Not as strong riding inside hot cycling room

Training
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Hi all,

Just seeing what I can do as it seems I’m struggling to complete high intensity workouts now we are coming into warmer humid months here in Australia.

early October I got my best 20min power on a ride and now struggling to ride high intensity for 15 mins.

I admit my cycling room was very warm and “muggy”.

Any tips on riding inside high intensity when it’s warm. It’s annoying me big time….. should I reduce power by 10% on hot humid days??

Thanks

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The primary way the body loses heat is evaporation, if your sweat is dripping off you even with sufficient airflow ( you do have a couple of big fans?) you need to reduce humidity to get more cooling which will necessitate, Aircon or a Dehumidifier.

Ice vest or drinking slushies help some people.

If you drop the intensity, increase the duration otherwise you’ll just end up under training.

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Power is going to suffer when cooling is poor. Ideally, you want to improve your cooling so you can train at the highest power you fitness allows. Air conditioning is the obvious path to reduce temp and humidity, but I assume that isn’t a viable option if you are asking. Multiple big powerful fans (the commercial/industrial stuff, not cheap box fans) can help to a point, but that has limits when it’s really humid. You might also try ice socks and/or dump bottles, but that can be a mess indoors unless you have a floor drain or way to capture the runoff.

If you can’t fix the environment, you’ll be forced to reduce power. That’s not ideal, but there are some benefits to training in the heat even at lower power.

4

You should buy a portable air conditioner. In the US they cost like $250-300 and if you pick one up used, especially in the off season, you can find them for $50.

A portable AC was a game changer for my indoor training space. I’m actually surprised that nobody ever mentions it. We buy $1000 trainers, spendy rocker platforms and $10k bikes. $50-300 should be in the budget to create a next level pain cave.

3 Likes
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Why didn’t I think of the portable AC. Thanks heaps I’ll be doing this

1 Like
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It will transform your indoor training. One build cycle I was building out to 4x20 TTE @ 90-95% and I’d end the session with barely a drip of sweat coming off my forehead.

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Just to address this part: reducing power isn’t going to achieve the same result. Although the RPE and fatigue are higher in the heat and humidity, lowering the power will lower the training adaptations. And I don’t think TR is going to like you dropping intensity by 10% - it works be considered a failed workout. You would need to pick an alternate workout, either lower intensity of similar type or shorter duration.

The best thing for your training is to improve cooling of your body so you can do the intense workouts as planned.

All that said, there are some benefits to doing a handful of heat adaptation workouts if your goal events require it, but those should be specially planned close to that key event because the adaptations are quick to come and quick to be lost.

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Or, he could do an ftp test and reduce his ftp an appropriate amount (or let AI do it). He’s going to be training in that temp/humidity range that for a whole season, presumably (if he doesn’t get the room a/c), so make the adjustment “permanent” and let the process take back over. If you moved from sea level to 7k feet, you wouldn’t keep using the same ftp. Then, you’ll get a big bump when fall/autumn comes.