Trackstanding balance skills are the same ones you use to balance a bike riding it. Same muscles. Trackstsnding is an active process, requires small adjustments . We barely need to rotate our bike handlebars at speed, there’s need for lots of twisting muscular training.
The road chatter can tire you some but I’ve never found road chatter to be anywhere as taxing as back/butt discomfort on an indoor ride of similar duration. On a mountain bike course though yeah you need serious upper body practice on gnarly routes.
You are ignoring what I’m saying. Riding aero isn’t a balance skill, the abrupt deviations in the front wheel require your lats to be constantly engaged, your traps, your neck muscles stabilising your head bouncing around etc, it’s completely different to a track stand…
No, I was making the point in response to the poster above who said riding indoors doesn’t develop the stabilizing muscles needed to ride outdoors. I haven’t found that to be true at all for road cycling, even in aero. For mtn biking, absolutely true, but road cycling, if you can ride indoors for X hours, you can usually ride X+2 and even X+3 hours no problem outdoors with no core muscle issues or butt problems.
The engagement you’re talking about with outdoor riding in aero are trivial enough I’d put them in this same category. Especially with indoors - the traps/lat fatigue you get indoors usually exceed outdoors by a fair amount if you don’t sit up a lot indoors, so you’ll generally have no problems aero outdoors if you have the same position held indoors.
There’s no need to ‘train up’ stabilizing core muscles after doing all indoor training. Even beginner triathletes have no problem with this. As you alluded to, it generally takes a lot more training and acclimazation to go indoors from outdoors and last the same duration.
Sigh..your lats and traps are doing next to nothing indoors. Anyways.. You do you..
The internet again in a nutshell.. Only would someone from the politics is life section argue with someone that a dynamic exercise like holding aero outdoors in gusty wind uses the lats and traps LESS than a static exercise indoors where they do nothing other than holding your body up…
Traps are hunched over, you are hunching them. Its part of the neck muscle complex that fatigues in the aero position holding your head up.
Lats less, but I’d argue theyre doing next to nothing on the road too.
And you’re the one saying ‘gusty winds’ - I’m saying aero in general - most of the time we aren’t riding in continuous gusty winds, and it takes barely any effort and doesn’t require special conditioning to deal with typical gusts in aero. You just have to get used to the coordination, but practice has shown with the tons of people riding indoors now, that people aren’t getting blown off their bikes essentially at all by the wind in races.
Riding aero outdoors on the road doesn’t require more training than indoors - indoors requires more training because the static position will fatigue a few muscles much more. If you can ride 1 hr indoors aero, you can typically do 2-3 outdoors no problem aero. It doesn’t work in reverse. You’re not supertraining your lats/traps/neck outdoors, contrary to what you think.
When was the last time you actually road a TT bike outside… I think it’s been a while. Go back to wasting peoples time arguing politics pleased.
Hah i ride it 50 miles a week outdoors and another 40-50 indoors with aerobars indoors. I barely ride my road bike especially during non summer. Guess you were wrong about that. I live in norcal where outdoor riding is year round.
For someone who is arguing you use your upper body muscles more indoors than outdoors you could have fooled me…
Tell me, when wind catches your front wheel (and 99% of the time there will be wind) do your muscles actively engage to stabilise the front end?
You are using your neck and head muscles more indoors than outdoors. That’s the point I’m making.
stabilizing your core in a headwind requires like no muscular effort. No muscular training required.
How can you possibly be, exact same position except outdoors your body has to fight dynamic movements. Is it April 1st already?
the dynamic movements make things easier outdoors. Hence motion rocker plates for trainers. Duh.
Oh my… 
I’m out 
But please, just think for a second. What happens when a gust of wind hits your front wheel… What happens when you hit a bump, what muscles keep the bike tracking straight..
The wind actually helps hold your torso and neck up as well. Especially at 20+ mph. So easier outdoors to hold position.
You need to actually make some actual points rather than ducking.
My points are quite clear, it’s your refusal to actually read and comprehend them. Typical of politics section engagement.
I’ll make it nice and easy for you, would draw pictures if I could. Riding out doors in aero position engages muscles in your upper body as detailed to stabilise the bike, particularly in gusty positions. Crosswinds catching the front wheel constantly can really tire you out if you aren’t used to this.
Indoors you have none of that dynamic movement fighting against you. Your body is effectively a lump of meat sitting still atop your tri bars.
You have spent the last God knows how long arguing that indoors uses these muscles more
Get someone to ride an hour in gusty crosswind versus an hour indoors, ask themwhich engages their upper muscle more..particularly the lats and traps which are used to stabilise your tri bars.
And with that I bid you a good day sir
I’ve ridden a lot in crosswinds. It’s not a muscle fatigue issue it’s an attention fatigue issue. Your lats don’t get sore from it. You need minimal muscle power to manage it. But sure you def have to practice it outdoors - but it’s a coordination issue not a muscle training issue. I’ve never gotten core soreness from riding in winds / but a ton from neck fatigue indoors and outdoors which can be absolutely limiting.
The neck and back fatigue from an indoor trainer by farrrrr is a bigger factor for muscle fatigie and is a huge factor in being able to ride aero. Perhaps the limiting factor. The stuff you are mentioning are not rate limiters for most triathletes outside of insane conditions which are rare.
This is proven true in every Ironman and half Ironman. Tons of folks who can’t hold aero past 2hrs. But they’re having no problems With crosswinds and road conditions.
On another point- in the Great White North of WI- over the years spent a great deal of time indoors during the crappy months. In that time I have found little use for ERG mode on my trainers. I know I can set it for a prescribed wattage, but I find getting there and holding that on my own makes the workout more interactive and preps me better for riding outside. Thoughts for anyone? Am I missing something by not using ERG?
Thanks
I think this is hugely personal. I started out a while ago on a Kirt Kinetic Road Machine. It was a fantastic device with great road feel and comfort. I was using one of the structured training programs, but I found that I needed to have laser focus on maintaining the prescribed power target.
For me, moving to an ERG trainer was transformational. I could just cue up the training program and then tune out to watch a move or TV show. The trainer and program just handled the workout. The workouts passed much easier for me, and the overall quality improved (because I was actually riding to the targets).
How did it translate over to outdoors? I find sometimes when the trainer is forcing you to hit the number and maybe you have too low of a cadence cus it’s essentially forcing you to ride at the watts, your not actually hitting the number (if that makes sense). And of course there is sorta an outdoor ftp and indoor ftp difference *usually.
1 Like