Alex Dowsett tells us about the unique rewards of indoor training
Words: Alex Dowsett
I’ve always enjoyed indoor training, even back when most professional riders hated it. I discovered it in my first year at Team Sky, around 2011, when I did a five-hour indoor ride.
It was ice cold, wet and foggy outside, which is why I stayed indoors. I didn’t have a fancy turbo trainer, just a power meter to focus on. But I really enjoyed it. I had snacks.
I had a break for lunch. And I watched three movies. I was a first-year pro living at home with my parents, and my father worked from home.
And I thought: ‘He is at work, and so am I!’ The difference was that I got to watch movies.
A better experience
Of course, there has been a big shift in attitudes in the last decade, with pro riders realising how good indoor cycling can be.
It’s a better experience now. Pro riders love racing, and we can race indoors, as things have become more interactive, with Zwift, smart trainers and smart bikes.
And it’s so easy. You don’t have the faff of getting kitted up to get out the door every day.
I think we are more educated about the effectiveness of indoor training today too. During lockdown, we literally couldn’t leave the house where I was living in Andorra, so I trained indoors.
And when they let us out, my pedalling stroke had changed. The dead spot at the top and bottom was no longer a dead spot, and I was much more efficient. Done properly, indoor training can be very effective.
But now I have stepped away from the WorldTour, training is something I want to do, rather than something I have to do. And indoor training fits well with family life.
At home in Essex, we have two Wattbikes for me and my wife Chanel.
They’re in a kind of loft space, so it is quite ‘cave’ like. There’s a TV on the wall for films, and an iPad on the handlebar for the training session on the Wattbike Hub cycling app or Zwift.
We have two high-intensity area fans pointed at us, and there is a skylight window and front windows for good airflow. I will maybe put some old jerseys on the walls one day, too.
With the Wattbike, I can just jump on and do a 20-minute session. As a pro, it wasn’t worth getting kitted up for that. Now that is what I have time for, so I make it count.
I have to be well-fuelled and keep cool. And I have to be entertained, whether through intervals or films.
If I’m doing intervals, some concentration is required, so I tend to put on something I’ve seen before, so I can switch in and out.
If I’m just spinning, I’ll put on something new. Superhero films like the DC and Marvel franchises are entertaining for an interval session, and Netflix’s sporting documentaries are pretty good for a low-intensity session.
To me, music on the turbo is just background noise: you could have drum and bass, Taylor Swift or something slow and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to how I’m pushing. But if it has a really catchy line, it will get in my head when I’m time trialling.
A lack of pressure
I enjoy my training a lot more now. I like the lack of pressure. Instead of thinking: ‘I need to hit these numbers’, it’s more like: ‘Those are the numbers I’m hitting’.
They’re not where I was as a WorldTour rider, but sometimes they’re a pleasant surprise. I just do a session, then carry on with my day.
But I still push myself. My time trial numbers aren’t bad, but I want to get them closer to what I recognise, which isn’t impossible for 10- and 25-mile efforts.
Over-under sessions – where you ride above and below your functional threshold power (FTP) – are the killer for me. They creep up on you. And it is often the under – the easier bit – that gets you.
If you commit hard to the over, when you hit the under and have to keep going, it can be really hard. And any VO2 max stuff, at really high intensity, is also horrible.
But the main thing is that indoor training allows me to adapt to my new time priorities. I’m a father now and I want to make the most of the time I get to train.
Health is important to my wife and I. And I think it’s good that our daughter Juliette gets to see us exercise at home as she grows up.
I always like to feel like I’ve done something, whether it is 20 minutes or a five-hour ride, and sometimes it’s just easier to do that indoors.
But these days I’m quite happy to be good for 20 minutes, rather than 21 days.
Alex Dowsett is an ambassador for Wattbike. His autobiography, ‘Bloody Minded’, was published on 28 September (Bloomsbury Sport, £20)