We are all facing a unprecedent global pandemic episode pushing the most of the countries to confine people.
I first hope you are all well and you will stay healthy.

Confinement appears today the only way to to limit coronavirus propagation. This have an impact in our daily life (job, family, training, fitness level and mental fatigue).
It is in this case important to continue to exercise our body to not loose too much and decrease the mental load of the confined life.

These last days I received some emails from European riders asking me how to train and what to train as all the Dojo are closed.
I am living in France and we are confined since March 17th so I a m starting my 10th day of confinement.

Before describing my tips for confined training I would like to warm you.
In this period we need to take care of our body and of our immune system. If you start to get Coronavirus symptoma or normal flu do not train!
Enable your body to be at 100% to fight against this B… virus, do not add additional fatigue to its shoulders.

During confinement we are less active than in our normal life so it is important to have regular activity. If you have enough time I will recommend to plan two sessions per day.

Train twice a day

Getting two different sessions will pace your day and will help you to focus on the different aspects of training.
You now have two different options :

• Routine 1 : Morning : Circuit Training / Afternoon : Turbo trainer
• Routine 2 : Morning : Turbo Endurance / Afternoon :Turbo Intensive

You can of course perform Day 1 Routine 1 Day 2 Routine 2 Day 3 : rest and then go on.

Routine 1 

Morning : Wake Up your body and energize it

Start the session by a complete warm-up (joints and muscles) during at least 10 minutes.
Once start to work one muscular group per exercise and design your session to not work consequently the same group : arm, legs, shoulder, back, and so on.

Here is an example I use frequently :

Warm Up 10min

Horizontal Planck 3x30sec r=30sec

Chair Stance 3x30sec r=30sec

Superman Stance 3x30sec r=30sec

Push Up 3×20 r=30sec

Calf 3×20 r=30sec

Side Planck 3x30sec r=30Sec
(both side)

Afternoon : Turbo Trainer

Consider confinement as an opportunity  …yes it’s sometimes clearly difficult but we are all confined if you can train you are not ill which is a very positive point.
Use this time to work specifically your area of improvement (strength, high cadence, …).

Here is an example of a session I perform to improve my leg strength : 

1hr Tempo low cadence intervals
10min warm up
10min zone 2
5x5min z3 @60tpm r=5min
10min Cool Down

You can use Zwift for your ride without doing race but just change your mind during the session but do not overtrain !

Routine 2

If you choose to have two cycling sessions in your day. Prefer to have the most intensive one the afternoon.
During that day do not forget that intensive effort will bring your immune system to depress so be very careful about hand washing and so on …

Example :

Morning : 50min  tempo intervals
10min warm up
10min zone 2
20min z2-z3 (5min@70rpm / 5min@100rpm)
10min cool down

Afternoon : 1h with pyramid
10min warm up
10min z2
10min zone 3
5min zone 4
10min zone 2
5min zone 4
10min cool down

Hope it will help you to build your sessions.
Take care, stay healthy & stay home

Lionel