# Payoff for this training work?



## Oregonazm (Apr 13, 2010)

I haven't ridden much for 3+ years. Hoping to get back to enjoying long rides (60-100 miles).
51 yrs old. I have gotten wimpy in my age. I don't enjoy winter road riding. I can't maintain body heat very well. I have no problem mtbing in the rain and cold, even at night. That means I am spending more time on a spin bike in the gym. I have a trainer but I like the resistance adjustment on the spin bike. 
Question: What kind of payoff can I expect from the following spin bike workouts? I have been doing tempo intervals of 4x15min tempo with 3 min recovery. I set the resistance just so the last 3 minutes are difficult to maintain rpm. Cardio effort is about a 3-. Total workout time is 2 hours including 30 min warm up and cool down remaining time. I am building up to 20 min intervals. I really focus on maintaining an even pedal stroke. My hamstrings hurt the most at the end of the intervals. 
I am realizing I need to get back out on the road for longer rides to build up endurance. I am also looking for group rides to get back to being comfortable in a pace line.
I am also getting out for mtb rides on a single speed. I progressed from totally blowing up at 1.5 hrs to enjoying 3 hr rides. That type of riding means a lot more standing on the pedals and slow seated grinds. It also requires a lot of sprinting to carry momentum up short steep inclines.
Any feedback is appreciated. I am open to tweaking my riding plans. Thanks.


----------



## Sumguy1 (Apr 5, 2008)

"What kind of payoff can I expect from the following spin bike workouts?"

You'll get stronger if you're relatively untrained but you run the risk of plateauing quickly. Unless...you measure your effort somehow and continually up that effort through some sort of (relatively) structured program. This is the same whether you're on a trainer in the gym or out on the road for 18 hours per week. 

What do you use to measure your effort? HR monitor? Power? 

You write, " I set the resistance just so the last 3 minutes are difficult to maintain rpm. Cardio effort is about a 3-." 

That's great but there's more to it than this. Your 3- is on what scale? At 1-10, 3- could be endurance or recovery level. At 1-5 your 3- could be sweetspot/threshold. 

You mention Tempo for 4 efforts of 15 minutes. How do you know you are at Tempo pace? 

This is the crux of your situation - to know where you are going you need to know where you are and you don't know much more than that you "feel" you're pedaling *this* hard and you can pedal *this* hard for 2 hours and change. Going by feel is not really a repeatable metric. It is involved in the process - we talk about "perceived exertion", but it's not enough. 

Feel (and HR for some part) varies a lot on a day to day, workout to workout basis. Feel, therefore, is not as useful as HR or power when we want to know how strong or fit or awesome you are. And so it's not a great thing to base tomorrows workout on. It is done, however. It's just not ideal and it tends to muddle everything up.

Like I wrote earlier, without some way to measure your current fitness and your workouts you will most likely plateau pretty quickly - especially when using a spin bike/trainer. That's the way it usually goes.


----------



## Oregonazm (Apr 13, 2010)

Sumguy1 said:


> Feel, therefore, is not as useful as HR or power when we want to know how strong or fit or awesome you are.


"Awesome" is not a payoff description I ever expect to achieve. However, your reply is a more of a payoff than I expected for my question. Thank you.

A few years ago I threw away all the scientific metrics. The majority of conversations among the group of guys I was riding with were overwhelming dominated by the topic of metrics. I asked myself if I was actually just having fun with riding. I even quit using a basic odometer. Your response helped me realize that by using simple HR monitor can help me improve my performance. Better fitness and abilities does increase my fun factor. For example, it is more fun to actually be in the mix for position at the finish of a crit than to just hanging on to the finish. The weekly summer crits are the only races that I do. I enjoy the mental intensity as well as the physical. 

At this point, I think I am still getting physically adapted to cycling with moderate intensity. I am interpreting my aching hamstrings as a weakness in my pedal stroke. I am gaining strength and fitness by my current training work. I can see now that introducing a HR monitor will help me learn about my baseline parameters. As my physical adaptation improves I can start using the HR data to improve my Lactate Threshold and them phase into Aerobic Power. Hopefully, by the time the weekly crits start in June I will be working on Anaerobic Capacity. There is a local bike club that has regular rides at a moderate pace that I can join to start building a base.

Thanks again


----------



## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

The sore hamstrings may be from pedalling too slow. Or a fit issue. It's often not possible to set up a spin bike to fit like one's own real bicycle.

They make some really good warm clothes these days. I'm thin with not much body fat and get cold easily, but with modern gear I can be comfortable down into the 30s.

I used a HRM back in the early 90s for a couple years before I burned out on racing and cycling. Cycling had become a dreary chore to me. When I came back I was scared to use even a odometer for fear of those feelings coming back. I rode for a year, building fitness, with nothing on the bars.

I've since realized that the computer, HRM, power meter can only make me feel negatively about cycling if I have the wrong attitude. I need to treat them as a tool, nothing more. Sometimes (often for races) I set the screen on my Garmin 500 to only show me the distance and the time. It still records the data so I can look at it later, but I dont want to know while riding.


----------



## Oregonazm (Apr 13, 2010)

Follow up. Reality check. I sucked it up and suited up for a couple road rides this last weekend. Hooked up with a local group ride on Saturday. Even though it was just a brisk paced recreational ride, adjusting to the paceline was difficult. I felt like all my indoor work was useless. I was able to recover and ride on Sunday for 3 hours at my own pace. At this point, any riding I do will lead to progression. I realized that building up my base hours on the road is the best thing I can do. When the weather turns bad, I can fall back to the indoor work. I will still be looking to get a HRM so I can begin to develop a more accurate self awareness.


----------



## tlg (May 11, 2011)

Oregonazm said:


> Even though it was just a brisk paced recreational ride, adjusting to the paceline was difficult. I felt like all my indoor work was useless.


Maybe not as effective as it could have been, but I doubt it was useless. Had you done nothing, you likely would have been dropped.



> I will still be looking to get a HRM so I can begin to develop a more accurate self awareness.


Definitely. Get a HRM and do a FTP test every few weeks. Then you'll have some measureable performance levels.


----------

