jonnobi

If like me, you're held up indoors by foul weather and/or short days recently and using your trainer, what kind of workouts do you do?

I've been doing various stuff but would be interested in trying other people's programs.

Here's one of mine:

Warm – up 5 mins

Spinning - 115 ~ 120 Cad, low gear 5 mins / 2 mins tempo X3 sets (aerobic <160HR)

Resistance - 50 Cad, highest gear/resistance 5 mins / 2 mins tempo X3 sets (aerobic <160HR)

Pyramids - 90 Cad, 5 gear pyramid, last 5 gears gears / 2 mins tempo X3 sets (crossing into anaerobic upto 180HR)

Weights - 5kg dumbell 20 squats / 20 calf extensions X3 sets

Warm down 5 mins

(Approx 1 h 30 mins)

I have a few different sessions that I do to fight off the boredom but would be interested in hearing any other sample workouts.
Cheers!

Richard Cranium

That workout describes efforts that would promote mostly strength or power. Almost all my trainer work is spinning.

I usually divide the hour into a series of 3 and 6 minute periods. I have only three plans. Progressive, Intervals and Steady-state LT. They pretty much describe themselves.

slim_77

I am more or less working on the same style three-tiered plan. Three-Five days (5 when possible) and usually substitute a recovery with a day off because of work/gradschool. But because of less time spent on, I usually make that time more intense. So steady state (most frequent workout) would be at LT, intervals well above LT (at least once per week). Progressive usually get the in-between days, when there are any available...

Mr. Gear Jammer

Nothing cool or amazing, just 30 minutes of hard core blood pumping riding. I call it "pounding the rock", helps me with: Time Trialing, Mtn climbing and endurance. I also get a hell of a work out .

GuitarWizard

One of my favorite LT workouts:

20 minute warmup

20 minutes at LT

5 min recovery

15 minutes at LT

5 min recovery

10 minutes at LT

5 min recovery

5 minutes at LT

20 minute cooldown.

I also like Carmichaels' Time Trial and Criterium DVD workouts. The Mountain Biking and Climbing DVD's don't seem to do too much for me.

My favorite "muscle tension" interval is as follows:

20 minutes warmup

5 minutes MT in 50x12

5 minutes recovery

5 minutes MT in 50x13

5 minutes recovery

5 minutes MT in 50x14

5 minutes recovery

5 minutes MT in 50x15

5 minutes recovery

5 minutes MT in 50x17

5 minutes recovery

5 minutes MT in 50x19

30 minutes cooldown

As the gearing gets smaller, I will increase the cadence slightly (nothing over 65 rpms), typically in the last 2-3 efforts. It's not quite a muscle tension interval, but feels more like climbing. Kinda hard to explain.

Another one of my absolute favorite workouts is a local hill that I use for climbing repeats, and not on the trainer. It gains around 300 vertical feet in just a hair under a mile. I'll warm up for 10-15 minutes, and then ascend it - not going all out, but an effort that I can repeat a few times. When I get to the top, I descend and immediately start climbing; I don't recover too much. I will make a full ascent 3 times, and then give myself a 5 minute recovery period. Then, I'll ascend halfway up to where there's a slight "flattening" in the road....flat being maybe 3-4% grade. On these ascents, I'm going at a much harder pace, and will stand and "sprint" for the last couple hundred yards or so. I will do this 3 times as well.

This summer, I hope to double and triple those numbers as I get lighter. I was 165 pounds this past summer, I should be around 140-145 this summer.