Originally Posted by
rms13
Thanks. I did actually buy the Cycleops Magnus and have been testing it with free trials of Zwift and Rouvy for the past week. My initial thoughts is trainer miles are much harder then I thought they would be. I've never owned a power meter and it's humbling to see how low my power output is compared to say friends and club members I follow on Strava. Not sure if I end up paying for Zwift but I'll probably pay for Rouvy, Trainer Road or something cheaper for a few months that just has training work outs without the immersion. I want some app that makes use of the interactiveness of this trainer but I think some short focused interval training is what I need. One of the main reasons I got the trainer is I'm strapped for time so just getting 45 minute completely optimized minutes on the bike is what I want right now. I also believe that short, hard sprint type work outs are better then long easier paced work ( I believe in that exercise model for everything not just cycling)
I personally use Today's plan + Zwift with a side of Xert. There are many different training methodologies out there, one of the big ones is periodization, where you use winter months to acclimate your body to large amounts of TSS (training stress) that would otherwise prove quite challenging to achieve with weekly events during spring/summer/fall. One of the big components of winter is "Base Training", traditionally this was spent with 20+ hours of riding at low intensity, and since, you, or I, and many other people don't have that kind of time, it was discovered that "Sweet Spot Training" has similar benefits. I'd recommend reading this
article (it sums it up better than I can) regarding sweet spot.
I say this because, well, sprints are awesome and all, especially if you're a track cyclist, but if you're looking to boost your FTP into the 4.0 w/kg or 5.0 w/kg range you might want to consider some longer workouts near threshold.