My E Training

DLSilsbury

Hi, I'm new to turbo training and got myself a few bits n bobs to try it out in the garage. I'm trying to increase my fitness and lose a bit of weight and finding it motivational to know what calories I'm burning, my heart rate etc.
So I got a Elite Crono Mag Speed Alu Trainer, and a Elite Misuro B+ Bluetooth/ANT+ Speed/Cadence Sensor. After a bit of tweaking I got it set up with "My E Training" and realised it seemed a bit pointless without a HR monitor so got one of these too.
However it's my understanding that I still don't have a correct way of calculating the power I'm using in watts. So when I tried a training session the number of watts was calculated to be about 30 watts although my legs were spinning at about 120 rpm. I know you can change the level in these workouts through the app and that appears to increase the watts used. So I'm left wondering how do I know what level I should start my workout at to get any reliable readings? Am I missing something?
I'd love to hear from anyone with experience of this please.

Also it appears that zwift is very popular on this forum. Is it worth trying that with my setup?

Many thanks

napoleond

Forget the power aspect. Work on how hard it feels for now (Rate of Perceived Exertion or RPE)
Wear and record your heart rate to give you an idea of what your heart is doing during sessions.
The Sufferfest is probably the best thing to use for your set up.
Then start looking at testing to find your heart rate zones. I get lab tested to get mine as it's FAR more accurate at the 'endurance' end of the scale but I've found the Carmichael Test pretty good.
Then incorporate your Heart Ratevtraining zones into your training.

jgsi

If you Google Misuro B issues etc there are various solutions... the device is capable of estimating power .. so its worth persisting... not straightforward tho.. and yes Zwift users do get issues as well...

markhewitt1978

DLSilsbury wrote:

Also it appears that zwift is very popular on this forum. Is it worth trying that with my setup?

You can get a 7 day unlimited trial for free although a month is only £8. It might be worth trying the free trial just to see if the results it gives you are the same as you're seeing elsewhere.

slowbike

Absolute power numbers or speed figures are irrelevant when it comes to turbo training.
What you're after is repeatable numbers and be able to see an improvement.
So if the setup tells you you're putting out 30w today and 60w tomorrow thats a 100% improvement!

The turbo you have is a basic one - so your experience with Zwift or any other virtual reality simulator will be limited - that's not to say you can't ride though - personally I've just started using Bkool as a tool to keep me on the turbo for the desired time - £8/month is 2 pints - so not much to worry about so worth while if it provides you with the motivation.

homers_double

I've said it before, zwift on a dumb trainer makes it almost bearable so is better that slogging it out in the garage.

jgsi

I use Zwift with one of 'dem dumb trainers - however the Cycleops Fluid 2 is one the few that Zwift does fully support. but I use it with a power meter ... and ride experience with Zwift? No, I'm not losing out at all, as the algorithm used in the software makes the work rate as hard as you actually want to make it or tolerate it... or just pop and coast in.

DLSilsbury

Some great advise here, thanks for all your replies.
Seems it might be more complicated than I had bargained for to get any kind of accurate calories burned and power output. So I think at least for the time being I'll just ignore calories burned and power and use them as a tool to compare my improvements. I can see I would otherwise get bogged down with this stuff

slowbike

DLSilsbury wrote:

Some great advise here, thanks for all your replies.
Seems it might be more complicated than I had bargained for to get any kind of accurate calories burned and power output. So I think at least for the time being I'll just ignore calories burned and power and use them as a tool to compare my improvements. I can see I would otherwise get bogged down with this stuff

Calories burned and accurate should not be used in the same sentence.

Do not believe anything that any device tells you about calories burned ...

If you're doing this to lose weight then I'm afraid you can't do an hours turbo session then eat a whole cake.

DLSilsbury

Slowbike wrote:

If you're doing this to lose weight then I'm afraid you can't do an hours turbo session then eat a whole cake.

DLSilsbury

Had a look at Zwift and it seems it's only iOS/PC/Mac compatible so that counts me out. Shame, surprised there's no Android for this one. Seems to be the same with Sufferfest.

slowbike

sufferfest is just videos isn't it? Can play them on any device capable of running videos ...

bkool works on Android 4.2 or later - if that helps ...
http://www.bkool.com/en-GB/cycling-simulator

DLSilsbury

Slowbike wrote:

sufferfest is just videos isn't it? Can play them on any device capable of running videos ...

bkool works on Android 4.2 or later - if that helps ...
http://www.bkool.com/en-GB/cycling-simulator

Yes and no with sufferfest, I have actually bought/downloaded a video however they also do a monthly fee based app on IOS, which I think allows all videos.

Thanks will give BKool a go. Free for 5 sessions.

slowbike

thing I like about Bkool is that I can upload GPX files of routes I want to ride - program in some bots and ghosts to keep me company and away I go - or I can join in the group sessions - it doesn't seem to be as social as Zwift, but it's more technically capable.