[GravityFreakTJ]

Ok,here's whats up.I can do the Spinerval videos just fine,3 times a week, as they are no longer than a hour and a half.Thats all I have time for during the week anyway other than a quick night ride.On weekends I try to get loooong rides in,but the weather hasn't been cooperating.There is no way I can see myself riding the trainer for 5 or so hours,but i know i need the saddle time.So my question is,do any of you all ride the trainer for that long at a time? If so , how do you do it without going nuts.Thanks

T

 

[Echo]

Hell no man, I'm going out of my mind after an hour.

But I have found that a good solid hour on the rollers, with at least half of it spent on intervals, is a damn good workout. Unfortunately in places where there's winter, that's all we get. Once the weather gets nice we can start racking up the base miles and saddle time.

 

[GravityFreakTJ]

I hear you!After an hour of going balls out to one of these videos and my legs are toast.We have just had a very wet winter so far.I guess the long rides will just have to wait til the weather breaks :mumble:

 

[Westy]

I go nuts trying to ride a trainer at home for more than 5 minutes. I can put hours on the one at the gym, but only if I ride hard. The endorphines hit me and I just go into a zone, I've had people try to talk to me and I have not even realized they were there.

 

[GravityFreakTJ]

I can only ride the trainer if I have a spin video on.If I try on my own : ,I have no will power.

 

[Heidi]

Find something else to do for cross training. 5 hours of saddle time on a trainer is going to ruin your love for the sport. Seriously, I don't recommend more than 3, 4 tops. Find something else to do as cross training for an hour or two first, then ride the trainer. You need to do it in that order though so your legs are tired and you train them in cycling as tired, not the other way around.

Watch a movie, or taped cycling shows.

 

[GravityFreakTJ]

I think i will start running on the treadmill for an hour,then riding the trainer.That and my 3 weight workouts aweek ought to whip my butt into shape.

 

[SuspectDevice]

Unless you are trying to break into Cat 2 on the road you would never need to ride 5 hours, period. You can consider trainer or roller time to be roughly equivalent to time and a half on the road due to less variability and loafing.

 

[Heidi]

Unless you are trying to break into Cat 2 on the road you would never need to ride 5 hours, period. You can consider trainer or roller time to be roughly equivalent to time and a half on the road due to less variability and loafing.

This simply isn't true.

 

[SuspectDevice]

This simply isn't true.

Whaa,you want to fight about it? :devil:
You will do more work in one hour on a trainer at the same RPE as you would do on the road. Well established fact that I can back up with 3 years of power files, and discussions with other coaches who use power where we've all noted the same thing.

 

[Heidi]

Whaa,you want to fight about it? :devil:
You will do more work in one hour on a trainer at the same RPE as you would do on the road. Well established fact that I can back up with 3 years of power files, and discussions with other coaches who use power where we've all noted the same thing.

I'm simply saying that not only CAT 2's will ride that long. Base mileage IS good and one hour on a trainer ain't gonna cut it. Plenty of sport and expert riders could benefit from good base mileage in the first couple phases of training.

 

[SuspectDevice]

I'm simply saying that not only CAT 2's will ride that long. Base mileage IS good and one hour on a trainer ain't gonna cut it. Plenty of sport and expert riders could benefit from good base mileage in the first couple phases of training.

Anything over three hours is pretty much useless for an Expert mountainbike racer. Even in a "base" period that much volume induces a lot of stress with very little positive adaptation. The physiological capacities you need to develop for xc racing center a lot more around threshold and anaerobic capacity.
Using spinervals or whatever to do some sort of structured training aimed at improving aerobic power is going to be way more beneficial than killing yourself for 3+ hours. When the weather doesn't suck you can take that as an oppourtunity to go outside and doodle, but as they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade...

 

[Heidi]

Anything over three hours is pretty much useless for an Expert mountainbike racer. Even in a "base" period that much volume induces a lot of stress with very little positive adaptation. The physiological capacities you need to develop for xc racing center a lot more around threshold and anaerobic capacity.
Using spinervals or whatever to do some sort of structured training aimed at improving aerobic power is going to be way more beneficial than killing yourself for 3+ hours. When the weather doesn't suck you can take that as an oppourtunity to go outside and doodle, but as they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade...

That was why I said to do cross training and then ride!

 

[GravityFreakTJ]

I was under the impression that base mileage was a necessary evil.Am I mistaken?

