Bicycle Garage Indy

This is the first of what will be a winter-long series about what trainer workouts I'm doing.  When I first bought a trainer, I always felt a little unsure about what exactly I should be doing with it, and over the years I've come up with some strategies I feel pretty confident about.  So I hope they help!

A few keys for success:

1)  VARIETY.  In every workout, you should be doing lots of different things.  This is partly for skills development, but mostly because it helps deal with the #1 trainer obstacle:  boredom.  Do lots of different things, and boredom will take much longer to set in.  Get some high-cadence, low-cadence, single-leg, sitting, standing, etc.

2)  INTENSITY.  The classic philosophy is that you should use winter for steady, low-intensity aerobic base training.  However, this really only works if you have a high training volume, 15 hours or more.  If you only have 6-8 hours a week, like me, you need a higher-intensity stimulus to get the desired result. 

3) PLANNING.  Never get on the trainer without knowing exactly what you're going to do.  If you try to improvise your workout, or "ride how you feel," I can tell you now what you're going to do--you're going to go 20 or 30 minutes, decide that this is boring, and that your butt hurts, and you're going to decide that you really should get around to doing the laundry.

4) ADAPTATION.  The trainer is the most controlled cycling environment you'll ever have, so as the weeks go by, pay attention to what's happening to you, and make changes as necessary.  Then see how your respond to the changes, and tweak as necessary.

5) GOALS.  What exactly do you want out of this winter?  For most people, that's pretty simple:  ride faster.  But the details matter.  Do you want to win a bunch sprint?  Improve your 40k time?  Complete your first triathlon?  All those goals call for somewhat different approaches.

Next time:  my goals, and the workout I'm doing this month to start getting ready for next year.