The exercise cycle is a valuable fitness tool, and cycling for weight loss doesn’t have to be complicated. Combining cycling, structured training, and a healthy diet can pave the way for increased performance by dropping the pounds and increasing your fitness. This article explores the multifaceted benefits of incorporating an exercise cycle into your weight loss journey, providing insights suitable for various fitness levels, from beginners to seasoned athletes.
Introduction to Weight Loss with Cardiovascular Exercises
Cardiovascular exercises, such as cycling, walking, and running, are highly effective for weight loss and should be an integral part of any balanced fitness routine. These activities elevate your heart rate, increase calorie expenditure, and promote fat burning, making them ideal for shedding excess pounds. By engaging large muscle groups and boosting your metabolism, cardiovascular exercises not only help you burn calories during the workout, but also contribute to increased calorie burn throughout the day. Moreover, they offer numerous additional health benefits, such as improved cardiovascular health, increased endurance, and enhanced mood. To achieve sustainable weight loss, it’s crucial to adopt a well-rounded approach that combines cardiovascular exercises with strength training, flexibility work, and a balanced diet. This holistic approach ensures that you not only lose weight but also build muscle, improve overall fitness, and maintain long-term health.
Benefits of Cycling for Weight Loss
There are numerous benefits of cycling for weight loss. Riding can increase your activity level, burn calories, improve heart health, and grow your fitness. Aside from those benefits, riding a bike is fun! Cycling offers several advantages when it comes to weight loss. Firstly, its low impact nature makes it an ideal exercise for individuals with joint issues or those seeking a low-impact option. Unlike activities like running, which can put stress on the knees and joints, cycling provides a gentler workout while still allowing for an effective calorie burn.
Cardiac Fitness and Overall Health
Aside from weight loss, cycling is a great way to improve your cardiac fitness and overall health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that people partake in a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week combined with two days of strength training.
Spot Reduction Myth
The only way you can lose belly fat is by improving your overall body composition. The idea of losing fat in a specific area is called targeted fat loss or spot reduction, and it’s mostly a myth. When you lose or burn fat, it doesn’t necessarily come from the one specific place you want it to. So, can you lose belly fat by cycling? The answer is maybe.
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Cycling Performance and Weight
Cycling performance and weight seemingly go hand in hand, and for good reasons. Pure watts and aerodynamics reign supreme as long as the road is flat. A key cycling metric is your power-to-weight ratio and is expressed as watts at FTP divided by body weight in kilograms (w/kg). To get faster uphill, there are two ways to attack your power-to-weight ratio. You can increase your FTP or decrease weight. Ideally, you want to do both. Fat does a cyclist no favors when your power-to-weight ratio is concerned, but muscle certainly plays a vital role.
The Calorie Equation
At face value, weight loss is a simple formula-eat less and move more. Dig a bit deeper, and it’s much more complicated than that. Creating a calorie deficit is what leads to weight loss. Losing weight happens primarily in the kitchen. The right food choices, coupled with riding, deliver a one-two punch. The goal is to lose fat and spare as much muscle as possible. If there is too much of a caloric deficit, you will lose muscle.
Factors Influencing Calorie Burn
The number of calories you burn while walking or cycling depends on several factors, including your weight, the intensity of your workout, the duration of your workout and your overall fitness level. The actual calorie burn will depend on various factors such as intensity, duration, individual weight, and effort exerted.
Walking vs. Biking: Calorie Expenditure
Both walking and cycling are effective ways of exercise that can help you burn calories and lose weight. But the question remains: Do you burn more calories walking or riding a bike? In general, a person burns more calories cycling than walking, because cycling has a lower impact on the joints, allowing you to train longer and more intensely than walking. For example, a 70-kg person burns about 240-290 calories cycling for 30 minutes at an average speed of 20 mph. While the same person burns about 130-160 calories with 30 minutes of walking at a speed of 5 km/h.
Of course, the difference in calorie burn between cycling and walking can depend on several factors, such as the terrain you are cycling or walking on and the intensity of your workout. Climbing a hill on a bike both outdoors and indoors on a stationary bike can increase calorie burn considerably. The same goes for walking on a soft surface such as sand or grass, or increasing the intensity by running. So when do you burn the most calories: walking or cycling?
