I currently have a Elite Suito trainer. Love it. Big improvement over my old fluid trainer. Doing the standing drills has gotten better but it’s just hard to remain smooth, even if I shift in erg mode.
It’s as if as soon as I stand my foot just shoots to the bottom, I over shoot my power target and I get a knock coming back around. Any suggestions?
I’ve tried to balance it out and oppose the descent to make it smoother but I just can keep it as smooth as pedaling outdoors.
What exact gearing are you using when standing?
What cadence(s) are you doing?
Usually big ring in the front and middle of the cassette in the rear. I have tried dropping it all the way to the smallest gear in the rear. I’m trying for a 60-75 rpm cadence, but it just feels sloppy with the knock. Maybe I should do a video…
That all sounds good. Sure, maybe a video could help.
What works for me is slowing cadence down to where you want it to be, then shift down on the cog. Get out of the saddle from there. You might get a bit of high torque for a few pedals in erg mode, but it should catch up and put you back at the power target quickly. Usually helps me avoid that sudden plunging feeling on the first downstroke.
An excercise you can do (on the trainer), is without any resistance at all. Just stand up, without pedaling, cranks horizontal, weight distributed between your feet and your hands on the hoods. Start by just standing, then slowly putting more weight on one foot and back to balance, then on the other foot. Don’t try to rotate, just control going back and forth more on your feet. Try to keep your upper body controlled, and never take all weight from a foot.
Goal is of course to slowly extend the movement till you can do slow rotations. This teaches your muscles to keep control, and excercises the neuromuscular timing, both regarding the moment your single leg needs to switch from pushing to controlling the “landing” of your push at the bottom, and regarding the timing of the switch between your legs.
The excercise is pretty heavy on your quads and your knees. Especially if you already have some knee problems use extreme caution, though the excersise can also be used to strenghten the knee - just keep control.
You can slowly up the cadence and the power, but always keep control, especially when raising the cadence.
I’m used to hoods. I’ll try drops…
I prefer the hoods unless I am deliberately working on “sprint position” or riding low to “cheat the wind”. Otherwise, I do the majority of my standing work from the hoods. You can still play with position and make sure you are not getting too far forward. I like the flexibility that hood reach provides.
So what workout do you use for this exercise to get no resistance at all? Does this work in erg mode?
Any of the “Free Ride” workouts, with the Resistance to 0%, or nothing special in ERG, since there’s no power target, should work.
Funny, I had to think about it. It really does not matter (at least on the trainer I had). As you have a cadence of zero, or near that, there will be (almost) no resistance on most trainers. And some resistance is no problem. It will work as long as the resistance is lower than the torque put on the pedal by your weight, as long as it isn’t so high that you get stopped at the bottom position. I used to do this during the warming up, to get the muscles around my knee up to tension. Never changed the resistance from what the workout put it at (in erg mode).
Ok, thanks. Going to give this another go.
Henri A. Demers