I used to have no time for the indoor trainer. Sure I had one, but I’d barely used it and considered it to be a boring, less effective alternative to “proper” riding on the road. All that changed when I understood the power of home training.

How To Survive A Indoor Training Session – Follow a Structured Plan

There are a lot of people that hate indoor training. This is mainly the result of these people jumping on a trainer without any structured plan. I’m sure you have done it too. It’s not long before your mind starts wandering and the only thing that you can focus on is the amount of time still to go as you slowly watch the seconds count down on your monitor. This article discusses several important tips to help your indoor training sessions become more interesting and motivating for you…

This is easily and simply solved by setting up a structured weekly training plan with goals that include the exact details of the set exercises to complete during each of the sessions. Just like going to the gym and working through a set routine, it is amazing how motivated you can become, even when you can’t wait for your next stint on the home trainer.

How To Survive A Indoor Training Session – Measure your Performance

This newfound motivation is to do with getting instant feedback on your progress and being able to consistently measure it with past results. This is a very powerful motivator because once you do set up a training plan, you can start to measure your progress in a controlled environment. If you add a heart rate monitor like the Polar CS400 or CS600 or a Garmin 500 to the program your can then download your data and start comparing it with your previous attempts. The feedback is extremely powerful and motivational to the point where you will naturally want to spend more time on the trainer.

How To Survive A Indoor Training Session – Use Music to Motivate You

Another motivational advantage is that at home you can get a MP3 and listen to it while training. While we don’t in any way endorse using such a device on the road as we consider it very dangerous, the MP3 becomes another powerful device to help you with your training. Music has been scientifically proven to help keep you motivated and enables you to push harder for longer than you are without it. This is one of the main reasons why spin classes are usually pumped with music. What’s more interesting is that after a while you only have to listen to the music on your MP3 to get motivated. Don’t want to do a session? Put your MP3 on and play the music you listen to while doing your session and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll want to jump on the home trainer and whack one out.

Also you can set the trainer up in the living room, put on a Tour de France DVD, and ride with the cycling greats. My wife does this all the time when she is doing her base rides on the trainer.

The other REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT THING is to buy a home trainer that has a very good to excellent road feel. It will make an incredible difference to your motivation if you are training on a home trainer that feels right. I have seen some horrible trainers in my coaching career which are truly a waste of time to train on.