Turbo training – unpleasant sweaty bore festival or useful addition to the cyclist’s training schedule? I have to admit to being in the latter camp until fairly recently. Like many riders a turbo trainer had been gathering dust at the back of my garage for many years. Bought one winter in a fit of optimism after reading a magazine article on structured interval training I envisaged a winter spent indoors in the warm training happily away increasing my VO2 max and leg strenght without the bothersome business of cleaning the bike afterwards, or having to ward of trench foot after every ride. The end of the winter would see me emerge from my indoor hibernation fitter, stronger and ready to smash PB’s everytime I swung by leg over the crossbar.

Of course what actually happened was that I discovered how boring and unpleasant riding on the spot in a draughty garage was, that I could never remember anything about the intervals and sessions I was meant to be following once I started and …….. ohhhh yes it was so boring I rarely managed to ride for more than 45 minuetes at a time. I tried moving the trainer into the back room so I could watch the TV while I rode, but it didnt help. It just turned my bike into a very uncomfortable seat from which I watched The West Wing box sets whilst turning my legs over aimlessly.

The Turbo was unceremoniously relegated back into the garage and forgotten about. So what made me drag it back out again? One long nighshift at work while I was killing time on the Bikeradar.com fourms a thread extolling the virtues of indoor training video’s caught my eye. ‘The Sufferfest’ was the name which kept coming up so the next day after perusing http://www.thesufferfest.com I downloaded one of their training videos called ‘the downward spiral’ to my laptop, stuck the bike back on the very dusty and squeaky turbo and pressed ‘play’

I did finish the session, but fuelled by a mixture of misplaced bravado and testosterone it was nearly the end of me. However, strange as it may seem as I was slumped over my handlebars wondering if my breakfast was about to decorate the garage floor I was seized by a weird desire to do it all again……! I’ve downloaded several Sufferfest workouts since, which I play on the TV in our back room via my eldest sons xBox ( much to his disgust ) and the turbo doubles as a permenent stand for my road bike when it’s at home. The video’s do back indoor sessions more bearable and entertaining, and so long as you don’t cheat yourself by not trying as hard as the onscreen prompts are telling you to, they provide a pretty decent workout if the weather is pants or I just don’t feel like braving our White Van Man filled roads.
Do they make a difference to my riding? Yes I think so, after using the various video’s I have over the darkest months of last winter I felt as if I hit the road a bit fitter and stronger at the start of the summer. The turbo isn’t a one stop shop to cycling glory, but using the Sufferfest vids has made it part of my training arsenal instead of a large expensive obstacle to climb over in the garage.

In a future post I’ll look at some tips and set up for trouble free indoor sessions.