EXERCISE WITH WATT

While heart rate indicates how hard your body perceives it is working, watt actually tells how much it is performing. This means that with heart rate you will never discover your improvements because you will just perform more at the same heart rate. With watt you can see your improvements. You can see that you can perform more watt at the same heart rate. This is a massive motivational factor to keep exercising regularly.

The console will help you exercise smarter and not harder due to the fact that you are able to enter your individual settings. Knowing your watt level, the console is aware of what your body is capable of performing. A skilled instructor or personal trainer will know how to provide you with the optimal workout according to the fitness goals that you want to achieve. For instance, exercising at 62-69% of your watt level allows you to work in your ‘sweet spot’, which means that you can keep exercising for a long period of time without getting tired. By implementing the different ways of exercising with watt, the clubs have the possibility to differentiate their exercise programmes and make a range of classes which is embracing people with common fitness goals.

Exercising alone at home often demands a high level of discipline and motivation. The console will work as a training partner for you. At all times, you can keep track of your performance and you can carry out your own fitness programs or download fitness programs from professional sites. Whether exercising at home or in the club, it can be beneficial to store the workout data for later review and evaluation. For a personal trainer, this is a great option to keep track of his/her clients and plan the next session. Data can be collected through an ANT+ device.

BODY BIKE Connect includes a watt level test. The test determines your relative VO2 max and your watt level which indicate your physical level and allow users of many different physical levels to ride together. If you have not taken the test yet, you can estimate your relative VO2 max and when entering this in the console together with your weight, the console will calculate your watt level. The result of the test is used to determine %max watt. This figure is essential to the instructor because he can instruct the entire class after this single figure and still provide each individual with the most efficient workout. This is possible because the number is an expression of how hard the individual is working right now in relation to this person’s physical level. E.g. one cyclist has a watt level of 200 watt while another has a watt level of 400 watt. If the instructor calls out that everybody must perform 200 watt, it will be extremely hard for some and easy for others. However, if the instructor uses %max watt, the number is related to the cyclist individual physical level and will result in efficient exercise for everybody. Everybody will leave the workout with a feeling of success.

The watt measurement is integrated in many of the functions in the BODY BIKE Connect Indoor Cycle and therefore the data provided by the console is more accurate and more useful than exercising without measuring watt. E.g. distance is calculated using watt. This means that you are rewarded for cycling with load contrary to just pedalling really fast without load. This is similar to riding a bike outdoors where you travel further if you cycle in a higher gear ratio which resembles a higher load on the indoor bike. Similarly, calories are calculated based on watt instead of heart rate which will provide you with a more accurate result.

To put it simple – exercising with watt is what makes all the difference because watt is what makes effort measurable. See BODY BIKE’s five reasons to exercise with watt.

Download 'Training with watt on BODY BIKE Connect' after original text by Christian de Thurah.