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Running is generally considered a higher-intensity exercise, which can result in a higher calorie burn per minute compared to cycling. But, when we look at Indoor Cycling, it can provide an intense cardio workout and can burn a significant amount of calories when performed with sufficient effort and resistance.
Types of Cycling for Weight Loss
Indoor Cycling
Indoor Cycling, often done in group fitness classes, provides a higher level of resistance and intensity compared to a home trainer. Motivated by instructors and music, Indoor Cycling is an engaging way to burn calories and enhance endurance. Properly alternating exercise and relaxation is key to maximizing weight loss with Indoor Cycling.
Researchers noted that bicycling at a moderate intensity could burn 210 to 294 calories every 30 minutes, depending on how much you weigh. Upping the intensity to “vigorous” could yield a 315-441 calorie burn per 30 minutes, depending on how much you weigh.
Recreational Cycling
A popular and accessible way to cycle, enjoying the outdoors, fresh air, and scenery. Riding a bike outside provides a low-intensity workout but allows for longer durations, contributing to weight loss over time.
Road Cycling
Covering longer distances on a road bike, road cycling, requires stamina and training. It is an excellent option for burning calories and improving endurance. Gradually building up your training and allowing for proper rest is important for effective weight loss.
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Cardio Training on a Home trainer
Using a stationary bike at home, home trainers offer the convenience of indoor cycling regardless of weather conditions or time of day. Following a challenging exercise program on a home trainer can help burn calories effectively and improve fitness.
Stationary Bikes: A Detailed Look
There are generally three different types of stationary bikes: upright, recumbent, and dual-action. Each one offers slightly different benefits. Depending on your fitness level, joint health, and workout goals, you can focus on just one bike, or for more variety, you can try all of them at different times.
Upright Bike
One of the most popular types of stationary bikes is the upright bike. It’s similar to a regular bicycle, with the pedals positioned under your body. The upright bike provides a great cardio workout while also strengthening your leg and core muscles. Depending on your preference, this bike can be used both standing or sitting. The downside of this bike is that the upright position can put pressure on your hands and wrists. Also, the small seat can be uncomfortable, especially for longer workouts.
Recumbent Bike
With a recumbent stationary bike, you sit in a comfortable reclined position on a larger seat that’s positioned back from the pedals. This type of bike puts less stress on your upper body, joints, and low back. Your body is fully supported, which can make your workout less intense. You’ll also have less fatigue and muscle soreness after your workout. A recumbent bicycle is a good option if you have limited mobility, joint issues or injuries, or back pain. It’s also a safer option for older adults or those new to exercise.
Dual-Action Bike
A dual-action bike is the least like a regular road bicycle. It has handlebars that move back and forth to target your upper body muscles. So, while you’re pedaling and working your legs, you’re also able to get a solid upper body workout.
Other Types of Bikes
The indoor cycle bike, which is the most popular option in indoor cycling classes, is similar to an upright bike. However, it has an elevated seat. Another difference is that resistance is created with a weighted flywheel on the front, which is typically about 40 pounds. The resistance can be adjusted to simulate hills or riding into the wind. A less common type of stationary bike is a fan or air bike. This bike doesn’t have any preprogrammed options. Instead, you create resistance by pedaling. The faster you pedal, the faster the wheel blades rotate and the more resistance you generate. These bikes are generally less expensive than other types of stationary bicycles.
Goal Setting and Consistency
Before embarking on a weight loss journey, you have to determine the reasons why. Is it for performance or body image? Too often, our body’s view revolves around a perception of should and the thought that “I don’t look like a certain type of athlete.” No doubt, I was concerned about a certain body image, but honestly, I just wanted be get healthy and be a faster cyclist. My goal was to be fast enough to hang on my local drop ride, and I used that goal as my decision matrix. Will this make me faster? Having a central goal simplifies your decision making when you are trying to lose weight.
