How to gain speed through an indoor trainer

I saw a lot of improvement doing interval work on the bike this winter. Averaged 22.5 on a hilly course at my first sprint tri this summer (vs. 21.5 av last year on the same course).
I did a lot of over under intervals -e.g. 30-45 min block of say 4 min at threshold (for me, 200-220 watts) then 1 min of Z5 (260-300 watts). The trick to doing these is to make sue you don't dip to low on wattage right after the Z5 effort. I also changed up the % grade within the 30-45 min set. You can see my blog for more ideas (Feb/March/April/May).

The Spinnervals dvds did wonders for me.  I highly recommend.  My wife got me the triathlon set...is a set of five used to improve running and cycling.

At Vision Quest we've had great success at people improving their w/kg (i.e. speed) using "intervals" on a trainer. All of our locations have computrainers, but you can simulate on a regular trainer.

The type and length of "intervals" you do depends on what part of the season you're in which determines which energy system you are targeting...but in general, 3x15min, 2x20min, 3x20min efforts make up portion of how our athletes increase their speed via indoor trainers.

This user's post has been ignored.

Glad to see this thread 'cause I have been disappointed in my average speed improvement for the past six months.  I have a CycleOps 300PT trainer (the training cycle-not a stand to put my bike on) that records watts, HR, etc for me.  However, I have not been able to get much in the way of improvement.  This morning, I did a 1' FT test and ended up with a lousy 394 watts, but it wasn't a good day to do the test since I did my long slow run yesterday.  In general, my short duration FTs of 5 seconds and 1 minute are really low and my 20 minute FT is borderline between cat 4 and cat 5 according to the charts I have found on line.  I guess I can't complain since these charts are not age corrected and I am 52, but geez, I feel like I have no strength.  When you use the longish intervals you mentioned, what percentage of 20' FT do you recommend?

Thanks in advance,
Greg

+1 on the Spinnervals. I've heard the Carmichael DVDs are good too (and a bit cheaper pricewise).

i did plenty of 5 on/5 off intervals on my trainer over the winter and into the spring for 30-90 minutes and noticed much better speed when I started riding outdoors again.  it also helped a lot with climbing.

A group of us got together and bought the CTS train for power series to train over the winter. We did two sessions a week for 12 weeks. We all showed improvement in power after the series. (some as much as 10%). That improvement has translated to faster time splits on the bike at the TRI's we have done this spring and early summer. May not be the only reason but it seemed to help.