Rob Swires, Head Physiologist of Manchester United FC, has had a Wattbike for a couple of weeks now and he has provided some good feedback for us, both about the bike, and about how they would use it at Man Utd. To start with we ought to mention that Rob is a cyclist so he understands the benefits of cycling and uses group cycling with the athletes for warm up and cool down sessions, but what he really wants to be able to do is to monitor rehabilitation after injury or illness. That is where the Wattbike fits in. He likes the fact that the Wattbike Performance Monitor displays the breakdown of force from left leg and right leg and that using the polar curve you can establish the power output from the glutes and hamstrings. On top of that the Wattbike does not have a fixed crank so players recovering from injury can use the bike knowing that if they have any pain they can stop immediately, and not risk doing any damage while the bike slows down.

He did also have some suggestions. He would like to be able to do a 12 interval session, at the moment only 6 intervals are possible. We agree and have passed this on to our programmers, and will have this in the next version. He would also like to have an audible countdown to start intervals, again it is on the list already, we just have to add it in to the monitor, although this is would need a new monitor so that it could actually make a noise, but we are working on it.