Measurable and Timely Goals
When you develop your goal, tie it to an event. By connecting your goal to an event, your goal is measurable and timely. Often when shedding the pounds, the focus can become the number on the scale. Your body is unique. What is a healthy weight for someone else is not what is best for you.
Consistency is Key
Healthy weight loss takes time and change. Consistency is your greatest ally. A steady approach will help you analyze what is working and what isn’t so that you can develop positive new habits. My success in weight loss was the result of being consistent in my food choices and training over months. Consistency helps you avoid the crash diet cycle. You go crazy, lose weight, burn out, then put the weight back on. I’ve been there many times. The worst part is that not only do you gain more weight, but it can wreck your body composition.
Gradual Changes
Once you are committed to a healthy lifestyle, start making changes. Start small. Little changes are easier to manage and will aid your consistency. As you progress, you can add more changes to your diet.
Tracking Progress
Recording data not only provides the means for measuring your success but also helps you celebrate progress. For me, that meant weighing in every morning and observing the weekly trend in both weight and body composition. Analyzing a weekly trend helps because weight fluctuates daily. While I used the scale as a data point, I didn’t obsess over that number. Two easy ways to measure body composition are skinfold calipers or a body composition scale. I use a Tanita Body Fat Scale. Having one of these scales to step on every day was massively effective. Just make sure to measure under similar circumstances. For the best data, always measure under the same conditions.
Nutritional Strategies for Weight Loss
Losing weight happens primarily in the kitchen. Creating a calorie deficit is what leads to weight loss. The right food choices, coupled with riding, deliver a one-two punch. The goal is to lose fat and spare as much muscle as possible. If there is too much of a caloric deficit, you will lose muscle. With so many different types of diets, it can be a bit confusing, but mostly they all create a calorie deficit. What worked for someone else might not work for you. As with so many things, there are trade-offs to any dieting strategy.
The Role of Macronutrients
When optimizing your diet for cycling performance and weight loss, it’s helpful to think of your macronutrients as a lever. On one end, you have fats, and on the other, you have carbs. At the fulcrum rests proteins. So the first step is determining how much protein you need. Then prioritize carbohydrates because it’s the body’s preferred fuel source when performance matters.
Limiting Calories
A big help for me in limiting my calories was keeping a food journal. It can be cumbersome to record everything, but it assists in selecting the proper serving sizes, food choices, and finding all the hidden calories in a diet. For example, I found out that my coffee creamer had 35 calories in two tablespoons. My food journal showed me that I was consuming almost 100 calories a day just in coffee creamer! Even if you don’t record everything forever, do it for two weeks. When you have limited calories, you want to get the most bang for your buck. You can cut a significant portion of calories by avoiding empty calories like alcohol, soft drinks, junk food, and processed sugars. You will be amazed by how much food you can eat when it is nutrient-dense and low-calorie.
Making Smart Food Choices
Eating nutrient-dense was a massive change for my taste buds. I was a typical meat and potatoes person. Green foods rarely made it on my plate, but over time your taste will change. Remember to start small. For example, instead of just eating salads for a week, replace one meal with a salad. When making your food choices, fruits and vegetables are great additions to your plate. Eat lots of vegetables as they are low in calories but high in nutrients. Include smaller amounts of healthy fats, like avocados, olive oil, and nuts. Finally, make sure you are getting enough protein. Turkey and chicken are great because they are low in saturated fats.
Structured Training for Enhanced Results
When I started my weight loss journey, I was not a new cyclist, but I was new to interval training. TrainerRoad helped me take my fitness to an entirely new level and added almost 100w to my FTP. Structured training is an efficient way to create a calorie deficit and raise your fitness. Raising your FTP will allow you to burn even more calories because you are producing more power. A higher FTP means that you will complete workouts with a higher average power. More power equals more calories. If you are new to interval training, you can use Plan Builder to create a custom training plan aligned with your goal event. It’s best to start with a low-volume plan and work your way up over time. This will give you the flexibility to add low-intensity fasted rides to drive fat-burning adaptations. The best training plans will include the intensity you need to meet the demands of your event.
