I’m slowly getting back on the bike after a period off and looking for advice on the best Wahoo setup for very gentle, low-intensity recovery rides.
After undergoing DIEP flap breast reconstruction surgery, where tissue is taken from the abdomen to reconstruct the breast, core strength and stability are significantly affected for several weeks. This means I need to keep everything extremely smooth and controlled on the bike — no surges, no high effort, just easy steady pedaling with minimal core engagement.
A few things I’m trying to figure out:
KICKR Trainer
Is ERG mode the best option for keeping watts locked at a very low, steady level?
What wattage do you recommend for true recovery effort when core engagement needs to be minimal?
Does the KICKR DESK help with comfort and reducing upper body strain?
TICKR Heart Rate Monitor
Do you rely more on HR than power for keeping effort genuinely low?
What HR zone do you stay in for recovery?
Would love to hear from anyone who has used Wahoo gear for rehabilitation or a gentle comeback. Every little tip helps!
Based on what you described, I think heart rate is more important than power. Once you get going, you will probably learn/see what power level is associated with various levels of heart rate. You want to directly monitor your physical response to the activity, so heart rate is the one to wat g. Power is considered a superior metric for performance training, but that doesn’t seem to be your priority right now.
I suggest doing all workouts using “level” setting but pay attention to your heart rate. This way you have access to a broad selection of workouts and they will keep playing even if you aren’t hitting the targets; just pay attention to your actual heart rate and keep it in the desired range. In fact, if you open the settings for a video, you can select which targets you want to display while it is playing.
I had a heart attack a year and a half ago, and a collarbone break 2 years ago, so had recovery coming from both.
In both cases, HR was a great tool to make sure I wasn’t overdoing it.
Coming back from both events I was using dumb trainers (plain rollers and an airdyne at the cardiac rehab). I basically ignored the watts because it just was demoralizing to see how low they were. I focused on time, and used the Strava Relative Effort metric - it’s HR based and is a good tool to make sure you’re not building too quickly. Once that stabilized a bit I started looking at power again.
All that said now that I have a smart trainer (and absolutely love erg mode), I might have used that as well, with the caveat that I would use it as a tool to get the HR I was looking for.
Lots of good advice so far. I’ll just throw my 2 cents in.
Both with my chronic back issues, and when in the throes of long covid, I had to ride slow very easy steady rides, either because my back and core just couldn’t take much strain, or because I needed to keep my HR low and steady.
I usually did this while riding either the “Recovery Spin” workout or one of the “Open” series of videos. They are perfectly flat and even which makes for a flat even power profile. With long covid and for basic regular recovery rides, I ride in erg mode and just use the +/- buttons on my keyboard to lower the power target down to what I can handle and/or what my HR shows.
At the worst of it, I was often riding around 60-70w to keep my HR under 100bpm. But you would want to adjust your riding based on your own body and recovery.
If I wasn’t sure what power I could hold or my back was especially bad, or I just wanted to ride easy, I would do the video in “Level” mode at level 0 and put my bike in the little ring and my lowest gear and then change gears as needed and ride based on HR and feel. This was especially helpful when my back was tight and I couldn’t push the pedals hard enough in erg mode to overcome the initial torque even at 100w. And as a bonus, if you ride in Level mode, you can ride to any video since you get to decide the power you ride based on your gearing.
ERG mode will be my best friend when I eventually have back surgery and need to recover slowly. I tend to try to push things and cheat up on the power target, and I know that no matter what I do with the cadence, I can’t cheat ERG mode in the long run.
Any of the inspiration videos can be run minimized with the intensity dialed up or down if you want a limited but non-constant workout.