Knowledge Level: Intermediate
One of the most common questions we get asked is, “if I’ve got an hour, what’s the best indoor trainer session I can do?” Although this might seem like an easy question to answer, there are a whole number of factors to consider. In this article, we look at those factors but also suggest three tried and tested fall-back sessions.
Strengths and weaknesses
As riders we all have our individual strengths and weaknesses. Some of us are blessed with a higher proportion of fast twitch muscle fibres and are natural sprinters whereas others are more slow twitch dominant and have innate stamina. The likelihood, when picking training sessions, is that the most beneficial ones are those that address your weaknesses as these areas are where you stand to make the greatest gains. That said, it’s only natural to gravitate towards your strengths and you’ll certainly tend to enjoy those sessions more!
Goals
What you’re ultimately training for has a big bearing on what will be the most effective workouts for you. The sessions best suited to an aspiring cyclo-cross racer will be very different to a rider targeting the Étape or one just wanting to develop overall fitness.
Recovery and fatigue
There’s very little point in attempting a high intensity training session if you’re fatigued as you won’t be able to achieve the correct intensity to get the correct training stimuli from it. Equally, if you’ve got a tough ride planned for the next day, you don’t want to pick a hard workout the day before. You should always consider the training you’ve done and the rides you’ve got coming up when determining what workout to do.
Staleness and boredom
By just having a few favourite or go-to workouts, it’s easy to get bored and demotivated. This isn’t just a psychological issue either as, unless your training progresses and gives your body novel stimuli to adapt to, your fitness won’t develop.
So, what do we suggest?
Rather than picking and choosing specific sessions, our advice would be to follow a structured training plan that’s relevant to your cycling goals. This will ensure that all of the factors above are considered and that your training will be progressive.
British Cycling Digital Training Plans hosted on TrainingPeaks
Three sessions to try
If we’re pressed to choose three workouts they would be:
2X20 minutes “Sweet-Spot”
2X20 minutes is a classic session but the intervals are normally done at or just below threshold. This makes the session incredibly demanding both physically and psychologically. By dropping the intensity slightly to “Sweet-Spot”, mid Zone 3 - mid Zone 4, the training benefits are only marginally reduced but the session is far easier to handle and requires much less recovery.
Russian Steps
An old school interval session but, if you’re looking to build your sprint speed and ability to sprint repeatedly, it’s still hard to beat. You can really focus on 100% quality for the opening 15 and 30 second sprints and then will be hanging on for the longer efforts. You need to be fresh to get the most out of this session and your legs will be tired the next day.
Leg Speed
An excellent recovery session or as a sharpener the day before an event. It’s important to keep gearing/resistance low to ensure that the emphasis is on leg speed and that the power you develop isn’t too high. This is a great session to do on rollers.
These classic indoor trainer sessions are in a simple clear format with step by step instructions for heart rate and power zones and are downloadable as PDF’s.
For Smart trainer compatible workouts, including these three sessions, you'll need to sign-up for one of our new British Cycling Digital Training Plans hosted on TrainingPeaks.
