Like most people here I need to remain physically active in order to maintain a level of wellbeing (both physical and mental), however ever since getting my first car (43 years ago) physical activity has not been an intrinsic part of my lifestyle which means I need to make time for “exercise”. Luckily I am able to exercise doing things I enjoy outdoors such as cycling and walking, but there are times (particularly during winter) when I don’t like exercising outdoors and since becoming sedentary is not an option then indoor exercise becomes my only option. Unfortunately indoor exercise is not intrinsically enjoyable but with a bit of planning a lot of the pain can be removed and it can seem at times almost enjoyable.
In my case the indoor exercise environment needs to be right. I couldn’t exercise for example in a dark corner of a garage. There needs to be plenty of light with windows and doors that can be opened along with space for exercising, a good TV screen and speakers placed around the room.
The choice of equipment also needs to be well thought out. I spent many years using a dumb fluid turbo trainer which for me worked well because I could use my Garmin sensors to keep track of my workouts. Of course the virtual miles could not be compared to the real “cycled” miles, however since the fluid trainer had a defined power curve then the virtual miles from one workout could be compared to the virtual miles from another workout. For this reason a dumb magnetic resistance turbo trainer would have been about as much use to me as a “glass hammer”.
Another thing that helps me with indoor exercise is being able to share the pain with someone else, along with having a variety of different exercises. So over the years I have added a cross trainer and treadmill before finally replacing the turbo trainer with a Wattbike Atom. Online programs like Zwift don’t really float my boat so I just have the Atom connected to the Wattbike Hub.
While working out there’s nothing more I enjoy than watching a nature documentary in (ultra) high definition with subtitles while listening to Latin Spanish Boleros which have a relaxing and constant rhythm that seems well suited to the rhythm of my workouts.
All of the exercise machines (especially the Atom) track my workouts, but due to the fact that I peaked years ago then using the metrics to push myself harder would just kill off any motivation to exercise indoors. Instead I simply use the metrics to ensure that I’m not slacking or deceiving myself with short cuts.