10 ways to get avoid getting Bored on the Trainer

     The time of year is upon us ... yes indoor training for cycling is something many of engage in to keep our training specific to our summer goals. While the winter season is a great time to remain outside and engage in sports such as running, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, you may still find yourself staring at the wall, listening to a numbing hum of rubber on metal in the near future ! 

10 ways to make your time on the indoor trainer (or rollers or exercise bike)

1) Include spin ups / coordination / one leg / rpm play.  
  These can be great methods to improve your efficiency on the bike. By including one of the above drills every 5 or 10 min you have little chunks of time to get through! 


   Example: Spinups (10sec fast rpm, 10sec faster, 10sec fastest) in easy gear
                  high rpm = typically staying in wattage/rpe zone and pedaling at 110-120 rpm 
                  one leg pedaling = pedaling with one leg 

2) Heart Rate 'Games'
    If you follow a zone based system why not play around moving your heart rate throughout the zone and mix up the intensity you are riding with ? This could be as simple as pedaling a few rpm faster and slower. You could make the jump to top of zone faster or very gradual. This could be done with wattage. 


     Example: do 2min at 100watts and 2min at 140watts if your endurance zone is 100-140watts 




3) Have a Destinations / get to 30 min then ... 
     Outside we can ride to a certain place then turn around for motivation or to keep us out there we could do a big loop with no 'out'. Inside the fridge, bed, computer is likely less than 10seconds away. So doing 30-60min before you start intervals (fitness permitting) will likely get you to 90 or 120min without to much agony as the last part of workout is structured. Riding for duration of a movie / show / album or until a loved one gets home can provide the same external dictation of duration. 

4) Take Breaks
     While riding over 90 minutes indoors (if at all?) is really not required for most people, especially when you can go outside, there will be cases where it is desired, required or done. If we were outside, say in an awesome location like Ventura, California (link to experience this in 2012)  we would definitely stop for a beverage on rides over 3 hours, perhaps even shorter ! So why not have a coffee break mid ride, obviously not for extended periods of time but even a 5min break to fill bottles helps break things up for the mind and the butt! (google Beer and Buritto concept by Coggan for more on stop duration). 

5) The Late Friend / Class Concept
     Could you have friends come over or join in the ride midway or towards end to keep you company or motivate the rest of the workout ? I have seen people ride an hour before a spin class for same reason. 

6) Combo Sports or Bricks 
   Why not do your intervals or a 30min warm-up of coordination then go run / snowshoe etc and then return to finish on the trainer, perhaps with some more structured work or coordination. This start/finish on the bike is thought by some to help improve the specificity of the fitness you get from cross training. Obviously the sports you can do out your door may be limited but a 40min run mid ride makes a 90min workout pretty easy to swallow. Do make sure you set up your transition area to keep the 

7) use your Television or other media  
    If you are going to watch a movie or TV show try doing intervals/coordination to commercial or certain phrases in movies/shows. 


8) Try integrating with strength
    At the simplest level why not jump off and do 10 burpees every 10min ? A more personalized strength or core routine may be preferable depending on your goals but also helps pass the time and divide things into manageable chunks. 


9) Divide the workouts 
    While going long might be within your goals, many people benefit from increased potential for quality and motivation in double days (ie. 2 x 90min). This might be a 90min interval workout in the morning and 90min endurance outside on bike or cross-train in the pm. Typically leave 3 hours minimum between workouts to allow for recovery. 

10) Take advantage of static situation (bike fit and testing) 
     I am always amazed that people do not play with their own bike fit and equiptment more inside. SInce we are seated almost the whole time inside it is important that bike fit is great. If the seat feels to high, mark it and lower it a milimeter or two.  
    A second advantage of the limited variables inside is the ability to do testing of some kind everyday if you want to. If you have at least heart rate and ability to set your bike up the same every day (ie. trainer tension / tire psi) then you can warm-up and increase your gear every 1-5 min and see where heart rate lies. More advanced users would incorporate Cadence, speed and wattage into this assessment for fewer variables in the Heart rate response and between days.  Any test inside will be fairly repeatable so play with CP 3, 5, 20 and less intense tests like the Maf Test to keep track of your progress through the Winter and motivate yourself each day! 



- do not = phone, Nintendo , text, Facebook , mindlessly pedal

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