Top quality training
The rollers have no mercy
I confess that since the confinement due to Covid, I have become a regular at training on the roller and by extension, many of the athletes who are passionate about cycling or triathlon like me but we don’t have much time available.
And it is that many of us opened up a world of training with millimeter precision when carrying out the quality sessions on a bicycle and find maximum effectiveness in every minute dedicated to this sport.
Finally, bad weather, darkness or cold are no longer an impediment to work effectively and be prepared for the sporting challenges that the future tempts us with in a discipline that always has a tight schedule.
Before proceeding however, I must make a point with the roller. It has to be intelligent and direct transmission. Only in this way are we going to enjoy sensations of fluidity similar to riding on the road and it will put us to the test with the training sessions that we set for it according to our power curve.
If you do not yet have a device of this type, believe me, do not invest in profile wheels or a new Garmin,… choose a smart roller. Every euro invested in this device is worth it. It’s not as “cool” as carbon wheels but you’ll go faster when you hit the road and after all, that’s what it’s all about, right?
Once you have bought and installed it at home, there is no need to compare yourself to those magnificent “panic rooms” that many show off on Instagram. With a well-ventilated place, with good home Wi-Fi coverage and a plug, it will be enough to install the entire training complex.
The first thing you should do before starting is to calibrate the roller so that it marks correctly and then do the power test to find out your functional power threshold. It is very important that this value is well adjusted since it is the base unit from which the intensities of ALL the trainings are marked.
From that value you will be able to train from the comfortable aerobic zones, the uncomfortable transition zones with lactic load and the apparently impossible zones of power and lactic and alactic anaerobic capacity.
Without dwelling on this type of work, the good thing about the smart roller is that it simply “puts” the power it touches and that’s it. Not one watt more and not one less. If you lower the cadence, the strength goes up. If you increase the cadence, the strength decreases. And this means that if you don’t want to get “stuck” you must continue applying force. This means that in training that perhaps on the road you would lift your foot and believe that you can no longer, with the roller it does not happen. He doesn’t lift his foot, he has no mercy, he forces you to keep up the effort. This generates superior physiological adaptations and mentally makes you stronger. Sure, if you really can’t, you’ll eventually get stuck, but before this hits, you’ll probably have tried harder than on the road.
To exemplify this precision, I am attaching a screenshot of a training session carried out on a roller and another outside. Can you guess what each one is?
