adapting outdoors to indoors with coach scotty

Words of advice on adapting outdoor rides to indoors with Coach Scotty Farrell

The east coast of Australia, to put it lightly, has had a sprinkle or two of water this year, so far, and things aren’t looking to improve too much either, being a la nina year.
There’s been a stack of event cancellations, and a heap of shuffling in-house to get sessions done. A lot of athletes who previously might consider themselves as ‘rain, hail or shine’ kinda people, have even jumped on the indoor smart trainer bandwagon. I won’t go into the benefits of the indoor trainer today, but let’s talk about how to adapt an outdoor session to an indoor one, on the fly, and what the caveats are attached to this.
There are a few scenarios where we might need to change it up a bit through the week. The main one is usually wet weather. Other times might include, sick kids, flying solo and can’t leave the kids at home by themselves, work life getting hectic… you get the picture. 

In my opinion, there’s no substitute for good old fashioned time in the saddle, but when life or weather events happen, here’s my thoughts on adapting sessions from outside, to inside:

1. Example outdoor session: 3 hour aerobic endurance ride with rolling hills. One of those zone 2 type rides with some mixed terrain. 
   1. Adapting to indoors: 75-90 min trainer session including a warm up with some short 10-30” intervals to get things ‘fired up’. Then a main set of 5-6 x 5 mins of big gear, low cadence 50-60rpm work at a z3 effort (strong and sustainable, strength focussed work).

• You will notice that we’ve halved the total duration, and made the session more specific by doing the big gear work to mimic what would have otherwise been a few climbs outside. Bang for buck, you’re always going to get a good workout on the trainer with no traffic, stop signs, lights etc. The end result being a relatively same about of ‘stress’ (all things not created equally) for the session.

* If a session is race specific with lots of time spent working around race pacing or the like, and we are nearing race day, then culling volume off a session, in my opinion, is less likely required. I think there’s an element of ‘get on the trainer and get it done’ involved. But, not so new smart trainer platforms like Zwift, make taking an outdoor session, and replicating it on the trainer (without the traffic, weather etc) much easier. For example, if I was 5-6 weeks out from an Ironman race, and I had a 5-6 hour ride with a handful of race specific efforts (5 x 20 mins @ race rpe) then I’m just going to get on Zwift, choose a loop or course similar to what I would have ridden outside, and get on with it. Or perhaps I might choose to do my efforts on a low gradient climb (doable on Zwift) where I can control my wattage/HR/RPE easily and still remain in the aero position. 

Further out from a race, let’s say 12+ weeks, then I might consider winding back the volume a bit more, but then again, I come from the old school mindset of ‘if it’s on my program, I get it done no matter what…’, within the realms of good healthy training of course. 

For most of us, training during the week is very specific and often involves using a smart trainer to punch out shorter ‘trainer sets’ anyway. It’s the longer outdoor rides that require the edits sometimes. Again though, software and smart trainers have taken the guesswork out of needing to adapt things. Likely for most of you reading this, you have or have had a coach that will adapt or give alternative suggestions, and have heard this kind of thing before, but it’s a good reminder.

Other things to think about when going from outside to inside, especially for longer periods of time:

• There’s no breeze inside. You’ll need a good fan to help keep the core temp at ease and a bit of air flow in the room. Better still if you have an air conditioned training room.
• There’s no movement. Apart from your legs, there’s less of a need to balance and change positions as regularly as you would outside. So, it’s important to regularly sit up, move around a bit, every now and then. Whilst being locked into a set position is good for time trial racing specificity, we still need to ‘have a mini break’ where we might normally be coasting down a hill or easing up for a sharp corner etc. 
• Sitting up. As humans, we often default to the easy option, and doing our sessions sitting up, taking selfies, or texting your mates can become a not so helpful habit. Think about making sure you are spending ample time down in the time trial position looking ahead (be sure to position your screen where you might normally be looking up the road). We want to make sure our neck, back, and hammies are all well conditioned to this position, or come race day, you’ll lose power on the bike from a tight/sore lower back, and attempt to get off the bike and run with seized up hips and a hunchback… not conducive to strong running one might say!?

There we have it, a few simple tips to help you adapt to wet weather training from outside to inside on the bike trainer. 

Like anything related to individuals, and the reason we believe wholeheartedly in personalised coaching and programming, every person is unique and comes with a host of nuance. So whilst we might have some guidelines for ‘how to adapt’ things on the fly, there’s no substitute for changing things to suit an individual. Without all the knowledge of what goes on in a person’s life, it’s very difficult to apply any steadfast rules. Variables are what make life what it is… full of nuance and semi-organised chaos. ;-) Embrace the opportunity, and know that the rain period will end (eventually). Take solace in the fact that all those hours spent ticking away on the turbo trainer will make you that little bit stronger without all the traffic delays. 

Stay safe and have fun enjoying the sport you love!