How do bike trainers work

When it comes to indoor bike trainers, there are two costs to consider: the cost of the trainer itself and the cost of the bicycle you need to ride it. While you don't need a fancy bicycle to pair with it, you do need to make sure your bike is compatible.

A stationary bike resembles a bicycle without any road-ready tires. A saddle, pedals and handlebars are attached to a solid, stationary base that keeps the bike in place while you pedal. In most cases, the seat is adjustable and moves up and down to allow riders of different sizes to find a comfortable position.

Depending on the bike, you can ride in an upright position or a recumbent, or reclining, position. They create resistance through air, straps, mechanical resistance or friction direct contact.

These digital consoles also monitor speed, exercise duration, heart rate and calories burned. Stationary bikes are typically used in general health and fitness programs and tend to be good for anyone who is hoping to simply improve their cardiovascular fitness level, build muscle strength and see better results from their weight loss efforts.

Spin bikes, like the cult-favorite Peloton , fall under the category of stationary bikes, although there are some differences that set them apart. The biggest difference is the weight of the flywheel and how it operates. Spin bikes typically have a heavier flywheel than regular stationary bikes and it's connected directly to the pedals with a chain, similar to how a regular bicycle is designed. This creates inertia to keep the pedals moving, even when you stop pedaling, also creating variable resistance that's more similar to an outdoor ride that you'd get with other types of stationary bikes.

Because the flywheel is heavier and takes more effort to spin, it also tends to burn slightly more calories. And if you stand on the bike -- a pedaling position that's common in spin workouts -- you'll engage more muscles than staying seated and this will increase calorie burn too. Another notable difference is that many standard spin bikes don't have a console. This means you won't have the option to program your workouts or follow preprogrammed routines. SHARE By Matt Dixon, coach and founder of purplepatch Fitness In triathlon and riding circles, there is an ever-ongoing debate about the value of riding on an indoor bike trainer versus riding outside.

What You Cannot Achieve on a Trainer Rather than simply mounting a case for all the benefits of indoor riding, let's first acknowledge some aspects you won't get to effectively work on while bolted to the floor: Handling Skills: All basic, yet important, interactions with the bicycle are not replicated when on a trainer.

You cannot develop a sense of balance, braking, cornering, descending etc. These are interactions that are so often lacking among triathletes, so we must realize that plenty of outside riding, with focus on these fundamental skills, will be beneficial for you.

Terrain Management: Using gears and pedal stroke to effectively manage rolling terrain, descents and climbs cannot truly be developed on a trainer. With some of the software improvements, it is getting closer, but the true intuition and developing of feeling is only achieved outside. Standing Out of the Saddle: An important skill to develop to effectively manage terrain, short postural load, but also nail the counter-steering effect that is utilized in cornering, riding in the wind and other interactions, yet impossible to develop when riding on a trainer that holds the bike in place laterally.

The Benefits of the Bicycle Trainer So you cannot work on standing or cornering, your terrain management won't improve, and you won't effectively stand out of the saddle. Here are some of the opportunities with riding the trainer: Effective Training in a Controlled Environment: Specific interval training becomes highly effective without the natural variability of the terrain of outside. There is no coasting on a trainer, hence why many like to make the claim that 60 minutes of trainer time is worth more than 60 minutes outside.

You have a controlled environment, to nail specific intervals, without any coasting effect. I promise you will never run out of a hill when doing low rpm hill reps' on a trainer. Pedal Stroke and Posture: Without the requirement to manage your bike around traffic, terrain and other riders, the trainer provides the optimal environment to work on your pedal stroke and retaining proper posture.

Including a mirror in your set up, for self-guided feedback, can begin the habit that, from minute one until the end of the session, you do things well. This means form over force, and every interval can be achieved while retaining proper posture. This is so critical, as performance in triathlon cycling is as much about retaining form under fatigue, and establishing a great habit of riding well, despite fatigue, will carry across to race day.

A backbone of our training is what we label as end of range'. Many intervals are either very low cadence, or strength-endurance as we call it, as well as some very high RPM work at the top end.

It can be a challenge to ride to suitable terrain outside, but the trainer offers immediate and controllable intervals in which you can mimic sustained efforts to train physiology, without the limiter of your terrain. Time Efficient Training: We work with plenty of time-crunched athletes, with limited opportunity to get outside and ride in the week. After 15 seconds of increasing cadence, get to your fastest spin which is still very smooth no hopping around in the saddle and hold that for 15 seconds.

Take a full two minutes of easy circles between each for recovery. After a solid warm-up, shift into a higher gear and commit to going very strong for two minutes. You can determine how intense that effort should be with a heart rate monitor, by rate of perceived effort or by breath rate.

Then, spin easy for three minutes. Start with three rounds, and as fitness develops, go to four or five rounds. After that, increase the duration of the effort. Eventually, reduce the recovery time. After a solid warm-up, settle into a pace that will last minutes.