Cardio Fitness Fan - Keep cool and get results when training at home

Training at home has become the norm for many of us over the last year. With memberships of online workout programmes and virtual cycling apps such as Zwift surging in popularity. The sight of pop-up gyms in the corners of living rooms and converted garages (nee pain caves!) has become all too familiar.

But whether you’re a professional cyclist preparing for race season or you just want to improve your fitness from the comfort of your home, investing in the right cardio training fan is key to maximising results.

Sweat the small stuff

When we exercise, our bodies heat up. To prevent overheating, we expel beads of sweat, which rise to the surface of the skin, hit the cooler air, and evaporate. This cools our skin and in turn, our core body temperature.

However, when we’re not outside in the cooling wind or in a gym with air conditioning, the sweat can’t evaporate as easily. Instead, it stays on our body, making us warmer. The hotter we become, the more we sweat and the easier it is to for us to become dehydrated.

Studies have shown that exercise performance – particularly our endurance capacity - reduces when we’re dehydrated and that our aerobic power output (V02max) decreases by approximately 5% when we’re just 3% dehydrated. 

Exercise in a warm environment, with little wind, and this output decreases even further. So, sweating the small stuff really can make a difference.

The solution

Keep cool by replicating real wind speed. Investing in a decent cardio fitness or training fan is key. A fan keeps your body temperature at its optimum level so that you can keep going for longer and build endurance. 

Nothing beats a strong wind in the great outdoors for keeping you cool, but the right fan, positioned correctly, can get very close. The key is to look for a training fan with the highest directional speed you can find.

Look for the actual km or mph specification rather than cubic feet per minute and don’t go for anything less than 45 km per hour (which is the equivalent to a strong wind on the Beaufort Scale).

There are lots of different types of fan available, including floor, tower, desk and pedestal fans. All of these have their uses, but for home exercise, like riding on an exercise bike or running on a treadmill, many in the fitness community prefer a high-performance, compact and low noise floor fan, like the Cardio54^TM training fan.

These specialist air mover fans provide the optimal headwind for your home gym with tilt and speed adjust functions allowing you to control both the angle and velocity of the airflow.

If you hate being broken off mid-sprint, look for a fan with a remote control enabling you to quickly adjust the airflow to suit your needs.