How To Make Your Indoor Cycling Count

During the winter months, many cyclists head indoors to prepare for the upcoming season. With the growing popularity of interactive cycling training apps, many find themselves competing on Zwift, following training plans geared at achieving their yearly goals, or simply as a way to keep fit before heading out on their next outdoor ride.

While many gain some satisfaction from their day-to-day training this way, few leverage these indoor sessions to gain fitness as they head outdoors once the weather improves. Below are 5 Tips and Tricks cyclists can utilize this winter to not only improve, but leave their winter pain cave knowing exactly the impact it has made on their season.

In the tips below, you will find training strategies that leverage the COROS cycling ecosystem. Whether you utilize a COROS DURA, COROS Watch, or COROS Heart Rate Monitor, all of this information will be located within the COROS App.

1. Figure Out Your Current Ability

The first step to a productive indoor season, is identifying your current ability. To do this, COROS recommends performing a threshold test as it's the best indicator of cycling performance over time.

Testing With Power

For those with a power meter, COROS has a Functional Threshold Power (FTP) Test that is built into your product. In the activity menu of your COROS watch or COROS DURA, select "fitness tests" and then "Cycling FTP Test". This will guide you through a session that helps establish your FTP

If power isn't available to you, you can still take advantage of the tips below leveraging only heart rate. An FTP test is the gold standard within cycling, but tracking heart rate still allows for all other metrics to appear.

2. Have a Plan for Every Workout

When training indoors, it's rare for cyclists to train as long as they do outdoors. Factors such as boredom, and motivation play a role in this. As you get on the bike for your indoor sessions, it helps to have a plan mapped out on what you'd like to achieve from the session

Within the COROS App, Cyclists can create their own workouts and sync them to their COROS Watch or DURA, or download a COROS Official Workout/Training Plan designed by cycling coaches on staff.

3. Track Your Progress

You'll have good and bad days while training indoors. Regardless, every day counts. When tracking a ride with heart rate or power, COROS will provide a metric called "Training Load". This metric will showcase the stress on your body.

Training stress is what makes us feel sore or tired, but it also allows your body to adapt, and eventually become stronger. As your training load compounds day-after-day, you'll soon see your Base Fitness trending up. This is your key to maximizing your time while riding indoors.

Base Fitness is a 42-day rolling average of your Training Load. This metric is available to all while utilizing power or heart rate when using a COROS Watch or COROS DURA.  

4. Know When to Rest and When to Push

With the tips above, nearly all cyclists can make improvements throughout the indoor season. However, as you begin to stress your body, you must also keep up with your recovery to sustain it.

Sleep

When wearing a COROS watch to sleep, athletes will gain insights into their sleep stages and overall time. Sleep is when the body repairs itself, and a lack of it will cause negative consequences in the long run. Check on your Sleep Quality before heading into your daily sessions to ensure you're ready for the workout ahead.

HRV

As your body goes through mental or physical stress, your variability of heart beats changes. The higher the difference, the more ready your body is to respond. By looking at this number on your watch following a nights sleep, you'll know if you're ready for a high intensity interval session, or perhaps if its better to save that session for tomorrow.

Training Status

Within training itself, you will be compiling stress on your body. Your Training Status will show if you've recovered from your past workouts or if you're accumulating fatigue. Taking recovery days is a normal part of training, but this metric can help dial in your approach rather than adhereing to traditional on/off day recommendations without insights.

5. Your Environment Matters

When heading indoors, be sure to set up your "Pain Cave" with tools that enhance your riding experience.

Cooling

As you ride outdoors, you get a natural cooling effect from the wind and environment. With little air circulation indoors and remaining stationary, cyclists need to artificially create this to keep their body temperature down. Be sure to have a fan set up in front of you to reduce overheating, especially on your key workout sessions.

Sound

While outdoors, there are many things distracting you from the pain in your legs. This could be the natural environment, the sound of the wind, other traffic, etc. We find listening to music or podcasts as a great distraction from the effort at hand, while also being a great tool for motivation.

Visual Interaction

Similar to sound, there are many sights you may focus on outdoors that makes your base riding easier. Head indoors and base becomes a challenge. You can utilize a software such as ZWIFT for a fun interaction, or leverage the COROS Extender feature to see your data in real time within the app. Anything you can do to gamify your efforts, and make the workout more enjoyable will help overall.

Fueling

Finally, fueling will play a critical part in any ride lasting over 60-90 minutes. Having fuel in your bottles, or on a stand next to you ensures you can get the most out of your workout. For guidance on this, you can set your COROS watch or DURA to provide a nutrition alert. By doing so, you'll not only train your stomach, but also have the fuel needed for a tough workout.

Take It Outdoors

With the tips above, you'll be ready to expand on your fitness once you head outdoors. You'll know your power/heart rate zones, your current abilities, your current fitness, and how recovered you are throughout. Many cyclists start the outdoor season without knowing their ability. This is time wasted when you have goals you're aiming to achieve. Leverage these tips and tricks to jumpstart your year while making the most out of the indoor portion of the year.

COROS Products

Regardless of the weather or setting, COROS products allow you to track the information that matters. Comprised of the COROS DURA, Watches, Heart Rate Monitor, Bike Speed Sensor, and Bike Cadence Sensor, The COROS cycling ecosystem allows athletes to gain insights as they work toward their goals. For more information on COROS Cycling and how to leverage your products for all parts of the year, visit coros.com/ride