Turbo Training

What is TURBO TRAINING and why should you do it?

Turboing, as it is known is a form of indoor cycling. You attach your bike to a turbo which provides a secure base and a resistance to the bike to enable you to train on it. The advantages are you can train in the warm & dry, it’s not far to get home if you get a puncture, you can train when it’s dark outside, & you can be very specific about your training sessions. You can also train to exhaustion which you can’t really do safely on the road. You can get a session in when it’s icy or snowing outside & you are not going to hit a pothole.

As a coach it enables me (Mike Dunmore) to prescribe structured, progressive training sessions that can be carefully monitored, and it is good for testing athletes as well. Maximum heart rate tests and sub maximal tests are both very useful training monitoring devices.

This is why you will find me coaching (and doing) a turbo session every Tuesday evening at Oxsrad. The sessions start at 7pm and last generally for between one and two hours The longer sessions are the ones we build up to during winter base building. When the racing season is nearly upon us, sessions are shorter and sharper.

All club members are welcome, you don’t need to be super fit to do these sessions, all you need is a desire to improve your cycling!

If you attend you will need

• A towel
• A bottle or two of drink & a recovery drink
• A mat or piece of carpet approx 2ft square to go under your turbo
• Your bike !
• A turbo (the club has a few that you can use on a first-come basis)
• A turbo-suitable rear wheel spindle. (These are generally rounded at each end, allowing the turbo to clamp and support the rear wheel. Ask at your local bike shop if they have a rear spindle suitable for using on a turbo. The club is in the process of acquiring some spares.)
• A heart rate monitor is useful

So come along to Oxsrad on Tuesday evenings and watch your cycling improve.

A couple of sample sessions are attached below.