Bike / Trainer Workouts To Try At Home

I'm not sure where in the world you're living but I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  While we get full on winter, complete with bitter cold and snow, I know a whole bunch of people who live even further north and manage a full training load in even more extreme winter.  We all spend a whole lot of time riding on bike trainers, on the road to nowhere, simply out of necessity.  With the growing participation in online training platforms like Zwift, TrainerRoad, BKool and the like, it's clear that the rest of the cycling & triathlon world is also riding indoors, even when they're not forced indoors by the weather. Indoor riding is a safe and efficient way to get in some solid training in any weather conditions.  One thing we've figured out in our 25+ years of this is how to keep our workouts productive, fun and engaging so here are some of the ones that we keep going back to.

(We do a warmup of 10 to 15 minutes before each of these 'main sets' and a cooldown of 5 to 10 minutes after). 

VO2 Max Workout

2 X (2 minutes on, 2 minutes off)
2 X (90 seconds on, 90 seconds off)
2 X (1 minute on, 1 minute off)
4 X (30 seconds on, 30 seconds off)
5 minutes recovery
Increase work intensity through the set. If you are working with power numbers and are using FTP, it's easier to make sure you hit your mark on each set.  I usually aim for 105% to 120% of FTP, starting at 105% of FTP for the first set and the add 5% on each of the next levels. It will hurt a bit but it's a good kind of pain.
Repeat the set one more time for a total workout duration of about 75 minutes.  Trust me - it will be enough!

Hill workout

This one's easy to customize:  I try to get in 30 to 40 minutes of climbing in over a 60 to 90 minute workout (including warmup and cooldown times).  My 'go to' set is 8 X 4 minutes of climbing with 2 minutes of easy pedaling between each hill.  You could mix this up with shorter or longer hills, with more or fewer repeats but 4 minute hills are the sweet spot for me - not too short, not too long, just right.  And in order to keep it interesting and switch up the position, I mix in some standing segments of different lengths. Here's how it might look:
Hill 1 - all seated
Hill 2 - stand the last 15 seconds of each minute
Hill 3 - seated for 30 seconds, standing for 30 seconds for the full duration of the hill interval
Hill 4 - 1 minute seated, 1 minute standing - repeat
Hill 5 - all seated
Hill 6 - stand the last 15 seconds of each minute
Hill 7 - 2 minutes seated, 15 seconds seated/15 seconds standing for the last 2 minutes
Hill 8 - 15 seconds seated/15 seconds standing for the first 2 minutes, go a gear harder if you can and then 10 seconds seated/10 standing for the last 2 minutes
Or some variation of the above progression. We mix standing/sitting to add variety, get out of the saddle, work the glutes & core differently. You can do the progression forwards, backwards, inside out, however you want in order to keep it fresh.  It's super fun.  NOT!

Aerobic Endurance Workout

The hardest workout, for me anyway, to maintain the desired and required intensity on longer, sustained workout it the long, aerobic interval ride.  So, unless I'm riding on Zwift or an equally engaging and data rich environment, this workout helps me keep up a consistent intensity. The 'work' part of this set will be at or just above FTP but the rest intervals are not enough to allow real recovery, you will stay in an aerobic training zone.  The overall result is that 'work' sessio 

15 minutes of:  45 seconds at 100-105% of FTP (see Note), 15 seconds easy (50-80% of FTP)
5 minutes recovery (easy)
12 minutes of:  45 seconds at 100-105% of FTP, 15 seconds easy (50-80% of FTP)
5 minutes recovery (easy)
10 minutes of:  45 seconds at 100-105% of FTP, 15 seconds easy (50-80% of FTP)
5 minutes recovery (easy)
Note:  FTP = Functional Threshold Power which you would determine by periodic testing or tons of riding.   Alternately, if using heart rate training, aim for high Zone 4, touching on Zone 5. If just using Perceived Exertion scales, the work efforts will start at about 18/20 and end up at 19/20.  But 

 I like a little structure and I like a little mathematical consistency, whether it is an ascending interval, a descending interval or a pyramid.  I've set this one up as a descending duration interval but you could split is up any way that gets you the duration you want.  Overall, I try to do 30 to 45 minutes of this set, building up to 20 minutes as the longest interval.  My favourite sets for a longer workout is 15/15/15 or 20/15/10 for a total of 45 minutes  This is set up described above is for a workout of overall duration of 70 to 80 minutes. 


These are the ones I repeat at every few weeks.  I am just an aging age group athlete but I've used these workouts consistently for years and they've proven themselves to work for me.