First Look at ‘Norway’ (The Future of Indoor Cycling from The Sufferfest)

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Indoor cycling has become such a major part of the sport/activity in recent times. eRacing via Zwift, training on the Sufferfest (or maybe Trainer Road) and many new and emerging indoor cycling apps coming to the table. So how to you re create the indoor cycling experience? Well, the Wahoo SUF have made something pretty special with Norway. It’s as close to racing in the pro peloton as you’re going to get. From the comfort of your own home anyway!

Sufferfest review: https://youtu.be/E9WG8l17yqI

#cycling #indoor #racing

i get ready [Music] so welcome back to the 36th edition of the rca training tips show where today i wanted to give you i guess a first independent look at a brand new concept and brand new workout on the sufferfest or they’re now known as the wahoo stuff indoor training app called norway which in my opinion could be the best indoor race simulation experience i’ve ever had now if you’re not familiar with the sufferfest i recently reviewed it comparing it to zwift which i’ll link to below but essentially the sufferfest is an indoor training app for cyclists which can be used for both indoor training and also off-bike workouts such as yoga flexibility off-bike strength and conditioning etc now personally i’m quite a big fan of using the sufferfest if you look at my strava account you’ll see on a weekly basis i’m in there doing their high intensity interval training sessions and as a result people that i coach through the road cycling academy’s up level road cycling course i have them using the sufferfest too and to date the sufferfest platform has been one of the go-to’s for many high-intensity interval training sessions and base training sessions for people in the up-level road cycling course which we incorporate into both our indoor and outdoor 12-week training programs however the sufferfest have now developed what we’re going to talk about today this new concept or new workout one which i tried earlier this month and also one which i got rca member ali to try you can see here getting a nice little workout in and it’s a workout that i’m super pleased as a road cycling coach to see release to the market because i feel like it could be a game changer for people training for specific events which i’ll explain for you shortly and also a workout that will provide some extra motivation for those who enjoy indoor training and like to get pushed a little so let’s break this video into four main parts number one let’s talk about what norway actually is number two how does it compare to real life racing and also erasing number three who’s it for and number four things to look out for if you’re going to give it a go so essentially what the sufferfest have done they’ve given us the opportunity in the comfort of our own home to experience what it’s like to race in a world tour race how have they done that well firstly they took onboard camera footage and obtained the actual power profile captured by lotto sedow rider carl frederick hagen i hope i said that right in the 2019 edition of the tour of norway by syncing the video and the power file they can map his real-time efforts into the on-board footage now clearly the vast majority of us can’t put down pro level what so you might be asking yourself if i’m supposed to follow the same efforts as frederick how on earth am i going to complete this workout it’s a really good question so the sufferfest have made it so all of frederick’s efforts are scaled to your own personal 4dp profile which means you will need to complete either their 4dp test in the sufferfest prior to this workout or alternatively you can complete the half monty which is a little less daunting and that will give you most of the 4dp numbers with some estimations for your upper end zones which is actually how i personally ran with this test and it worked out well ultimately what this means though is you get to experience exactly what frederick experienced during this stage but relative to your own power abilities when he sprints you sprint when he attacks you attack when he sits up you get to take it easy or relatively easy anyway and for me this was an incredibly immersive and realistic indoor racing experiences and unlike other sufferfest workouts there was no music it was just pure raw gopro footage with sounds of the peloton sounds of the road and also the overlay that you get from the team car which is pretty cool so number two is comparing it to actual real life race data so what i thought would be interesting if we compared the norway indoor racing experience and looked at the time in zone and compared it to a real life race that i did late last year and then we also compared that to what an e-racing experience looks like so the first one i’m going to pull up here is a road race i completed last year at the men’s masters nationals championships in the gold coast queensland australia now keep in mind that every road race course that you complete will be different and will require something slightly unique and with the masters nationals it was quite a hilly punchy course so lots of punchy zone six anaerobic work however overall if we compare the zones from norway to a real life race it’s pretty similar there’s plenty of time in zone one which is normal for a race and there’s plenty of time in the upper end zones which once again is normal for a real life race in fact most of the zones are pretty well aligned external to zone six which as stated was unique to the masters event if we now look at the e-race on zwift we have something completely different lots of time now spent around threshold and tempo so as wiff race is vastly different to the physiological cost of say doing something like norway which is similar to the physiological cost of racing in real life funny that number three who’s norway four number one it’s definitely going to be good for people that are targeting race events particularly for those people that can’t get to say the c and b events before the main a event and you want to get to the c and b events before the main a event so you can get your eye in of course match practice but also so you can experience the same type of physiological cost as you will on race day which you can’t typically do in your home environment bunch rides are slightly different and typically training on the trainer is slightly different you’re doing high intensity interval training sessions you’re doing a swift race etcetera but now with norway you can experience race like conditions in preparation for a race on the indoor trainer number two definitely for those conditioned cyclists that love indoor training and racing and are keen to experience probably the best virtual pro race simulation available on the web i literally don’t think you can get this anywhere else and while it’s tough it’s a unique experience and you actually feel like you’re part of the race just ensure that if you’re going to give this a shot that you’ve got some experience with indoor cycling don’t buy a trainer and then this be the first thing that you do you want at least three to four weeks i’d say under your belt of some aerobic training some high intensity interval training and then you could get stuck into this number four is things that you should be looking out for at a bare minimum you want to know your ftp your functional threshold power which is essentially your hour power the next best thing would be to do the half monty which is where you get your ftp but you also get your maximal aerobic power numbers they estimate your upper end zones and you also get your lactate threshold heart rate which is pretty handy but ideally you do the wahoo suff 4dp which will give you all your upper end zones you definitely want a trainer that operates in erg mode so when the power shifts use u-shifts and in this session it shifts a lot and you want to ensure that the sound effects are turned off given the many changes in intensity lastly you want to be prepared for a solid workout so maybe you want to try one of the wahoo suff’s off bike mental focus preparation sessions before you get stuck into this finally the wahoo stuff have given me a 30 day free trial code which i’m able to share with you you can see instructions below that’s in addition to their 14 day free trial so essentially you’re going to get 44 days of free trialing on the wahoo stuff instructions below hope you enjoy and i’ll catch you all in the next video