hi tim here
After tips about using the forum I'm re posting under a new thread.
been training on turbo for about a month .onlly a cheap one with resistance features only.i have a heart rate monitor and timer but no way of telling distance/speed etc.my sessions are recorded with cadence hrt and time. anyone offer any advice on how to monitor my progression. cheers
Turbo training
Moderator: Moderators
Hi Tim,
Welcome to the forum
Im not the best to be giving any advice but think about what your targets are for the next year and what it is you want to achieve.
Knowing what your heart rate is at your lactate threshold will help you determine the different intensity zones you will be training at to improve different aspects of your riding. You can estimate this using the 220 minus your age to give you your maximum heart rate and then workout your theoretical Lactate threshold by finding what 85% of your maximum is, however this is a very rough guide. You could conduct a field test using your heart rate monitor by riding a 10 mile time trial as fast as you can and use your average heart rate for that test as your lactate threshold.
Then Tim when you have the above worked out you can set about designing workouts to help you achieve your goals. Turbo sessions vary depending on the type of riding you do, for instance road racers need the ability to recover quickly after hard efforts, for instance when accelerating out of cormers or going off the front. By contrast Testers ride at a more constant effort.
As far as monitoring your progression, a timed field test of say 3 miles or a hill for instance could be used. This is again a rough method because you cant guarantee the conditions will be the same for each test you conduct. But if you see your times improving then you are heading in the right direction.
Being more scientific you would of course use a power meter and a ramp test to track progress, unfortunately not everyone can afford or have access to such a bit of kit.
Hope this helps you Tim, Im sure some others will elaborate on what Ive said or come up with some better suggestions.
Regards Andy
Welcome to the forum
Im not the best to be giving any advice but think about what your targets are for the next year and what it is you want to achieve.
Knowing what your heart rate is at your lactate threshold will help you determine the different intensity zones you will be training at to improve different aspects of your riding. You can estimate this using the 220 minus your age to give you your maximum heart rate and then workout your theoretical Lactate threshold by finding what 85% of your maximum is, however this is a very rough guide. You could conduct a field test using your heart rate monitor by riding a 10 mile time trial as fast as you can and use your average heart rate for that test as your lactate threshold.
Then Tim when you have the above worked out you can set about designing workouts to help you achieve your goals. Turbo sessions vary depending on the type of riding you do, for instance road racers need the ability to recover quickly after hard efforts, for instance when accelerating out of cormers or going off the front. By contrast Testers ride at a more constant effort.
As far as monitoring your progression, a timed field test of say 3 miles or a hill for instance could be used. This is again a rough method because you cant guarantee the conditions will be the same for each test you conduct. But if you see your times improving then you are heading in the right direction.
Being more scientific you would of course use a power meter and a ramp test to track progress, unfortunately not everyone can afford or have access to such a bit of kit.
Hope this helps you Tim, Im sure some others will elaborate on what Ive said or come up with some better suggestions.
Regards Andy
Sorry to disagree, but "You can estimate this using the 220 minus your age" is totally worthless. If you want to know your max heart rate, you're going to have to go out and batter yourself. That rule of thumb is often quoted but has no real basis in fact, especially for people who have kept fit, where the drop of in MHR with age may be slower.
Warm up well, find a short hill that takes about a minute to climb, ride hardish to the bottom then really go all out up the hill. Don't worry if you don't get to the top. You should reach your max (or something near enough). This will be very unpleasant and hurt a lot, but you don't need to do it often. You may find it helps to have a mate 'race' you up the hill.
If you want to measure progress on the turbo then it's possible if you have a rear wheel driven cyclocomputer. You can then put that on the turbo and get some numbers out. Don't expect those numbers to relate to real MPH on the road but they should be give you some idea. If you don't have one of those (Cateye do one and it's not pricey) you could just go for the rough'n'ready 'which gear can I turn easily at a given heart rate' test.
