features
Promotional feature: Wattbike
Key operators tell us how they maximise the Wattbike
NUFFIELD HEALTH
Rick Crawford
National Fitness and Wellbeing Lead at Nuffield Health
“At Nuffield Health we were early adopters of the Wattbike and we now have Wattbikes in the majority of our gym facilities, medical centres and hospitals. Working with Wattbike was an easy decision for two reasons; firstly, we recognised the rapid increase in the popularity of cycling and triathlon, and Wattbikes provide our members and clients with the best indoor cycling experience they can transfer back outdoors to rides and races.
Secondly, at Nuffield Health we pride ourselves on having the best health professionals in the industry. Our health and wellbeing experts, including our personal trainers, physiologists, and physiotherapists, have all collaborated with Wattbike to create a set of protocols that have been incorporated across our service lines.
In the last three years, we’ve also had to respond to strong member-driven demand, as more and more people, hearing that Wattbikes are available in other Nuffield clubs or clinics, have begun to request them at their own locations. This has led to us placing more and more emphasis on Wattbikes to meet customer demand, and as a result they’re now a standard offering in our health clubs.
In our fitness facilities we’re now creating Wattbike ‘zones’, often with digital screens to enable group training, competitive races and ‘Power Cycling’ classes. Members can benefit from 1-2-1 and group Wattbikes sessions that are both challenging and engaging and in addition can spend time with our personal trainers to accurately measure their current fitness levels and the impact their training is having.
Wattbikes are used extensively by our physiotherapy teams to identify muscle imbalances and as a rehabilitation and recovery tool.
A Wattbike fitness test has also been incorporated into our full 360+ Health Assessments as a measure of a member’s current fitness and as an indicator of their future cardiovascular health. For those people who really want to test themselves, our physiologists can also oversee a more vigorous sub-maximal test.”
DAVID LLOYD LEISURE
Michelle Dand
Group Health and Fitness Manager at David Lloyd Leisure
“We’ve been using Wattbikes in a number of ways, experimenting to find the best fit in our facilities. At first we put them on the gym floor, but the Wattbike isn’t as intuitive as some members were used to, so we introduced Wattbike ‘Taster’ sessions. These enable members to learn the basics, understanding the technology and seeing the immense benefits they can get from using the bikes.
More recently we’ve put them into our ‘Performance Zone’ areas as part of our gym innovation programme, and at a handful of clubs we’ll be running a Wattbike area made up of programmable tasters, power cycling, small group training and virtual sessions.
We’ve continued our investment in quality class-based fitness through an exclusive partnership with The Sufferfest video-based indoor cycling programme, which launched at David Lloyd Southampton and will roll out to selected clubs over the coming months. The Sufferfest programme will run in our studios and Wattbike areas, bringing them to life whilst motivating members and educating them about the bikes.
The main reason we chose the bikes is their ability to cater for the very fit and the very unfit. In the UK we have a growing market of cyclists and triathletes who appreciate the performance elements of training on the Wattbike, but we also have members who are just beginning to understand the benefits of power training.”
EVERYONE ACTIVE
Mark Talley
Group Fitness Development Manager at Everyone Active
“We generally put two or three bikes into our gyms where possible to provide options for all our members, but we have found that, although the bikes are well used by a broad spectrum of people, they’re especially popular with our members who are keen cyclists or triathletes and looking for more performance orientated training.
For these users the bikes provide powerful performance data to use for training and many already understand the benefits as the Wattbike brand is well established within the triathlon and cycling community.
We are always keen to offer members the latest in innovation and technology. For our more specialist equipment we run workshops to ensure members have the opportunity to be properly introduced to the kit so that they can get the most from all of the features regardless of their current fitness knowledge, levels or personal goals.
With the rise in popularity of small group training, we’re also looking at programmes using the Wattbikes. We’re committed to engaging as many members in small group activity as possible, and Wattbikes can easily be integrated into our existing programmes.
