By John Higgins — The first snowflakes of winter are hitting the valley floor as I write this — meaning more of you will likely be riding your bike on a trainer inside over the next few months. Or you might have upgraded to an indoor exercise bike from Stages or Wahoo to save your outdoor steed for, well, outside!

There are some obvious differences between riding inside and riding outside. One difference that many people notice is that for some inexplicable reason, they are less comfortable. This can be perplexing if you feel great on your bike outside, but less so inside. Maybe your hands are going numb, or the saddle is speaking up loudly. What’s up with that? There are some interesting physics going on. You’ll also warm up and get hot real fast. Hence the need for a cool room and a well-directed fan.

Let’s start with the heat. Although you think all those calories you are expending are going directly to the pedals, cyclists only have an energy efficiency of 20-25%. Less than a quarter of your effort is reaching the pedals, and the rest of it is lost as heat. Without the evaporative cooling effect of moving at speed through air outside, you will quickly ramp up the humidity of your training environment and your body will try to lose heat through increased and obvious sweating. To mitigate this, do as much as you can to keep the room cool; open a window; have one or two fans going; have hydration at hand, and consume it; and have a hand towel to mop yourself off. Also dress lightly. Consider liner shorts instead of regular bibs or shorts, as they offer a more open weave and better ventilation. You are trying to reduce “swamp crotch”. No need for a cycling jersey. The less the better up top, depending on the privacy of your training environment and need for support and modesty, or propensity to livestream your workout.

The disappointingly little energy that does reach the pedals is used to turn the cranks, which move the chain, which rotate the wheels, which – in the outside world (or on rollers), dissipate that energy into forward momentum. In the inside world on the trainer, that energy is not dissipated, but circles back to bite you in the butt. Ouch! It’s not lost to the road through momentum and the movement and sway of the bike underneath you. On a stationary trainer or exercise bike that is held and supported rigidly and upright there is no forward momentum, nor much side-to-side movement. Also, because the need for balance is much reduced and you don’t need to steer, corner, or brake, your core is likely to be less engaged and active. This combination of factors tends to concentrate and magnify any mis-fit in the bike – body relationship. Because of the way energy is dissipated while riding outside, minor issues can be masked by the more dynamic nature of riding on roads and trails. It’s not that these issues don’t exist, but they are being dulled or absorbed. But inside on a trainer they can be highlighted and brought to the fore.

An increasing recognition of this issue has led to the creation of DIY and commercial “rocker plates” and other trainer accessories. These contraptions go under your trainer and provide for more “realistic cycling movements”. The bike will move back and forward and side to side in response to your efforts. It’s doing this all the time when you are riding outside, but because it is “normal” you don’t really notice it. What you notice is when this is not happening, which is most of the time inside. There are also some trainers that allow this movement to take place, like the Kinetic Rock n Roll, which I use in my fit studio.

If feet, saddle pressure, back, shoulder, neck, or hand issues are bothering you when riding inside, but not when you are outside, you might want to consider having your bike fit revaluated and refined, and / or look into the rocker plate revolution. Indoor cycling, training, and racing may involve a bike-like object and turning the pedals, but it is a different sport with different physics at work. Understanding the differences can help you optimize your experience and crush your rivals on Zwift, enjoy the scenic rides on Rouvy, or knock out your TrainerRoad workouts with increased satisfaction. Ride on!

John Higgins is a professional bike fitter and purveyor of unique and boutique bicycles and fit-related components and accessories in Salt Lake City. More info on bikefitr.com

By Pat Casey — The cold, dark, shortened days of winter are upon us. There’s no arguing that everyone, particularly endurance athletes, benefits from adjustments in their schedules and routines to get the most out of the hours in the day. Life doesn’t slow down, and the feeling of not having enough hours in the day can become overwhelming as our days literally feel like they’re cut in half when we turn our clocks back and our days get even shorter. Adjusting to our new environment requires awareness of many variables, some of which we are seemingly unaware of until they impact us in a negative way. Here are a few tips to help you adjust your circadian clock and your training to have your best winter season yet!

