It’s that time of year where the weather is less than hospitable to training. Even here in usually-sunny SoCal, we sometimes find ourselves amidst rain and cold. Here are some indoor bike trainer workout ideas to get you through the off-season fit and less-frustrated. It’s not as fun as riding outside, but it is a fact of life that we must accept. In addition to keeping us out of the cold and wet weather, using it year round provides very controlled, quality workouts that you just can’t get on the road. Running in the rain is fun, so no treadmill workouts here.

These workouts call for specific intensities to maximize the efforts. We recommend getting blood lactate tested @ TRIO to determine YOUR personal training zones. We are all different, we all have different zones.

Aerobic Endurance Ride – The long endurance ride at an aerobic heart rate/power output is arguably the most important training session of the week for long course triathletes. If the weather doesn’t allow a long ride outdoors, try this workout that ANTI-Carly and I came up with to get through 2.5-3 hrs, on the trainers.

Warm-Up: 10 min easy, build into Aerobic Zone

Drill Single Leg: 5x (30 sec right leg/30 sec left leg/1 min both)

Drill Spin-Ups: 5x (:20 sec build to max cadence/:10 sec hold max cadence/1:30 easy spin)

Main Set: 12x (8 min of work with 2 min recovery)

• Odds @ 90+ RPM steady in aerobars at lower end of Aerobic Zone

• Evens @ 70+ RPM steady climb, standing :20 every 2 min at higher end Aerobic Zone

Cool Down: 10-20 min easy spin followed by FLUID Chocolate Recovery Drink and a really good dark beer, that Stone-collaboration Chocolate Mint beer from ANTI-Carly’s Blog would be a solid choice.

During the Week Brick (courtesy of ANTI-RACING TEAM sponsor Coach Gareth/TRIO)

Bike Warm Up: 10 min Easy

Drills: 10 min mixed drills, single-leg/spin-ups

Main Set: 6x (5 min @ half-ironman race pace + 3 min @ Olympic distance race pace + 2 min recovery)

Transition to Run – Don’t be a wimp, go run outside in the rain! It won’t hurt you.

Main Set: 20 min @ half-ironman race pace + 5 min cool down walk/jog

Post-Workout: FLUID Chocolate Recovery Drink and a solid IPA, maybe Dogfish Head 90 min, Racer 5 or if you’re really lucky a Russian River Pliny the Elder (and if you’re really-really lucky, Blind Pig IPA)!

***Note that we stream a marathon of Friday Night Lights episodes off Netflix during trainer workouts.

This post was written by ANTI-Mike with tips from ANTI-Carly