind of positive feedback is a great training motivator when you're stuck indoors.

Anyway, long easy trainer workouts without a goal can be mind numbing and result in stagnation or losses. Excessive trainer time or intensity can lead to burn out, overtraining and losses. Focused trainer repeats a bit below your sustainable one hour pace a few days a week coupled with some good recovery and cross training days can lead to big performance gains.

Good luck,
Dave

KellyT said:

I have been heading out onto the trainer most nights since the weather became too crappy to go out properly. Basically since 6 weeks ago my cycling has been mainly trainer based.

I checked through my i Magic times, and on a 'like for like' comparison on the same circuit I have gone back by an order of 7 minutes on a 1 hour 20 circuit. Really disappointing.

Any ideas what's up here? How can I get it back? I have zero plans to be a competitive cyclist, but I really didn't expect, or want, my times to be deteriorating in the face of persistent training.

Kelly,

Are you doing a proper "coast down" measurement after a good warm up to determine the proper roller tension? Get a 20 - 30 minute warm up and go into the ergo mode with zero slope. Pedal your bike to 25 mph/40 kph and stop pedaling. With the proper tension, your back wheel should come to a complete stop in 10.0 seconds as timed with a stop watch. I usually get mine to between 9.9 and 10.1 seconds.

My I-magic is almost dead-on to my Power Tap when I do this.

If you have been doing this from the beginning, than you can start comparing 'like to like'...

If you have been doing this consistently, then you can start taking a look at your training... I advocate a lot of Tempo/SST and seated stomps during this part of the year...

Jim