Exercise bike workouts

Exercise bike workouts at the gym or local health club will provide exercisers will a fantastic base of fitness and stamina. This article aims to provide a number exercise bike workouts to use at your local gym.

Exercise bike workouts: The basics

In order to improve aerobic fitness exercise bike workouts should include some form of continuous exercise for between 20 to 60 minutes. I use the word 'continuous' loosely as research has shown that one of the best ways to improving fitness is to perform short, sharp high intensity sprints of between 10 - 30 seconds separated by periods of 'active' recovery (say 45 - 90 seconds of lower level exercise). But more about this later.

Unlike other forms of cardiovascular exercise aiming the increase fitness using an exercise bike will also increase muscle tone in the thighs, especially the quadriceps, the muscles of the front of the thighs that bear the brunt of the workload when cycling. This makes cycling on a stationary bike one of the best ways to develop lean, toned and strong quadriceps whilst developing a solid base of aerobic fitness.

Exercise and fitness guidelines, written by the ACSM and endorsed by governments around the world suggest that to improve their aerobic fitness levels, people should aim to perform 2 to 5 aerobic workouts per week, with each session varying in intensity - some performed at a lower intensity and others performed at higher, harder levels.

In order to improve aerobic fitness cyclists should aim to work as between 70 and 85 percent of their Age Predicted Maximal Heart Rate.

Exercise bike workouts: Using APMHR

All exercise bike workouts should take the Age Predicted Maximal Heart Rate (APMHR), or some other form of intensity grading method, into consideration. The APMHR looks at the age of an exerciser and predicts their maximal heart rate based on this figure. The APMHR then suggests the target heart rate needed to improve aerobic fitness using an exercise bike.

The APMHR suggests that the maximal heart rate is 220, Thus, someone aged 40 years old would have a predicted maximal heart rate of 180 beats per minute. Therefore to work at between 70 and 80 percent of their APMHR a 40 year old exerciser should exercise at 126 to 153 beats per minute for 20 - 60 minutes.

NOTE: Many studies have shown that workouts on exercise bikes are less predictable when using the APMHR scale of exercise intensity. This is primarily due to the fatigue of the quadricep muscles during the cycling action and the painful build up of lactic acid during cycling at high intensities, the type of intensity that increases the heart rate to higher levels.

Exercise bike workouts: Using RPE

So it is, perhaps beneficial for beginners and those not used to cycling to use the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) when looking to increase fitness using an exercise bike. The RPE asks exercisers to plot their perceived exertion against certain statements, outlined below:

• 0 - Nothing at all
• 1 - Very light
• 2 - Fairly light
• 3 - Moderate
• 4 - Some what hard
• 5 - Hard
• 6
• 7 - Very hard
• 8
• 9
• 10 - Very, very hard

To increase fitness using an exercise bike people should work between levels 3 - 7 on the RPE scale.

Exercise bike workouts: High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

Traditionally people looking to increase fitness and lose weight were encouraged to exercise at a steady state / continuous level during their workouts. However, these days exercise scientists suggest the very best way to increase fitness quickly and burn more calories within the 24 hours after exercise is to complete a high intensity interval training (HIIT) session.

This will see exercisers working at near maximal levels for short periods of time during an exercise session. For example, when using an exercise bike your workout may look something like this

• 0 - 5 minutes: Warm up
• 5 - 25 minutes: Sprint for 15 seconds on a high level, moving your legs as quickly as possible followed by 45 seconds of cycling at a lower level whilst maintaining a good yet lower then maximal cycling cadence. Repeat as many times as possible for 20 minutes.
• 25 - 30 minutes: Cool down

During such a workout exercisers would work maximally for a total of 5 minutes. Also, as they change between active rest and maximal sprints, their heart rate would jump and spike throughout the session. Varying the heart rate in this way during a workout means exercisers will be pushing the boundaries of their current fitness levels to such an extent that their body would be forced to improve their stamina in order to cope in future.

Exercise bike workouts: Steady state exercise

Steady state or continuous exercise bike workouts should still feature in people's aerobic fitness programming. Steady state cycling (say at level 3 -4 on the RPE scale) is useful to separate high intensity interval training sessions (intervals working at levels 7 to 10 on the RPE scale).

Steady state exercise bike workouts allow exercisers to develop fitness without experiencing overtraining, something which could happen if they performed more than two HIIT indoor cycling workouts a week.

Exercise bike workouts: Training programs

The following exercise bike workouts have been planned to help improve not only overall fitness but also speed, cycling power and 'race pace'.

Time Workout 1 RPE 5 minutes Slowly build up to Level 3 (Moderate) on the RPE scale. Level 3 5 minutes Perform 30 seconds cycle sprints on a high resistance and at close to your maximal rate followed by 30 seconds active rest working at your warm up pace. Repeat 5 times. Level 6 - 7 5 minutes Cool down - Reduce your speed and resistance to a little less than your warm up pace. Level 2 - 3

Time Workout 2 RPE 5 minutes Slowly build up to Level 3 (Moderate) on the RPE scale. Level 3 20 minutes Perform 15 seconds cycle sprints on a high resistance and at close to your maximal rate followed by 45 seconds active rest working at your warm up pace. Repeat for the desired time. Level 8 - 9 5 minutes Cool down - Reduce your speed and resistance to a little less than your warm up pace. Level 2 - 3

Time Workout 3 RPE 5 minutes Slowly build up to Level 3 (Moderate) on the RPE scale. Level 3 30 minutes Perform 60 seconds bouts of cycling at a higher than warm up pace and resistance followed by 60 seconds of active rest working at your warm up pace. Repeat for the desired time. Level 5 5 minutes Cool down - Reduce your speed and resistance to a little less than your warm up pace. Level 2 - 3

Time Workout 4 RPE 5 minutes Slowly build up to Level 3 (Moderate) on the RPE scale. Level 3 30 minutes Cycle at a constant pace for the desired time. Level 3 - 5 5 minutes Cool down - Reduce your speed and resistance to a little less than your warm up pace. Level 2 - 3

Time Fartlek workout RPE 5 minutes Slowly build up to Level 3 (Moderate) on the RPE scale. Level 3 20 minutes Change the pace and resistance as and when you like. However, make sure you perform a good number of short sprints and bouts of fast paced cycling at varying levels of resistance as well as lower level recovery bouts of cycling. Level 3 - 10 5 minutes Cool down - Reduce your speed and resistance to a little less than your warm up pace. Level 2 - 3

These exercise bike workouts are by no means the only gym cycling workouts available. These ideas have been written to give you a flavour of the type of exercise bike workouts that can be created. By all means create your own cycling workouts based on the suggestions above.

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