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Match it to the intensity. For easy rides, anything with a plot works well. For hard intervals, plots fail, because your attention goes back to your legs the moment it hurts: use rhythmic music, something short-form, or something you interact with instead.
The single most useful idea here. What works at 60% of FTP is useless at 110%.
Easy rides (zone 2, long steady efforts). Your attention is genuinely available, so a film, a series, a documentary or a long podcast all work well. This is the best use of a boxset you have been meaning to get through.
Moderate work (sweet spot, tempo). Plots start to suffer. Something episodic, familiar, or that you do not mind losing the thread of. Rewatching something is better than starting something.
Hard intervals (threshold, VO2, sprints). Narrative is wasted. You will not follow it and you will resent it. Music with a strong beat, short-form video you can dip in and out of, or something interactive is what actually holds up.
There is a ceiling to what passive viewing can do, and it is worth being honest about it.
Watching is passive. You can watch a screen and still monitor your legs, and when the effort rises your attention goes back to your body whatever is on. That is why people with perfectly good television setups still find hard turbo sessions interminable.
What gets past that is anything that needs a response from you: pedalling to a beat, following a session that changes every two minutes, riding with someone, or a game where your power is the controller and it goes wrong if you stop paying attention. That is the gap we are building into: your watts fly the aircraft rather than feed a chart. See how to stop getting bored.
Not for easy rides. For hard intervals it can, if it distracts you enough to let the power drift down. Structure or ERG mode prevents that.
Headphones, generally. They cut the trainer and fan noise, which is otherwise a constant reminder of where you are.
High enough that you are not hunched over looking down. Roughly eye level when you are on the hoods.
That is the problem we are actually trying to solve. Turbo Trainer Games turns your watts into the controls of a browser game — your power flies the aircraft, climbs the mountain, pulls the sledge. Nothing to install, and it works with a smart trainer you already own.
It is in closed testing at the moment, so there is nothing to play yet. But you can put your name down.
Ask for early access