Have you met Coach Troy?

Tonight was my first workout with a Spinervals DVD.  I recently bought two different Spinervals DVD's in an effort to keep myself motivated to utilize my bike trainer this winter.  Coach Troy Jacobson leads a group of cyclists in an interval workout with directions on what positions to have your bike on for both front and back chain rings and/or the resistance levels depending on whether you are using a spin bike or your bike on a trainer.


Tonight I completed the Ride and Stride DVD which is geared towards triathletes.  The workout is divided into 3 intervals that are 15 minutes in length.  If you have a treadmill, then you do 10 minutes on the bike followed by 5 minutes on the treadmill for each interval. Otherwise, Coach Troy breaks the interval into two sets within each interval one in the big chain ring lasting 10 minutes and a second 5 minute set in the little chain ring. 

Before today I had only really been in my big chain ring on accident during rides.  I have a triple crankset on my bike and have known that I should use the big ring just have trouble shifting between the rings on the front while in motion! The workout was really good and I was dripping with sweat within just a few minutes of the workout starting.  The music was a little drab and somewhat outdated but it is easy to just not hear it.  Coach Troy kept constant feedback through out the sets...sometimes I liked this and sometimes it was a little too frequent between updates. 

The treadmill portion of the workout sounded intense and made me thankful to not be participating in it! The 5 minutes started at your base pace and then increased by 1-2 mph and 1% incline after each minute.  Yikes, maybe someday I'll be ready for that!

Overall I had a good time during my first workout with Coach Troy.  The second DVD I bought is actually a 3 series set that contains 5 hours of workout.  I'll keep you posted on my thoughts once I try that series out.