The Art of Balancing Indoor and Outdoor Training

Originally published at: The Art of Balancing Indoor and Outdoor Training - Slowtwitch News

As I sit down to write this particular article, it is a balmy 5 degrees Fahrenheit here at Slowtwitch: Tundra Division. (That’s 15 below for the rest of you in the civilized world.) I say balmy because we at least have the warmth of the sun shining through blue skies for a change, and there’s no howling wind to cut through it. There’s about a foot of snow on the ground, with a healthy amount of crust on top of it, which keeps our two dogs running across the top, whereas I’m breaking through with each step.

Welcome to winter in New England, folks.

If you’re going to live here, you have to embrace the season. It means gearing up to head outdoors and taking advantage of the limited amount of daylight at your disposal. Almost all schools around offer some type of “mountain days” program, where kids will go cross-country skiing, ice skating, alpine skiing, or snowshoeing one afternoon per week through the winter season. It’s about learning to enjoy activities that you can only do in the cold.

Notice which activities aren’t included in that bundle? Swimming, biking, or running. Our traditional triathlon-related activities aren’t reintroduced until the spring, when the ice melts and road surfaces are no longer covered in salt, sand, and grime. Those activities all head toward the great indoors, with extremely limited exceptions.

And that’s what we’re here to talk about today: trying to find the balance of indoor and outdoor training, particularly in the winter, although it’s applicable whenever conditions turn challenging.

Outside: Race Simulations, Activity for Enjoyment

Let’s lead off with the latter category. I have positively zero interest in layering up to ride a bike outdoors for a couple hours in the weather we had this morning. I have a whole lot more interest in putting on the same amount of layers and skinning up a mountain. Turns out I’m not the only triathlete taking this approach. If it’s good enough for Jan Frodeno, it’s good enough for me:

Getting through winter, unless you have a race in April, is almost all about building generalized fitness to then carry into the race season. Moving your body at all is far more important than any specific work. Use your training to keep yourself inspired. For me, that’s trying to build up to at least 10,000 feet of vertical in touring in a single day. (I’m going to need some more SuperSkin tape to make that a reality.) But that also means I’ll head out for runs when it feels like the right thing to do. There’s something peaceful about running when it’s lightly snowing, and everything’s quieter.

When the weather starts turning, I’ll begin to move more of my riding and running outside. This particularly gets true when it’s time to best mimic race conditions as I can. For instance, I have a run loop that does an awfully decent job of replicating the way the IRONMAN Lake Placid run course goes. I used that a lot when training for the race last year. Those types of sessions are invaluable, and they add in the kind of variability that you can only get in the great outdoors.

Inside: When Quality Will Be Compromised By Conditions

Surviving winter in New England is also an exercise in self-preservation. Our driveway, for instance, features a 15% grade up to the road. Yesterday morning, after some freezing rain and sleet, it had completely frozen over. While taking our dogs out, I made the mistake of walking on said driveway.

Yes, I fell. Yes, I’m OK. This is, as some will recall, how I broke my right wrist two years ago. I was smart enough to land on the OTHER hand and didn’t jam it the same way.

Young me would have been dumb enough to try to go for a run on that kind of surface, no matter what the run was supposed to be. Older me knows that yesterday was a day for the treadmill, without question, if I was going to get a run in. I wound up doing nothing at all, because as my daughter likes to remind me, “you’re an old man and need to not break yourself.” (Kids: they’re the best!)

When the inherent quality of a particular activity is going to be compromised, that’s when I’m headed straight for inside. That means for run sessions, if the footing is going to be questionable, it’s time for the treadmill. For the bike, it means if I can’t put together a safe route for longer intervals, I’m heading to the trainer. If light or visibility is going to be questionable, I’m not doing it outdoors; roads with high speed limits and orientation that mean drivers are staring directly into the sun is too high of an acceptable risk.

At the end of the day, we’re trying to get our activities in and staying in one piece at the end of it.

See you out there — whether outside, or virtually, will depend on the day.

I live in NorCal where I can train outdoors year-round. It’s lovely.

But I can say with confidence now after many years of experience, that for the most part, indoor biking >> outdoor biking for training, and potentially even for running if you have a good treadmill.

Indoor cycling lets you really dial in your training plan workouts - the right power, the right duration, no complications of downhills, rest stops, stop lights, etc. It’s like a lab, and with Zwift controllers, you can do erg mode the way it’s supposed to be done, meaning you can adjust it +/- for how you’re doing that day. With indoor racing, you can also push yourself harder than you’ll go outdoors. I still love going outdoors but if it’s training time, and I really want the highest bang for buck, I’m going to choose indoors every time.

Running isn’t as clear of a win indoors, as there are some variances between treadmill surfaces and road (if you only train on soft TMs, your legs won’t be ready for the road).

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Definitely anecdotal, but the fastest people I know train outdoors in conditions that most others would turn down. Maybe it’s boredom from high volume indoors, maybe it’s specificity of training, maybe it’s general hardness.

IMO running on a treadmill and riding on a trainer translate ~95% to their outdoor equivalents. Better than a stair stepper or elliptical, but training outside for events that will be competed outside is better than training inside for outdoor events. There’s a time and a place for the exactness of indoor workouts, but that exact interval time/power is traded for less specificity.

It’s really far down on the list tho. Train more, train harder, progressive overload, eat right, etc.

I don’t doubt this but I think that same cohort of people if forced to train indoors wouldn’t train as much volume because they hate it. I think for indoor biking if you can’t do the long stuff, 3,4,5 hour rides, then you need to get outside and do it. I can do 5 hour + trainer rides without a lot of fuss.

Yeah I think you’re on to something, it’s def a two way street. High volume = a lot of indoor in the winter = more desire to get outside = riding outside in bad conditions. A 5h trainer ride after 15h inside the rest of the weeks hits different than a one-off.

Looking at strava during our last big snowstorm shows a fair mix of ~2h intervals and 4-5h longer rides, and one guy who just took the day off entirely. (shrug emoji)

I don’t think this is necessarily true.

For sure, for me, structured bike trainer riding is absolutely better than outdoor training, in all conditions. Outdoor training is definitely more ‘fun’, but there’s a big training benefit in not having any coasting, stops, and downhills, which makes things much more ‘real’ and harder than outdoors.

For me, the treadmill is about 95% as good as outdoors. The only reason I won’t go 100% is that I always run on a 3% incline on my Sole treadmill, so your legs can get not as used to pounding if you do all your miles on it, but it typically only takes 2-3 runs to get it back, and as well, given the lack of pounding damage, you can even train faster on the TM than the road in terms of both leg turnover and sustained HR. My best results are when I mix both.

All depends on the individual… I live in the Northeast where the winters have certainly been getting milder over the past decade or so, but we still do have below freezing temps and a decent amount of frozen precip. I personally cannot stand more than 45–60 min on a trainer…even then just barely. So when the weather is bad and/or cold I bundle up and go running or riding. I might need running microspikes or studded tires but I still go out. I just look at winter riding/running as different sports what doing the same in warmer temps. I can’t ride the same speed or distance that I do in the spring/summer but I certainly do the same number of hours - assuming I can dress properly. Somehow riding a 30 pound bike with studded tires, full fenders, and dyno hub while wearing tights, two pairs of thick socks, 3 pairs of mittens, and a parka is just not as fast as a 15 pound road bike. Go figure. And when the snow is more than a couple inches? Fat bike time!

… Goes on to state that he agrees.

Biking trainer = better
Treadmill =95%

I must have misread and misquoted him - I agree as you stated!