Earning the Bird on the Trainer

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Happy Thanksgiving! A lot of our athletes are all about “earning the bird” on Thanksgiving. Getting a big day on the bike, and then relaxing with friends and family over an excellent meal. It’s a great feeling! Well, if you are in Colorado today you are probably stuck “earning the bird” on the trainer. Just in case you need a little bit of inspiration of what to do, here’s a great workout that’ll probably be a mix up from the typical base training and make plenty of space for a great Thanksgiving meal!

Warm up for 10-15 minutes and then get into the main efforts:

  • 6x10 sec seated sprint / 50 sec maintaining consistent Z2 effort (4 min recovery after)

  • 3x8 min steady Z3 (5 min recovery between) but varying the technique as follows:

    • #1 = natural technique

    • #2 = Alternate 1.5 min seated / 30 sec standing

    • #3 = Alternate 2 min @ 50-70 rpm / 2 min @ 80-100 rpm

  • 5x1 min hard / 1 min recovery - forget about power and just try to go fast. Legs will be pretty tired by this point!

Cool down for 10-15 minutes and get ready to relax with family and friends.

A few key points that don’t show up in the intervals that are really important to remember in order to execute this workout well:

  • HYDRATE - plan to sweat a lot more on the trainer than in the outdoor rides this time of year, in an hour on the trainer athletes should get through 2 bottles

  • COOL - a big limiter on the trainer is thermoregulation a.k.a. managing heat build up. This will send an athlete’s heart rate through the roof for power they’d do comfortably outside. Since the athlete is stationary on the trainer they’re not getting any benefit from the natural air flow they get outside, so we need to create our own. Get the biggest fan around, and get it straight at you!

  • ADJUST - most athletes don’t do the same power for efforts on the trainer as they do outside. I find that the more an athlete rides the trainer the smaller the gap is. But if an athlete is has a big gap, don’t let that be a deterrent. Focus on the feeling of the effort rather than the power of the effort and don’t let the power being low keep you from getting good work done!

OK, thanks for reading. Whether you off the bike today, on the trainer, or out for 6 hours - have a great day and happy Thanksgiving!