If you are preparing for a cycling race or a triathlon, ideally you’ll be able to put your saddle time in on your bike. However, schedules and weather in real life often prohibit riding outdoors. You can still gain speed and stamina when weather gets in the way by using well-planned workouts on a stationary bicycle indoors.
Power Sprints
Use power sprints on an indoor bike during the wintertime base-building phase of the biking season to maintain or increase your VO2 max, or maximal oxygen uptake, which in turn improves your ability to maintain a fast cycling effort. Winter is considered the base-building phase in which you perform long, low-intensity rides. Use blended periodization instead, recommends Selene Yeager in the January 2006 Bicycling magazine article, “Your Best Year at a Glance.” After warming up with easy pedaling, add five to 10 power sprints that last five to 10 seconds. Power sprints involve an all-out effort. Utilize a three-minute recovery between each sprint. Easing into speed work in this manner ensures you don’t peak too soon for the cycling season, which runs April through September.
Cadence Drills
Improve your cadence on an exercise bike. An improved cadence leads to improved speed. At least once a week in the wintertime do high-cadence drills. In such a drill you maintain 100 revolutions per minute or more. Also perform one-legged drills in which you maintain a normal cadence. That’s 80 to 100 rpm. Do each of these drills for one minute at a time initially. Work up to three minutes at a time.
Integrated Cycling Drills
Use an exercise bike to do cycling drills during your peak training period when the weather prohibits outdoor rides. Peak training begins after the winter base-building phase. Outdoor cycling drills can easily be modified to suit a stationary bike. For example, after warming up for five to 10 minutes, pedal with one foot only for two minutes. Keep the other foot on the pedal but don’t add to your pedaling effort with it. On a scale of one to 10, your rate of perceived exertion should be a seven during this portion of the workout. Increase your resistance slightly before beginning the next portion of the workout. Increase your pedaling speed by 5 to 10 percent each minute. Slow your speed to where you began at minute 12 and recover before performing an acceleration drill. Find a comfortable pedal stroke and resistance. Increase your resistance by 5 to 10 percent every minute for four minutes. Return your resistance to the start point in minute five and recover. The final leg of this workout is a speed drill. Pedal fast enough that your perceived rate of exertion is an 8.5 for three minutes. You need to be breathing hard but not gasping for air. Perform a cool-down for five to 10 minutes following the speed drill.
Speed Work
Perform a pyramid workout on an exercise bike to build speed. Warm up for 10 minutes before you pedal at your top effort for one minute. Recover for an equal amount of time. Then do all-out efforts for two, three, four and five minutes with equal recovery times following. Follow the five-minute work session with intervals of four, three, two and one minutes with equal recovery times. Cool down with at least five minutes of easy riding. Your rate of perceived exertion should be about one during recovery times and at a nine or 10 during the intervals.
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