Every winter I swear I will maintain my summer-of-cycling fitness with regular turbo sessions. Sadly, after about two gruelling and boring sweatfest turbos I give up. Instead I attempt a few road rides, when the weather is just about bearable, and prefer to run through the winter season. The problem is that when it comes to April, I am decidedly unfit on my bike.

Note: A turbo, if you don’t know is a gadget that turns your ordinary bike into a static bike that can be ridden in the house or garage. Mostly, being on a turbo makes you sweat a lot and hurts your leg muscles and lungs.

All change this winter for turbo sessions

This winter has been different so far. I have had to stick with the turbo because I am training to try to qualify for the World Age Group Triathlon Champs. Every week I have had at least one turbo session marked on my coaching plan.

And instead of dreading my turbo sessions I have found I really don’t mind them at all. Why is this?

Five ways to make turbo sessions less truly awful

1)    Turbo with friends: If you have the space and the willing friends, invite them over. Turn the music up loud and turbo a session together. When you’re doing a steady pace you can chat a bit and when it gets tough you can push each other on.

2)   Good tunes:  This relates to 1). Make sure you choose loud and uplifting music for turbo sessions. With loud music in your ears it seems easier to complete a session and focus away form the leg pain.

3)    Do intervals: Follow an intervals session. An hour on the turbo riding steady is just about the most boring thing you can do. If you find a turbo intervals session, or ask a coach to write you one, the time seems to go by much quicker. So a session might include an easy warm up followed by three to six-minute sets of hard effort, followed by minutes of recovery, followed by harder sets etc. keeping track of time and efforts helps the session to go by just that bit faster.

4)    Join a cycle club: Most Wednesdays I head along to the Glasgow Nightingales Cycle Club. Coach Vicky takes the hour-long turbo sessions. Her innovative approach to turbo sessions, including intervals, fun relays, core work while cycling and “tough love” sprint minutes, makes turboing almost kind of fun. Sharing the pain as you roll your eyes at other turbo cyclists somehow helps with the agony. (PS I think I’d better join the cycle club…)

5)    Think of the spring: Every time I feel the pain on the turbo I think of how much stronger I’ll be when the fairer weather arrives for cycling outdoors. There is nothing gained from not doing turbo so I grin and bear it.

Do you have any top turbo tips?