I can’t afford to join a health club, and to just go to spin costs 25 bucks a pop, so I was wondering if y’all would share your routines with me?
I have a trainer which I use on bad weather days, so it won’t be a spinning bike I’ll be using, but I’d still like your advice.
Thanks
Quasi
Using home trainers will get you very hot, you may well sweat so much that you leave a pool on the floor, so I would not advise you do this in a carpeted room.
Because you do not have the airflow over your body, your nether regions will become damp and will chafe, so make sure you wear clothes that do not have seams in the crucial places, as these chafe ten times more.
You might find it a good idea to direct a fan at you to help cool you down.
Spinning is fairly boring, you can buy videos of which look slightly like you are riding along, you can play fairly uptempo music where you try to get your pedalling rate in time with the beat.
You must warm up steadily to get up to temperature and you must warm down carefully to return to a normal temperature or you will stiffen up and ache.
It does not matter what gear or resistance you set, you should always be aiming for a certain number of pedal revolutions, I am used to using free-standing rollers and a track bike, I never go less than 80 revs and have gone up as far as 180 in hyper spin sprint mode.
If you can’t turn the pedals at 80 revs then the gear or resistance setting is too high.
Smoothness and suppleness are absolute key to achieving a high cadence, you should be spinning and not pushing the pedals around, try to use the movement in your ankles as this reduces the amount of distance your legs have to move and makes for much smoother riding.
You could combine this with heart rate monitors, you find out what 80% of your maximum for your age is, and ride to that level with perhaps a 100% one minute burst every 5 minutes you then drop down to your 80% heartrate to recover until your next burst.Once you find you cannot achieve your target pedalling rate without exceeding you 80% heart rate then it is time to climb off.
If you don’t have a pulse monitor then you set yourself a continous pedalling rate about 80 rpm, 1minute sprints once every 5 minutes.
For your first few goes at this I would not advise more than 20 minutes total, and in any case I would never exceed 30 minutes, if you feel you could have gone faster than you should increase your baseline pedalling speed from 80rpm to maybe 90 rpm.
You keep increasing your baseline pedalling speed progressively as your fitness and technique improve.
You mention that yours is a home trainer, and the chances are that the saddle is too wide and probably set too low.
Riding position in the lower body is absolutely vital, you should be able to put the bare heel of your foot on the pedal and then reverse pedal in such a way that your leg is only just stretched but your hips must remain still without rocking from side to side.
When you put your footwear on you will probably be using training shoes with built up cushion sloes, so you need to allow for this extra length that it adds to your legs.
The saddle should be similar to the type you see on a racing cycle, it is even more important because it will reduce chafing around your favourite region.
Boredom is your biggest enemy, anything that will entertain you is worthwhile, I mentioned this once already, I do so again.
When you climb off the machine having done your session, you will be surprised to find how much it has taken out of your legs, and there may well be a build up of lactic acid which stings like buggery around the back of the thighs and also the front around the part where the quad muscle joins to the bone just above the knee, so you need to do some gentle stretching to circulate things, and I wouldn’t advise you dash downstairs or you may find yourself descending faster than you wish.
Keep a diary of your performance and see how much you improve.
casdave, thanks, but I ride a Schwinn mountain bike which is set into a Volare fluid trainer when I ride indoors. It is not one of those exercycle thingies.
Sorry I didn’t mention this at the outset, but I am an experienced rider with an average of 100 miles per week on our bike trail. I just wanted to do some spinning indoors when I can’t ride outside. I also have a sweat catcher so my sweat won’t harm my bike. When I use my trainer, it sits on 8 feet of plastic carpet runner, and I have a fan mounted in front of me to keep me cool.
Thanks for the tip on the cadence and number of revs per minute. This is really what I was looking for in the OP. As far as boredom, I usually listen to music when I’m riding indoors…
All your advice is well-taken however, and I appreciate your taking the trouble to answer me!
Thanks
Q