Why wattage?

We are starting our popular InCycle indoor training program this Saturday and all of us at Cycle U are pumped! For the first time we will be using exclusively wattage in all our classes instead of a mix of wattage and heart rate. We sold our LeMond revMasters ( kinda sad, they were awesome) but now everyone from novice to pro's will use our new trainers with watts. You can still use your heart rate monitors to check your intensity level, but what we learned from using these trainers at our West Seattle location last winter is that after a couple months everyone will be in love with their wattage numbers (or determined to bend them to their will).

Here is my analogy for wattage: It is just like lifting weights. Instead of doing 10 repetitions lifting 100 pounds, you do 10 minutes at 100 watts. If after a couple weeks you can do 120 pounds for 10 reps , or 120 watts for 10 minutes you are stronger, end of debate! Your heart rate might stay the same for both efforts, but the wattage actually tells you if you are getting stronger. Similarly you could do 10 intervals holding 300 watts for 1 minute and over time with proper training you want that to be 320 watts. It really is that simple and powerful. There are more layers of complexity and analysis we can provide but the basic message is that training with wattage is similar to training with weights.

Look forward to seeing you improve this winter at one of our locations, if you have any questions please e-mail or post a reply.

Spin to win. We are here to help and keep the fire burning this winter!

Craig