Skip to main content
Intervals on a Home Trainer

I am a 19 year old road rider, 65kg, 178cm with at the moment limited training time, my focus is to be in form for the end of the (now beginning) summer season for crits and road races in and around Sydney. My question essentially is can I carry out effective training by using a home trainer for building endurance (can this be done effectively) and spend my limited outdoor sessions focusing on speed and power?

R. Tyler

Dave Palese replies:

I would suggest using the trainer to develop speed and power. And use your outdoor time to work on the endurance aspect of your fitness.

Doing so will allow you to structure your power/speed sessions and also have a great deal of control over the sessions. It can be difficult to do power/speed sessions on the road, since terrain, traffic and weather can vary during intervals. It also will help to keep the length of your trainer time to a minimum.

When you go outside you can work on endurance and some longer, middle intensity intervals (7 minutes or so, to an hour).