Improvements at last – Turbo Trainer Session
It looks as though my hard work on the turbo trainer may be paying off as I seem to be making some improvements.
I did my 1 minute interval session yesterday, where after a warm up I try to do 7 repetitions of 1 minute hard and 1 minute easy. After a little bit of experimentation over a few weeks I found my limits and could just about do these with the hard effort at 350 Watts. I have since done a few of these at 350 Watts, which normally gets my heart rate up to around 90-95% of my theoretical maximum.
Last time I did them on January 19th they felt a little easier and heart rate was only 89% of its maximum so today was the day to increase the output to 360 Watts. I had tried them at 360 Watts before and failed miserably. On that occasion I only managed 5 repetitions, but today was different. In fact, although the last one did feel quite tough it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I managed all 7 reps and with a maximum heart rate of 162bpm I was still only working at 89% of my maximum.
This may all sound very encouraging and it looks as though there are signs of improvement, but it also means that I should try them at 370 Watts next time. I don’t think I’ll be able to complete all 7 reps at that power output, but it has to be worth a go.
I felt quite good at circuits and in the pool on Tuesday too, so maybe I’m just having a good couple of days – We’ll see how I fare in the real world on my night MTB ride tonight.
Heart rate from todays Turbo Trainer workout