 

[Heidi]

I was under the impression that base mileage was a necessary evil.Am I mistaken?

No, you absolutely are not mistaken. We're just saying really that 3-4 hours is about the max you probably want to do on a trainer. My base usually has plenty of long days in the saddle...5 to 6 hours. On a trainer I feel I get a better workout since it is constant output...no hills to coast down or stoplights to stop out, no drafting....So therefore, time on a trainer is far more productive. I look at time in certain heart rate zones, if you have a power meter, you'll look at output from that.

To keep it simple though, yes, long hours are necessary.

 

[GravityFreakTJ]

No, you absolutely are not mistaken. We're just saying really that 3-4 hours is about the max you probably want to do on a trainer. My base usually has plenty of long days in the saddle...5 to 6 hours. On a trainer I feel I get a better workout since it is constant output...no hills to coast down or stoplights to stop out, no drafting....So therefore, time on a trainer is far more productive. I look at time in certain heart rate zones, if you have a power meter, you'll look at output from that.

To keep it simple though, yes, long hours are necessary.

Thanks Heidi.Actually 0 hours is all i want to do on the trainer .As far a heart rate zones,I got a Polar 520 for Christmas and it makes it alot easier to stay on target on the trainer by using the % of max feature.My old HRM was as basic as they get

 

[SuspectDevice]

Base is good, Heidi's training program seems to go a little overboard with it though. Some athletes that I work with, Indieboy for example, don't need to do any real "base" milage at all. They've been racing and training consistently for 5+ years, so they don't get any real adaptations from the busy work. I have them doing block training to focus on specific physiological systems. For instance Indie and I will be doing 3 week blocks of threshold training until we stop seeing improvement in threshold. What this means for him is 2 days a week of doing 2x20 minute threshold intervals, 2 days a week of tempo (sub threshold work) rides of 2-3 hours, and 3 rest days.

For someone that was new to endurance cycling I'd put them through 3, 4 week training cycles of tempo centered work before I'd begin threshold, but really, except for absolute novices "base" training only needs to be 8 weeks.

Most "base" training that people do, even people with racing success like Heidi is usually either unnecessary or overkill. A good rule of thumb for setting up a program is that your longest rides need to be ~ 1.25 times as long as your longest race. Anything longer than that isn't necessary, and can very well cut into either your recover time, or the amount of time you can spend working on improving more race-specific energy systems

 

[MFKracing]

SuspectDevice, I don't see your logic. Having the physiological adaption to ride 3+ hours without the recruitment of fast twitch muscle to suplement endurance is what separates an Expert racer from Sport. Furthermore, this squared separates Expert from Semi-Pro and so on. If you start in January doing power intervals, you'll explode in 3-weeks, and if by some genetic gift you don't your going to plateau soon (if you don't overtrain) Your "icing the cake" befor you even buy the mix at the market! In your defense I may have misunderstood the thread, what you are saying I can agree with, but not untill you have prepared your body for it.

 

[SuspectDevice]

What really seperates professional endurance atheletes from merely Elite ones is power at threshold and as an extension of that the percetage of VO2max that elicits a threshold type response, every other physiological parameter that you can measure is within the same standard deviation. While it's true that fiber usage etc... is something to consider it is just as easily trained with highe intensity training. Low intensity steady state rides aren't good for much. Not fat burning (a shorter higher intesity ride is more effective), not inducing biochemical changes, and not enducing neruonal changes. Coaching practitioners who claim otherwise are likely going by 70's science or just old school.
Most racers, epsecially those that dogmatically follow training program books like Friel's over emphasize long steady rides under-emphasize the important work, workouts that are above and over race intensity.
I use periodization in designing programs, and I can set an athlete up to peak effectively. You do it the same way you would do it in a more "old-school" program, by tapering volume while maintaining intensity. A good coach, in tandem with an experienced athelete can pretty much do whatever they want, whenever they want, and get excellent results. If a rider has lots of miles in their legs, they don't need to needlessly go through a long base period, as there is no benefit to it. If power output isn't going up, then it's time to stop focusing on whatever it is we are focusing on.

As another aside I helped prepare an athlete for a 24 hour race in Febuary last year. His training leading up to the race was 8 minute VO2max intervals 2 days a week, and one 2.5 hour on the weekend. Other than one 12 hour ride three weeks before the race to figure out logistics he didn't do a ride longer than 3 hours in the run-in to the race. He got 3rd overall... Quality over quantity