Get off the trainer....Part 2

Last week I posted on the benefit of doing a large portion of your workouts outside:

http://precisioncyclecoach.blogspot.com/2009/02/get-off-trainer.html

Well today it was sweet weather and as usual I headed outside and did my 3x15:00 workout on the road. Below is a part of the ride and I wanted to point out a few things.

Some riders and coaches claim that the only way to do intervals properly is on the trainer or rollers. They claim that its more controlled and that the "iso-power" efforts are the best way to do your intervals. I couldn't disagree more.

Take a look at the screen shot below. The target power was 320 watts. It felt easy PE was way down and I know my FTP is higher than what i am training at right now so i let the power creep up a bit to 323 average and normalized. Still with a VI of 1, still an "iso-power" interval.

But take a look at the crank torque, cadence and speed and you can take my word for it that I would stand for a total of about 1:00 of the 15:00 interval. Notice that both torque and cadence are variable, but still have nice averages. These variations recruit different muscles and even muscle fibers, slow cadence/high torque on the steeps, high cadence/low torque staying "on top" of the gear on the few short downhills. All this opposed to a steady cadence, same gear, same crank torque that would usually be the result of the same workout done indoors.

I think that any intelligent individual would agree that the outside version, where you more closely simulate racing conditions is far superior. I understand many of us must do our workouts after dark in the winter so indoors is the only option and thats fine. But whenever possible get off the trainer and get your butt outside.

Healthy Day!

Zach