Gym Stationaries

Most all vary in readings and I have not found one that I think is accurate, however they can still be useful to maintain or progess in your training.

Magicpunch said:

Just noticed that the gym stationaries display watts when I use them. Would it be safe to assume that these are accurate? ....

I've used gym ergs a lot in training over the last few years and I agree with jhuskey, they're not terribly accurate. But the newer machines seem to be quite consistent to themselves in the sense that the displayed power vs. RPE or HR seems very consistent from session to session on the same machine.

In general the gym ergs seem very generous relative to indoor training with an actual bike and power meter. I can usually hold 300-310 watts for a full hour on a Lifecycle gym bike even without decent cooling (a problem in many gyms that don't have really big fans dedicated to each bike) where I'd be happy to hold 275-280 for a full hour on my KK or Computrainer on my own bike with PT hub and that's with a huge fan for cooling. OTOH, the power displayed on the gym bikes seems to be pretty close to what I can do outdoors on a good day so either the error is coincidentally close to what I lose going indoors or that big flywheel on the gym ergs helps close my normal outdoor-indoor power gap. No way to know for sure, but the bottom line is that gym ergs can be very good training regardless of their power accuracy, just be willing to bump the levels up or down as necessary to get the workout you're after and don't take the displayed power or Calories burned too seriously.

One tip is that many of the newer gym bikes offer a 'Constant Calories per Hour' or 'Ergometer' mode where you set the intensity either in 'levels' or directly in watts and the bike becomes an ergometer where power is held relatively constant across a wide range of wheel and leg speeds. That's a very handy way to train longer Threshold efforts where you just have to turn the cranks and let the bike keep you at the right power. On the newest bikes I've ridden you can find a 'Personal Trainer' setup screen that lets you dial in effort level in watts directly as opposed to the normal 'levels' approach which is nice.

Good luck,
-Dave

My gym has the LeMond trainers, and I've been wondering the same thing. What's really nice about the LeMond is that I put in a USB thumb drive and download my workout. It saves it in CSV format, that can easily be graphed in excel. I just ordered a powertap, so we'll see how my FTP's compare. Right now it's nice to have the ability to track progress that's at least consistant.

What kind of Stationary is it?

I attached an hour long interval session I downloaded from the LeMond...poor man's WKO.

Chuck

renderman5000 said:

My gym has the LeMond trainers, and I've been wondering the same thing. What's really nice about the LeMond is that I put in a USB thumb drive and download my workout. It saves it in CSV format, that can easily be graphed in excel. I just ordered a powertap, so we'll see how my FTP's compare. Right now it's nice to have the ability to track progress that's at least consistant.

What kind of Stationary is it?

I attached an hour long interval session I downloaded from the LeMond...poor man's WKO.

Chuck

Thank you very much Chuck. I actually forgot what the trainer/equipment is called. It is kind of a generic thingy which keeps spinning for a few revolutions after you pedal (as if to mimic a bike slowing down when no more pressure is applied)

Currently rehabilitating both knees from cartlidge and tendon damage. And want to be able to track my progress and if things improve then I'll be buying an actual bike.

I can't cycle for more than 10 minutes at a time! And that's not even my legs - its my lungs. Mind you, the injury has lasted 15 months now and in that time I've stopped playing two major sports so I guess my endurance/strength is bound to suck.

renderman5000 said:

...I attached an hour long interval session I downloaded from the LeMond...poor man's WKO....

Here's an even better 'poor man's WKO' that will have no trouble reading .csv files: Golden Cheetah: Cycling Performance Software for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows

-Dave