The very important caveat for this is that everything has to be the same each time: resistance on the turbo, setup of bike in the turbo, tyre pressure and (since you are using heart rate) how rested you are. This is sufficient of a faff that you won't want to do it that often. Once a month should be ample to gauge fitness anyway.
In practice, I'm with Andy J: find someone outside that you can time yourself on, and use that to estimate fitness. You'll need somewhere that's either sheltered from the wind, or sufficiently steep that wind doesn't affect speed.
Warm up well, find a short hill that takes about a minute to climb, ride hardish to the bottom then really go all out up the hill. Don't worry if you don't get to the top. You should reach your max (or something near enough). This will be very unpleasant and hurt a lot, but you don't need to do it often. You may find it helps to have a mate 'race' you up the hill.
If you want to measure progress on the turbo then it's possible if you have a rear wheel driven cyclocomputer. You can then put that on the turbo and get some numbers out. Don't expect those numbers to relate to real MPH on the road but they should be give you some idea. If you don't have one of those (Cateye do one and it's not pricey) you could just go for the rough'n'ready 'which gear can I turn easily at a given heart rate' test.
The very important caveat for this is that everything has to be the same each time: resistance on the turbo, setup of bike in the turbo, tyre pressure and (since you are using heart rate) how rested you are. This is sufficient of a faff that you won't want to do it that often. Once a month should be ample to gauge fitness anyway.
In practice, I'm with Andy J: find someone outside that you can time yourself on, and use that to estimate fitness. You'll need somewhere that's either sheltered from the wind, or sufficiently steep that wind doesn't affect speed.
thanks for that andy authur.my training has been geared towards a sportive in the lakes in two weeks.increasing in intensity each week.s
week four was going to be a kind of recovery week.these sessions are quite hard about one hour at a time. I am going to be racing next year but find it hard to wind down at this time of year.As a rule should i just do the club run and a couple of turbo sessions a week to keep a certain fitness or carry on with the routine ? I know this is a bit vague but this year gone has been my first with a bit of structure to my training.
week four was going to be a kind of recovery week.these sessions are quite hard about one hour at a time. I am going to be racing next year but find it hard to wind down at this time of year.As a rule should i just do the club run and a couple of turbo sessions a week to keep a certain fitness or carry on with the routine ? I know this is a bit vague but this year gone has been my first with a bit of structure to my training.
There's a really good thread on the training forum about this. I'd suggest having a read of that, and also all the pages Phil has written for the training pages:
http://www.cliftoncc.org/static.php?content=training
http://www.cliftoncc.org/static.php?content=training
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MichaelCarter
- Posts: 185
- Joined: Fri May 18, 2007 12:16 pm
"As a rule should i just do the club run and a couple of turbo sessions a week to keep a certain fitness or carry on with the routine ?"
I'm no where near as clued up as most who contribute on here Tim, but for what it's worth you seem to be doing the same as me. I'm getting out at the weekend when I can (usually a trip to parents in Bradford and back), but during the week I'll do a few hour sessions on the turbo before or after work. Regarding effort level, I start off easy and don't really speed up or anything, but by the end of the hour I'm exhausted!
Michael
I'm no where near as clued up as most who contribute on here Tim, but for what it's worth you seem to be doing the same as me. I'm getting out at the weekend when I can (usually a trip to parents in Bradford and back), but during the week I'll do a few hour sessions on the turbo before or after work. Regarding effort level, I start off easy and don't really speed up or anything, but by the end of the hour I'm exhausted!
Michael
hi micheal sounds about the same going on .will you or when will you start notching it up again .After this next weekend in the lakes i am going to ease off for a while and just enjoy riding,ticking over on the turbo .Just trying to be a bit disciplined after a bit of advice
Just to change subject .Anyone else entered cumbrian christmas cracker sportive next sunday.
Just to change subject .Anyone else entered cumbrian christmas cracker sportive next sunday.