long turbo benefit

Hanners

Hi all at the moment i'm injured (collarbone and shattered elbow) so only turboing for the next 4 - 6 weeks, apart from the usual threshold/ interval work which i am currently doing will i get any benefit from doing a long turbo as a substitute for a long weekend ride (3 hours)

jgsi

I'd say yes, if you have the resistance to tedium to do it... maybe do 1 hour stints a few times a day every other day or evry 3 days?
Your problem may be not being able to get out of the saddle... constantly sat almost in 1 position can lead to possible saddle soreness.. when riding on the road we all move about but we barely notice.

P_Tucker

Hanners wrote:

Hi all at the moment i'm injured (collarbone and shattered elbow) so only turboing for the next 4 - 6 weeks, apart from the usual threshold/ interval work which i am currently doing will i get any benefit from doing a long turbo as a substitute for a long weekend ride (3 hours)

If you do the same workout, then you'll get the same benefit. Your body is largely indifferent to whether you're doing your workouts on the road or on a turbo. Just be careful you don't use up all your cycling motivation staring at the clock in your garage.

andyrr

See no problem with this - I think some people do get lulled into a false sense of where they are, fitness-wise, having spent all winter on the turbo then they get out onto the road with the wind and rain and constant gradient changes and they wonder where their fantastic power has evaporated to but short-term use will be fine. Personally I'd ensure I had some Sufferfest vids and maybe a few pro races on DVD to watch to help the hours go by that bit quicker. Instead of 1 long ride maybe do 2 per day sometimes ? 1 shorter sharper, 1 steadier.

Hanners

Cheers, i think i'll sign up to eurosport on line then i can watch the giro in the garage on the laptop to whril away the hours

shockedsoshocked

As people have said above, if you can hack the boredom. I broke my collarbone last year after a fight with the Skoda and spent the duration of the TDF watching the final hour and battering myself senseless. I think I was the fittest I'd ever been after those 3 weeks haha.

ut_och_cykla

Try splitting the long session over the day - 2 hours after breakfast,1½ after lunch etc. Won't seem too boring and give you similar benefits to a long road session

jordan_217

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

I broke my collarbone last year after a fight with the Skoda

Boro Taxi?

inkyfingers

Due to bad weather and lack of time I did about 8 weeks earlier this year where I pretty much only rode on the turbo. I was mostly doing 90 minute sessions 4 or 5 times and week which were a mixture of hard intervals and steady sessions . I have never been fitter at this point of the year than I am now, training on the turbo allows you to work harder in a shorter space of time and also allows you to focus your sessions better. In the past i've spent too many rides in the winter just pedalling around focussing on doing lots of distance which is fine if you want to do sportives but useless if you want to go well in 10 mile TTs and hour long road races which is where my focus is.

You need to get some good training DVDs (like Sufferfest) or films to watch (I watched Band of Brothers and Pacific last winter) and you need to wear good bibs shorts, use chamois cream and stand up regularly to avoid getting too saddle sore.

slowbike

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

As people have said above, if you can hack the boredom. I broke my collarbone last year after a fight with the Skoda and spent the duration of the TDF watching the final hour and battering myself senseless. I think I was the fittest I'd ever been after those 3 weeks haha.

Did you ever manage to get in the break?

shockedsoshocked

jordan_217 wrote:

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

I broke my collarbone last year after a fight with the Skoda

Boro Taxi?

Luckily a very posh bloke from Whitby. A Boro taxi would have hit me at twice the speed on the particular road I'm sure.

Hanners

inkyfingers wrote:

stand up regularly to avoid getting too saddle sore.

now thats a bit of an issue with my injuries

BobScarle

Just by way of a change I decided to do an hour long high(ish) resistance steady peddalling session last night. With warm up and warm down times added to that it came out at 75 minutes. I had had enough after that length of time and was very pleased to have finished.

So all I can say is chapeau! for even considering a 3 hour long turbo session.

andyrr

For a long, ie say over 90 minutes session (personally anyway) it would be a case of having the motivation/reason to do this.
I've done plenty of turbo rides around an hour or so and that's ok with music or visuals but doing2, 3+ hours, and doing these repeatedly, would stretch my love for sitting on the bike a just a bit.