Warmups and Virtual Power

Equipment
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Just wanted to share an unexpected bit of insight in my training…

I’ve been using Trainer Road with Virtual Power for the past 4 years - it’s been great for me and my fitness has improved a lot. One thing I’ve always wondered about / struggled with in the workouts is the length of the warmups.

I’ve heard on the podcast and read in the workout text that the warmup and the first interval are often the toughest and had taken that to heart. The first 20-30 minutes of each workout have always felt very tough (I often had to take a break in the last step of the warmup and/or failed the first interval), but I assumed that was just me not being tough enough to hang. My excuse was that maybe my body is weird and just needs a half hour to get going?

This year for my 40th birthday, I bought myself a power meter (Assioma Duo). After putting on the power meter and doing a ramp test, the biggest revelation has been that the RPE is SO much more consistent. The warmup is easy(-ish) and the first interval feels the same as the later ones. It’s so much easier find motivation to throw a leg over when I’m not dreading the early minutes.

So, if it’s not by body being weird, what gives? The most plausible thing I can come up with is that it’s the trainer (Qubo Fluid dumb trainer) that needs to get warmed up, and I’ve actually been riding way above target at the start of workouts for YEARS!? :exploding_head:

Anyway, it’s not something I’ve seen/heard discussed. Hope this is helpful for someone else who’s having a similar struggles with warmups and virtual power.

1 Like
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Interesting. I’m on Virtual Power and I find it awesome.

I can only think that your particular trainer has a different power curve? So when you start off the ‘fluid’ is quite solid and is particularly resistant, once the fluid has warmed up it flows a lot more easily?

So maybe the Virtual Power has been calibrated to a warm trainer?

Might be worth mentioning this to the tech team so they can take a look? If it isn’t a popular trainer then they might not bother calibrating it any differently but they are very professional at what they do.