A real workout saver of only 56 min on the turbo trainer

When the rain and the cold come, the turbo trainer can be your best ally for days when you don't feel like going out. On it, you can get a shorter session in to replace the workout you were planning to do. In this article, you'll discover some tips on how to adapt your training indoors, as well as a suggested workout-saving session.

How to adapt your training to the turbo trainer?

On the turbo trainer the pedaling is more constant than when cycling outdoors, a traffic light, a downhill, short pauses while riding, etc. These circumstances mean that approximately 80-90% of the time spent training outdoors is spent pedaling.
In addition, the energy expended by the body to maintain body temperature during exercise is higher on the turbo trainer as there is not the same ventilation as outdoors.

Because of these factors, when adapting the training to the turbo trainer, we should perform approximately 20% of the time we had planned to perform. We will also have to take into account that the watts at which we thought to train, probably should be somewhat lower when performing the session indoors.

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A recommendation to protect us from possible overloads is to make a pause in the pedaling simulating a small downhill or even get off the turbo trainer for a few seconds and get back on every 20 minutes of continuous pedaling. And don't forget to hydrate yourself well and ventilate the place where you do your indoor training as much as possible.

A proposal for a workout-saving session

If you are not yet following a training plan and are looking for some inspiration to do a training session on the turbo trainer instead of going out in the heat or getting wet, we are going to offer you a varied session with the goal of getting a good workout in 1 hour on your trainer.

Since it is so varied, it will pass quickly because you will have to concentrate on the different durations and intensities of the intervals.

1.Warm-up - 15 min

We will start by warming up for 15 minutes at a comfortable pace, without our breathing too much. At 60-70% of our maximum heart rate.

2. Pyramids - 41 min

After this, we will start two pyramids of pairs of intervals:

PYRAMID 1

• 1 minute standing at 80% of maximum heart rate
• 1 minute seated at 75% of our maximum heart rate
• 2 minutes standing at 80% of maximum heart rate
• 2 minutes seated at 75% of maximum heart rate
• 3 minutes standing at 80% of maximum heart rate
• 3 minutes seated at 75% of maximum heart rate
• 2 minutes standing at 80% of maximum heart rate
• 2 minutes seated at 75% of maximum heart rate
• 1 minute standing at 80% of maximum heart rate
• 1 minute seated at 75% of our maximum heart rate

We will do 5 minutes of recovery at an easy pace (50-60% FCmax).

And we will repeat the pyramid of intervals as above.

3. Recovery - 10 min 

To finish we will return to calm with 10 minutes of easy pedaling with fluid cadence (50-60% FCmax).

We hope that this session will be useful and that you can apply it on those days when we do not want to go out cycling but we do not want to miss the training.

Article written by Pablo RAL, graduate in Physical Activity and Sport Sciences, Master in high performance in cyclic sports and trainer specialized in endurance sports.