High-Intensity Workouts
High-intensity workouts have an additional benefit. They increase your post-exercise oxygen consumption, which can last 24-36 hours post-workout. Researchers found that the study participants burned an average of over 500 calories, and they noted an additional caloric expenditure of about 190 calories - a 37% increase - on average, 14 hours later. After VO2 Max, anaerobic, and, sprint workouts your body works to replenish fuel stores, metabolize lactate, and reduce body temperature.
Fasted Rides
Riding in a fasted or glycogen-depleted state can be another way to train your body to burn fat. These rides are limited in that they need to be short or very slow. Fasted rides are good at burning fat, but won’t elicit a large training stimulus. Just be careful not to overdo it. Extend or high-intensity fasted rides tend to catabolize muscle-something you want to avoid. Adding a second ride with a fat-burning focus is another great tool for weight loss. You can do these either earlier or later within the same day. I used fasted and two-a-day rides continually during my weight loss. Typically I would wake up early, drink some black coffee, then complete an endurance workout, like Carter or Dans. Then I was off to work and would eat a lunch that fueled my evening, high-intensity workout.
Preserving Lean Muscle Mass
When you are cycling for weight loss, you want to preserve as much lean muscle mass as possible. There are three key things that you can do to preserve lean muscle mass while you are combining cycling and weight loss. First, create a sensible calorie deficit. Additionally, you are going to want to eat plenty of protein. The general recommendation for protein for endurance training and weight loss is around 2g of protein per kilogram of body weight. Eating lean proteins will help keep the calories lower while ensuring you are getting enough. Finally, add in some strength training to help your weight loss. You don’t have to spend hours in the gym to reap some benefits. This engages your upper body, core, quads, and hamstrings on a deeper level due to the added pressure of holding your entire body upright as you cycle.
Stationary Bike Workouts for Weight Loss
Compared to some other types of cardio equipment, a stationary bicycle puts less stress on your joints, but it still provides an excellent aerobic workout. Riding a stationary bike regularly can support your overall health, cardiovascular fitness, and lower body muscles, among other advantages. Riding a stationary exercise bike is an efficient and effective way to burn calories and body fat while strengthening your heart, lungs, and muscles.
Benefits of Stationary Bike Workouts
- Boosts cardio fitness: Cycling is an excellent way to get your heart pumping. Cardiovascular or aerobic workouts, such as cycling, strengthen your heart, lungs, and muscles. They also improve the flow of blood and oxygen throughout your body. This, in turn, can benefit your health in a number of ways, including: improved memory and brain functioning, lower blood pressure, better sleep, improved blood sugar levels, a stronger immune system, better mood, lower stress levels, more energy.
- Can help with weight loss: Depending on the intensity of your workout and your body weight, you can burn more than 600 calories an hour with a stationary bike workout. This makes indoor cycling an excellent workout option for burning calories quickly. Burning more calories than you consume is the key to weight loss.
- Burns body fat: Working out at a high intensity helps to burn calories and build strength, which, in turn, can lead to fat loss. A 2010 study found that indoor cycling, combined with a low-calorie diet, was effective in reducing body weight and body fat in the study’s participants. It was also effective in lowering cholesterol and triglyceride levels. The participants cycled for 45 minutes three times per week, and they consumed 1,200 calories per day for 12 weeks.
- Provides a low-impact workout: A stationary bike workout is a low-impact workout that uses smooth movements to strengthen bones and joints without putting much pressure on them. This makes it a good workout option for people with joint issues or injuries. Your ankles, knees, hips, and other joints can be put under a lot of stress when running, jogging, jumping, or doing other high-impact aerobic exercises. Because your feet don’t lift off the pedals with a stationary bike, this option is kinder to your joints, but it still provides a challenging and effective workout.
- Strengthens legs and lower body muscles: Riding a stationary bike can help build strength in your legs and lower body, especially if you use a higher resistance. The pedaling action can help strengthen your calves, hamstrings, and quadriceps. Additionally, it can work the muscles in your core, back, and glutes. If you use a bicycle with handles, you’ll also be able to work your upper body muscles, including your biceps, triceps, and shoulders.
