Why you should use ZWIFT with my classes
Note: I am not affiliated with, nor do I profit from anyone signing up to ZWIFT. It’s just genuinely the best experience for matching with my classes and having fun on your indoor bike. I have tried all the different bike trainer software that allow custom workout profiles and ZWIFT is not only the best but it’s also one of the cheaper options at £12.99/mo. You can sign up for a 7 day free trial at the bottom of THIS PAGE. If you want a free alternative try ‘RGT’ which is usually the same price as ZWIFT but the premium membership that allows custom workouts is currently free if you sign up HERE and read about how to get the free account.
I’ve spent years trying to make my classes an involving experience. I try to convey the profile through music, tone of voice, and what I’m actually saying, all working together to send a clear message. However it’s taken technology to develop to let me go further, and now I’m finally able to add a powerful visual and statistical side to my classes with the help of ZWIFT!
ZWIFT is a subscription online game/training software for cyclists and runners. With a smart bike trainer or smart bike you can pilot your virtual rider along the roads in game, translating your real power to weight ratio into the rider’s speed. It’s honestly so much fun as it is, but I’m going a step further, using it is a tool to add another dimension to my classes. When you use my custom workout profiles in ZWIFT during a live class with me your screen will tell you exactly what cadence you are at and you should be at, if you need to spin faster or slower, and your smart trainer/bike will automatically adjust resistance to get you to the right power so you don’t have to change any gears or fiddle with any knobs!
The power is based on a percentage of your FTP (Functional Threshold Power), so before your workout in ZWIFT you can tell it what your FTP is and every effort in the class is compensated for your own level. For example when I’m teaching I’m generally working with an FTP of about 240 watts (lower then my true as teaching is hard!). Our ‘Baseload’ recovery sections are 45%FTP which for me is 108 watts, and a tough 1 minute interval may be 150%FTP which for me is 360 watts. As you get fitter you can increase how high you set your FTP, ZWIFT also has built in tests for finding it and tracking your fitness. Mid class you can even adjust your target power up or down by 10% if you aren’t getting that feeling quite right.
This function is what we call an ‘ERG’ profile, your trainer will keep you at your target watts no matter what you do, if you pedal slower it just gets heavier! but if it gets too much you can hit the ‘ERG off’ button during the class to give yourself some relief, which when you really start pushing yourself with those FTP targets is needed sometimes. ZWIFT will track everything, it’ll tell you about distance, altitude, calories etc, and you earn XP and virtual currency in game to level up and track your progress.
So far it’s all great, we are doing a class with metrics telling us about power, cadence, automatically adjusting everything and letting us focus on the workout but the best bit is yet to come. For me the most powerful part of the COG Cardio + ZWIFT integration is to do with interval durations. As the profiles are perfectly synced to my rides you have a live counter at all times of how far away the next change is, you always know when that position change is coming, how long it is until a break, and when you’ve got to start pushing it. There’s a list down the side of upcoming efforts and how much power you’ll be holding for different durations, and at the top is a progress bar for every interval. THEN there’s the whole game visual aspect, with every interval comes a big glowing gate on the in-game road that you pass though, with a colour to tell you how hard it’s about to get. Personally I find this gate system THE BEST PART of this whole thing, the position of the gate will move based on your power/speed so you hit at at the prescribed time. I find it unbelievably motivational to be in the middle of a killer interval but actually see my progress towards that upcoming gate, knowing that when I push myself through it I get that break and the trainer will release that tension. Being on a long flat road and seeing that next gate in the distance gives you that sense of place and is much stronger than just me telling you you’ve got 2 mins until the effort.
ZWIFT in the middle of Ride 37, heading towards a gate indicating the next break
When you combine it all together it’s like nothing else, for me at least this is it, ultimate training!
If you like the community side of Indoor cycling classes you’d love ZWIFT too, as it’s an online game with real riders all over the roads, passing each other, giving thumbs up, and riding together. You can add me/your friends on ZWIFT and join us when you’re starting your workout so we all start together on the road, riding side by side through the intervals. Although if we are all at different FTPs we will start spreading out, but that’s fine, it’s not a race!
Check out the video on this page/my youtube channel for details and to see how everything looks. As I make more profiles to use with ZWIFT they will be available in the ‘Ride Profiles’ section of this site, the first one ‘Ride 37’ will remain free so you can check it out!
Keep riding, Chris