Fitness trackers or other solutions?
Ok, so since being in lockdown I've been staying with my family and using an old static bike they have. I say old, it's a really good quality one with good resistance levels and a digital display.
Only problem of course is that I can't read the display. The bike is giving me speed, time, distance, callories burnt, all information I would like to access. I've tried envision and seeing AI to try and read the display with nothing fed back to me that I can make sense of. I do have an apple watch, even using the indoor cycling mode in the workout app, it didn't reckon I'd burnt half as many calories as the bike did. I'm guessing the bike is getting more accurate information based on my speed and resistance level which the watch isn't getting.
I've been researching fitness trackers and apps but they all measure what you've done by GPS, so great for outdoor cycling, not for indoor.
So here's my question. Does anybody have a solution to this? Either a really good different fitness tracker that would give me these stats or a better way of reading the screen on the bike that I haven't thought of?
I've even been looking at bikes with app compatibility to buy when I go home but they are all insanely expensive, and as nobody here uses the bike I've been using my family say I can take it home with me, which is awesome but I really need to be able to see my stats!
Any suggestions much appreciated, and sorry for the long post!
Thanks Applevis
Comments
Watches aren't good heart rate monitors.
A good chest-strap heart rate monitor will give you heart rate, and if you enter the rest of your measurements such as height, weight, gender, age, etc, your calories burned, percent in target heart zones and all can be calculated. I use the Wahoo Tick-r, and its app is reasonably accessible. It keeps decent records and also feeds your workouts into the health app.
Thank you
Thanks I’ll have a look at that.
Turbo cycling, fitness tracking.
Hi, in the past I bought both a Wahoo cadense sensor and heart monitor, and used the Wahoo IOS app Fitness to do a workout, selecting 'spin' for example as an activity type. That worked well to give me the time and cals burned, and an indication of the heart zones.
Over time, the accessibility of the app and lack of support to fix the basics, mostly to do with simply being able to switch activity types drove me elsewhere.
I since bought an Apple Watch, so I now do everything using the native 'Workout' apple watch app, and discovered the HealthFit IOS app for my iPhone that transfers the workouts on to my Strava instantly.
The HealthFit app on IOS is also useful for showing the heart zones, and ideal as a central activity tracking app since the IOS Health app itself is so cumbersome to use.
So, my suggestion, for inaccessible home cycling / turbo riding, just buy an Apple Watch. Get yourself a free Peloton subscription too, the coaching is awesome! I'm about to test out the Apple Fitness app training though since my 2 months with Peloton has just finished. The bar is set quite high though for Apple to beat, and Peloton is just £12.99 per month for the app. I think I did 55 workouts in 60 days on my free trial, and it certainly got me back cycling after a winter of COVID idle depression ;)
Bri