Winter Turbo Sessions - The Basics

Winter Turbo Sessions

Whilst we are in our base training period and doing the Long Steady Distance (LSD) rides at the weekend it is still important that we do some higher intensity work each week. With the dark evenings and inconsistent weather most of us will be doing some indoor cycling, either in the gym, on a turbo trainer or on rollers. Here are some ideas of sessions that have been of use to me and hopefully will give you some more ideas of what you can do:

Warm Ups
Cadence pyramids. We have been doing variations on these at the Wednesday club turbo nights.
Warm up for 10 mins or so in a steady gear, cadence around 90RPM. If you don’t have a cadence sensor then try a pedal 15 revolutions every 10 seconds.
Do one minute at 105 RPM, recover back to 90 for 30-60 seconds
Increase by 5 RPM for next interval and recover.
Repeat to 120-130 RPM and then intervals back down to 105.
A 20 minute warm up of that type will ensure that your muscle are ready for some high intensity work.

Basic Pyramid Session
A session that gets progressively harder, peaks and then takes you back down to recovery. Only takes an hour with a good warm up but can be used to take you above Lactate Threshold into an area where you are working anaerobic ally depending on what gears / resistance you use:
0-15 min: warm up in steady gear
15-30 min: Up one click or one gear - base line, suggest about 70% Max Heart Rate
30-35 min: Up one click or one gear
35-40 min: Up one click or one gear
40-45 min: Drop back one click or one gear
45-50 min: Drop back one click or one gear - back to base line
50-55 min: Drop back one click or one gear. Try to spin
55-60 min: Warm down
If you wish to make the session longer or harder just add more increases until you reach the intensity you desire. Will all sessions of this type remember not to start too hard. If you’re going to repeat the sessions record what gears / resistance you use so you know where to pitch it next time.

Basic Ramp Session
20 minute warm up. Use cadence drills if possible.
Pick a gear that’s just one above the intensity that you would do for a base ride. Pedal at a steady 90RPM for 6 minutes. Remember that gear. Recover for 3 minutes in an easy gear.
Go to one gear harder for 6 minutes. Then recover for 3 minutes.
Repeat for 6-7 intervals with each one in one gear harder.
After the last interval spin out in an easy gear until your heart rate is down to a Perceived Rate of Exertion of 2-3 (light exertion).
Again, you can vary the session with the timings of intervals to recovery and the gears used. A ratino of 2:1 effort to recovery is a good baseline.
Lactate Threshold Session
See separate post on turbo session 21st December
A session designed to increase your Lactate Threshold by working above the threshold for a short interval and then recovering below it. Repetitions of this are a way of training your body to increase Lactate Threshold and ultimately enabling us to work harder in a time trial.

Happy training

Barry