- Allows for interval training: Interval training allows you to alternate short bursts of intense exercise with longer intervals of less intense exercise. This type of training can help you burn more calories in less time, and also elevate your cardio fitness. Stationary bikes allow for varied resistance levels, so you can exercise at low, medium, or high intensities. This makes it ideal for an interval training workout.
- Safer than road cycling: Cycling outdoors can be a great way to exercise, but it does come with certain hazards, such as inattentive drivers, uneven or slick road surfaces, and poor visibility. Also, if it’s hot and humid, or cold and wet, it can be hard to muster up the motivation to head outdoors. It might not even be safe to do so. With indoor cycling, you don’t have to be concerned about traffic, road conditions, or the elements. You can work out safely at a comfortable temperature any time of the year.
Sample Stationary Bike Workout Plans
For Beginners
If you’re just beginning to building your fitness, the key is to start slowly and to gradually add more time and intensity. Start with a 25- to 35-minute workout and progress from there, adding time in 1-minute increments as you build up your fitness. Here’s a sample beginner’s workout:
- Start off pedaling at a low intensity for 5-10 minutes.
- Switch to medium intensity for 5 minutes, followed by:
- high intensity for 1-2 minutes
- medium intensity for 5 minutes
- high intensity for 1-2 minutes
- medium intensity for 5 minutes
- Finish by pedaling at a low intensity for 5 minutes.
For Weight Loss
This type of workout helps to burn calories and body fat, and it can be a good option to include in a weight loss plan. It’s also a good option if you want to switch up your resistance levels quickly. Here’s a sample weight loss workout plan:
- Start off pedaling at a low intensity for 5-10 minutes.
- Switch to medium intensity for 3-5 minutes.
- Alternate between high intensity (1-3 minutes) and medium intensity (3-5 minutes) for the next 20 to 30 minutes.
- Cool down by pedaling at a low intensity for 5-10 minutes.
For Interval Training
Once you’ve built up your fitness, you may want to boost your strength and stamina with interval training. Here’s a sample interval training plan:
- Start off pedaling at a low intensity for 10 minutes.
- Switch to medium intensity for 10 minutes, followed by:
- high intensity for 2 minutes
- low intensity for 2 minutes
- high intensity for 2 minutes
- low intensity for 2 minutes
- high intensity for 2 minutes
- Cool down by pedaling at low intensity for 5-10 minutes.
Over time, you can increase your intervals one minute at a time.
Safety Considerations
Stationary bikes are safer than riding a bike out on the road, but there are still safety concerns to consider:
- You may develop muscle fatigue or injury from the repetitive motion or from using poor form.
- You could fall off the bike or injure yourself if you don’t balance yourself correctly.
To stay safe with a stationary bike workout, keep these tips in mind:
- Always position your body correctly and use proper form. If you’re unsure of the right position or correct form, ask a certified personal trainer for help.
- Take a break to allow your body time to recover if you develop any pain or muscles aches from cycling.
- Don’t exert yourself beyond your own limits, especially when cycling in a group class. Don’t feel compelled to keep up with the group. It can be dangerous to push yourself too hard, especially if you’re new to exercising.
- Talk to your doctor if you have issues with your balance, blood pressure, or heart health to make sure a stationary bike workout is safe for you.
Additional Tips for Success
- Hydration: Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and curb unnecessary hunger.
- Consistency: The key to long-term results is consistency. To maximize the benefits of your stationary bike routine, combine it with a calorie-controlled, nutrient-rich diet.
- Form Matters: It is important to ensure that you’re training with proper form to avoid injury. Adjust your seat position so you can ride comfortably - a good starting point is to level the seat height to your hip height when standing next to it.
- Listen to Your Body: On days you’re looking to take a leisurely ride, you can do so, or you can opt to push past your limits just as easily.
- Variety: Adding variety to your exercise routine is essential for preventing boredom, breaking through plateaus, and maximizing your fitness gains. You can also find off-bike workouts, including pilates, yoga, meditation, stretching, and more.