Following advice on here, I’ve bought a Turbo, it’s all set up and I’ve started doing a few sessions when I don’t have time/inclination to get out.

I’m basically doing a 10 min warm up (easy pace) and then alternating between 5 min medium efforts and 1 min max efforts until i reach the hour point (includng warm up).

Is this likely to be useful? I am blowing out of my arse after all the 1 min efforts, and keeping my heart rate pumping in the 5 min efforts.

I got off it last night, absolutely dripping wet, blowing, and with the leg wobbles, so assume it’s doing me good at least.

I’m not really bothered about HRM’s and power meters and all that stuff, I just want to get a bit fitter/maintain my fitness.

Any suggestions?

Sufferfest is your friend. Similar idea to what you are doing already but less boring

If your heart rate is being increased for a period of time it wont be bad for you.

having your heart rate and working it to training zones does different things sertain areas use different types of energy and burn fat and sugers different ways allowing you to train for different things. I dont know much about it but as i say it cant be bad.

Sounds like quite a hard session. If you are riding every day you may want to think about doing some recovery rides as that’s probably not sustainable. Also may want to throw in some longer intervals at a lower intensity. Really depends on what you are training for or what aspect of your riding you want to work on. May want to think about finishing off with a period of easy spinning to cool down too.

One more thing…

just want to get a bit fitter.

Have a think about what you mean by this. Are there some aspects of your riding where you are weaker and want to improve? That will help identify the sort of sessions that will provide benefit. It’s easy to fall into the habit of just doing sessions you know you’re going to be strong at.

Heres a couple more ideas

Px Turbo sessions

Sufferfest definitely. Turbo sucks but the vids make it bearable.

My particular weakness is long climbs. I have quite a lot of power and can punch up short climbs easily. The long draggy ones I tend to be poor at, seem to lack stamina on them and want to stop, so any suggestions that would help with that would be great.

My max efforts get progressively poorer I have to say when I do the above session. By the end I’m giving it everything, but much much slower.

My particular weakness is long climbs. I have quite a lot of power and can punch up short climbs easily. The long draggy ones I tend to be poor at, seem to lack stamina on them and want to stop, so any suggestions that would help with that would be great.

Sounds like you should be doing long intervals rather than the shortish ones you’re doing at the moment, something like a decent warm up, then 2 x 20min @ 90% Max HR (or 4×10), then cool down. It’s nothing like as “fun” as shorter intervals, so I’d really suggest getting a video like the Sufferfest.

What sort of recovery time should I be doing between longer intervals mogrim?

What sort of recovery time should I be doing between longer intervals mogrim?

4-5 minutes would be about right, maybe 3 if you go for 4×10.

You probably need to be doing longer intervals at a lower intensity then. Try doing 3 x 10 mins for example at a pace you know you can sustain for each of those 10 mins, and have an easy spin for say 5 mins between reps. Do you have a speed sensor on the bike? At least that way you know you are maintaining a even pace for each interval (and you can try and increase the pace a little on subsequent workouts if you find you finish with plenty still in the tank.)

Also generally if doing intervals with say a specific target power, if you can’t manage to stay within your target range then you’d stop doing them at that point. Reason being that you are no longer working the thing you were targeting.

Sufferfest is not your friend. Sufferfest is anything but your friend. Sufferfest is however a good way to hurt yourself and improve bike fitness when it’s too wet/windy/etc to go out!

I’ve got a cateye redundant on the front wheel, so I’ll move it to the back and try some longer intervals. I think I may carry on doing a session of short intervals a week too just to mix things up and boost my fitness.

Sufferfest is ok. I reckon it’s good if you just want to do the occasional turbo session and want a bit of an all round workout.

Edit: yes, worth sticking with the shorter intervals. I’d probably cut back on the number though. Maybe try doing 5 or 6 two minute flat out intervals with a couple of minutes of recovery between them, then just spin easily for the rest of the hour. And if you find your capacity drops off significantly I’d stop the intervals and just spin for the rest of the session.