Sleep Cycles, Supplementation and Adjusting to Time Change

There are many cyclists and triathletes out there who thrive on early mornings, and already squeeze every drop of time out of the day. To those of you reading who are already crushing the mornings, I applaud you for taking advantage of additional hours in the day! If you are like me, it takes a significant adjustment to force a change in my daily routine. Recently, I returned home to Salt Lake City after two weeks in Spain where I was fortunate to have a coaching gig with USA Triathlon which brought me over there. I suppose I can also thank this experience for my newfound early morning schedule… After returning, my schedule has been something like this: I wake up at 5 or 6 AM, train, work, and go about my day, but I am exhausted by 8 PM and am in bed by 8:30 or 9. 

You might be asking… “But Pat, without a trip to/from Europe to force a change, how am I supposed to trick my body into adjusting to a totally new sleep cycle?” Our bodies and brains are incredibly adaptable, and our circadian clock is trainable just like any other neurochemical change we are trying to make. We are so used to them happening naturally, so adjusting this biological clock takes discipline. However, after 3-4 days you will begin waking up earlier naturally without putting a damper on the rest of your day. 

Your Circadian Clock is Trainable

Just like we use Melatonin when we are trying to get to sleep on a long flight, or trying to readjust to a new time zone, we can also use Melatonin to adjust our body clocks to a new routine like getting to sleep earlier than we’re used to. When our bodies prepare for sleep, we naturally produce melatonin as we enter into our sleep cycle. The timing at which this happens can be manipulated through supplementation, but our other routines must also follow this trend to an earlier bedtime. Within an hour of your new ‘goal’ bedtime, stop scrolling Instagram and reading Twitter and put your phone down. When you awaken, begin your day with exercise, instead of scrolling on your phone! The adrenaline release will help combat the fatigue mechanisms and help force the physiological adaptation to shift your adrenal response or “sleep-wake cycle” to an earlier hour in the day. You can even use an artificial light source to down-regulate melatonin and help to synchronize your new sleep-light cycle. Caffeine also helps! All of this will feel like strain initially, but no change comes easily! Our brains are intensely tied to the signals that we send from our habits, so become aware of your habits, take some control by applying these tips, and change your biological clock to get a little more out of each day! 

Training your Weaknesses

Cyclists and triathletes alike are notorious for jumping from their “off-season” right back into an aerobic Base Building phase of training. The strain that our bodies are under during a long season of racing and training becomes familiar, and we normalize being in a heightened state of physiological stress. Athletes often perceive that they have lost a huge amount of aerobic fitness after returning from a break, experiencing a reduced tolerance to hard aerobic efforts, a higher perceived exertion at a familiar pace or power output, and generally feeling “deconditioned”. In reality, we don’t lose as many mitochondria as we might think. Even though we aren’t able to ride as hard as we could in August, a slight deconditioning and recovery phase of our annual training is a healthy part of the cycle. 

Instead of working yourself into a catabolic mess and going right back to a structured set of intervals each week, let your body absorb some new stresses to improve areas that will correspond to your training later! If you are a long-hour endurance athlete, chances are you have plenty of aerobic capacity. This is not to suggest in any way that you stop cycling or performing some form of aerobic conditioning in the winter months. We need to maintain the functionality of our mitochondria in skeletal muscle and our aerobic fitness. But we can all agree that introducing a new stimulus is essential for growth in all areas of life, and (not to sound like a broken record but…) endurance athletes need to be adding strength training to their training program. 

Planning Matters and Coaching Helps

If you choose to hire a personal trainer/strength and conditioning coach, or just want to explore spending time in the gym, it’s important to reduce the overall time you’re spending performing aerobic work and allow your body to absorb the adaptations to lifting weights and gaining strength. Every athlete has different needs. If your goal is to gain strength, power, and to become a more resilient athlete, consider taking a more individualized approach to your winter training. It’s easy to follow the masses and do what your teammates are doing. There is a reason the best riders and triathletes in the world take a step back and shift their focus on building strength and tensegrity – it pays dividends, particularly when we progressively load our bodies with various physiological and physical stresses throughout a season. 

Strength and endurance are oil and water, meaning the body cannot effectively adapt to both at the same time with quality. Not sure where to start? Reach out to a coach to schedule a consultation and help get you on track this winter.