Riding a stationary bike is an effective way to strengthen your muscles, lungs and heart while burning calories and body fat. An exercise bike also puts far less stress on the joints compared to many other types of cardio equipment. Here we’ll explore the exercise bike benefits and how you can get the best workout on your stationary bike.
10 Benefits you get from Riding an Exercise Bike
Being able to exercise at home is convenient and saves you the expense of gym membership. There are many benefits from owning your own exercise bike, and whether you get an Upright or Recumbent Exercise bike, each will give you a different workout.
Benefit 1: Bike Riding is an Excellent Cardio Exercise
One of the most obvious exercise bike benefits is that it offers improvements in your cardio fitness. An intense spin session will get your heart beating, but you can also use riding a stationary bike as part of your interval training. Since it is a controlled environment, you can alternate between recovery and high speed, high intensity pedaling.
Research suggests effective cardio programs include a mixture of high intensity interval training (HIIT) and steady state cardio, making an exercise bike the perfect tool.
Benefit 2: Strengthen Your Muscles By using an Exercise Bike
Practically every model of exercise bike offers some type of resistance that simulates the effort of riding a bike up hills. However, unlike when your road cycling, you can make a hill as steep as you like and ride uphill for as long as you like.
While low resistance, high speed cycling can be great for cardio, if you increase the resistance, it will help you to build strength, particularly in your thighs and calves. Additionally, if you’re cycling both seated and standing, your core will get a great workout.
Benefit 3: Use an Exercise Bike for Weight Management
The combination of strength and cardio training of cycling is hard to beat for burning calories. A 30-minute intense interval exercise bike session can burn as many as 450 calories. So, this is a great way to fit in some calorie burning activity into your busy schedule.
Additionally, since cycling builds muscles and muscles require more effort to maintain compared to fat, even at rest, increasing your muscle mass will help you to burn more calories.
Benefit 4: Exercise Bike Great for Joint Mobility
If you have difficulties with your joints or have concerns about your joint health, riding a stationary bike is a great choice. Low resistance spinning can help to maintain the mobility of your hip, knee and ankle joints. It can also help to reduce joint inflammation.
Increasing the resistance can also help to strengthen the muscles around your joints for increased stability and injury prevention.
Benefit 5: How to get Low Impact Exercise
Whether you have joint issues or are recovering from an injury, you’ll appreciate low impact exercises. One of the exercise bike benefits is that you can get a superb workout while maintaining low impact movements.
If you lift out of the saddle, you can add your body weight to your workout without adding impact. So, you can tailor your workout to suit your joint or injury limitations.
Benefit 6: Avoid Road Safety Hazards When Exercising
An exercise bike is a safe way to enjoy the benefits of cycling with no risk of road safety hazards. You can cycle in the comfort of your own home without worrying about traffic, other road users or falls.
As our roads get increasingly busier, even experienced cyclists look for ways to enjoy the health benefits of cycling while staying safe. You can even use an exercise bike to complete winter training to avoid riding in inclement weather or the dark.
Benefit 7: You Can Vary Your Workout When Using an Exercise Bike
One of the difficulties of establishing a fitness routine is that it can quickly become monotonous. However, with an exercise bike you can vary your workout to keep it interesting.
If you want to enjoy a social side to your workout, you could take a spin class, or you can cycle at home. Many people set up in front of their television and play different tempos of music to automatically adjust their speed and effort.
There are also many exercise bike models that have built in programs including strength workouts, HIIT and steady state. You can also find online programs that help you to simulate races or join a virtual class.
Benefit 8: Exercise Without Breaking the Bank
If you’re looking to improve your fitness, you may find the cost prohibitive. However, riding a stationary bike does not require specialist clothing or additional tools. Once you have an exercise bike, you can ride in any comfortable clothing, providing there is no risk of anything getting caught in the pedals.
If you already have a gym membership, you may find that spinning classes are available at no additional cost. Or you could simply use a stationary bike on the main gym floor.
Benefit 9: It’s Not Complicated
Riding a stationary bike is quite a simple exercise. Technique is important, but it is fairly easy to master good form. Even if your technique slips as you tire, there is less risk of an injury compared to running, weightlifting or many other fitness exercises.
You don’t need to be particularly coordinated or a trained athlete to enjoy a safe and effective workout. Exercise bikes are stable and secure, so you don’t even need to have mastered riding a road bike.
Benefit 10: You Can Enjoy Convenience and Comfort
Like any fitness exercise, you are likely to get hot and sweaty when you’re riding a stationary bike. However, you can enjoy convenience and comfort. You don’t need to brace yourself to go out in inclement weather, you can set up your bike in front of the television, put on your favorite music or set up a good book to read as you work out.
Suggested Workouts for The Best Exercise Bike Benefits
If you’re a beginner, you can start out slowly and simply add more intensity and time gradually. If you start out with a 25-minute workout, you can add time in one-minute increments as your fitness level increases.
For weight loss purposes, it is a good idea to quickly switch up the resistance levels. If you start out at a low intensity to warm up and then alternate between medium and high intensity for the bulk of your workout before using low intensity as a cool down, you can burn the most calories.
There are some fantastic exercise bike benefits. Whether you’re looking to lose weight, improve your fitness or recover from an injury, riding a stationary bike can provide an effective solution.