The Sufferfest: Indoor Cycling Motivation
For quite a while now I’ve been wanting to check out “The Sufferfest” cycling training videos. David from Sufferfest Studios, Singapore sent me their videos a few weeks ago but since it’s not exactly indoor training season I haven’t been able to give them a test run. This past Monday there was a torrential downpour going on outside, so I took that as my sign to finally take a “Sufferfest” indoor ride.
Sufferfest Studios claim to have:
“The hardest, most exciting, most get-on-your-bike-and-suffer-your-ass-off cycling training videos in the world. Our videos are the only ones to feature officially licensed footage from professional race organisers like the ASO and the UCI, brilliant, hand-picked music, and structured workouts that you simply need to follow (if you can).”
Sufferfest currently has three cycling videos available; Fight Club, Downward Spiral, and Revolver. With Sufferfest, there is no easy, medium, and hard degree of difficulty with their product line. They are part of the Sufferfest family for a reason….each video will make you suffer. Of course the amount of suffering will depend on how hard you push yourself. The videos explain what level of exertion you should be at for each stage, so it’s up to you to be honest with yourself and put out what is asked of you. If you don’t want to put out a hardcore effort, the videos will still help bring out the best in what you’ve got to deliver.
Each of the videos sell for $9.99US and are downloadable from the Sufferfest Website which also means there is no shipping costs involved. The price is very reasonable and if you are somewhat computer literate, you should be able to download the video and then burn it to a DVD with no problems at all. It worked quite easily for me…and I’m sure if you experience any technical difficulty the Sufferfest staff will help you out.
For my first crack at it, I went with Fight Club. This video puts you into the UCI World Championships and you are constantly under attack. I popped in the DVD, got on my bike and started spinning. I’ve never watched or taken part in a cycling training video before so I was in for a new experience. The ride started off with a warm-up and then got right into the suffering. There was a variety of sprints, climbs, and recovery before the one hour video came to a close.
What I liked best was the use of humor. Each of the captions that came on the screen telling you what was happening or going to happen next, was quite humorous and helped ease the suffering…a little. Along with the captions is a soundtrack of music to help motivate you. The Fight Club video is pretty much what I would call techno dance music, which is far from my favorite type of music…but it didn’t seem to bother me too much.
By the time I was done, I definitely got my sweat on and really was in need of some of that soap Brad Pitt was producing in the movie “Fight Club”.
I asked David how the sequence of video was put together. He let me know that he is not a coach, but has ridden his bike for many years and created workouts that would drive him into the ground and entertain him at the same time. That is the formula behind the videos, and for a more in depth description of how the Fight Club cycling training video came to be you can check out http://www.thesufferfest.com/videocast-workouts/anyone-wanna-fight-fight-club-is-live.
If you’re like me, you’d much rather be outside riding and never have to settle for an indoor ride. But if you must do it, one of the Sufferfest videos is sure to spice things up. If you’d like to have a look for yourself and try on some suffering, the videos can be purchased at www.thesufferfest.com. At under $10, it’s a great bargain and worth trying out.
I know there are a lot of people who have used the Sufferfest videos…if you’re one of them, let others know what you think by leaving your comments below.
Here is a quick trailer for the Fight Club DVD:
