March 2, 2024 12:43 am
stationary bike

How Long Should You Ride A Stationary Bike – Is 20 Minutes Enough?

How Long Should You Ride A Stationary Bike?

One pound of weight is generally accepted to be 3500 calories.

For 30 minutes, a 155-pound person can ride a stationary bike at a moderate pace and potentially burn 260 calories. With roughly 7 hours of moderate stationary cycling, this person could possibly lose 1 pound of weight.

The same person could vigorously pedal a stationary bike for 30 minutes and possibly burn 391 calories. So with about 5 hours of vigorous stationary biking, this person could potentially lose 1 pound of weight.

What Is An Stationary Bike?

It may seem like an obvious answer, but the term “stationary bike” actually can refer to a range of different pieces of exercise equipment that all share bike characteristics but have their own subtle differences. While stationary bikes typically only have one wheel, which is frequently hidden from view, they still have some kind of seat and pedals similar to traditional outdoor bicycles.

Recumbent bikes, upright stationary bikes, and indoor cycles are the three main categories of exercise bikes. Some individuals think that using an outdoor bike on an indoor bike trainer counts as using a stationary bike.

Benefits Of Riding A Stationary Bike

The advantages of riding exercise bikes are generally universal and cross-category, despite the obvious differences between each of these categories of stationary bikes. That said, some types of stationary bikes are better for achieving certain goals than others

1. Improve Cardiovascular Health And Fitness

Exercise bike use can strengthen your heart and lungs and improve your aerobic fitness. By gradually extending your rides, you can easily increase your endurance on a stationary bike.

2. Increase Leg Strength

Your quadriceps and hamstrings will become stronger if you ride stationary bikes. Additionally, you can work your core and glutes a little bit. Turn up the resistance to increase the muscular demand.

3. Burn Calories And Can Promote Weight Loss

Studies have found that stationary bikes are an effective way to burn fat and lose weight, as well as reduce waist circumference, a measure of abdominal fat or “belly fat.” Even though exercising has many advantages besides helping you lose weight, a good workout has many advantages for your metabolism. Depending on your weight and the level of effort you put forth, exercise bike workouts can burn as many as 400–600 calories per hour. Additionally, if you cycle vigorously or do interval training, your metabolic rate might remain high for several hours after your workout is over.

4. Low Impact

The fact that stationary bikes are excellent for people with joint pain or musculoskeletal injuries is one of the main advantages they have over other treadmills and many other exercise modalities. An exercise bike can be a pain-free workout option for people with both acute and chronic joint pain since cycling is a great low-impact exercise. Additionally, stationary bikes can be an excellent addition to training for athletes who run or participate in high-impact sports because they relieve joint stress while still giving you a workout.

5. Improve Markers Of Health

According to studies, regularly working out on a stationary bike can enhance various health indicators. For instance, riding an exercise bike can improve blood sugar regulation, and lower cholesterol, and blood lipids. As a result, using an exercise bike can lower your risk of developing conditions like atherosclerosis, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

6. Improve Your Mood

Have you ever completed a challenging workout on an exercise bike and felt ecstatic when you got off? If so, you are aware of the endorphins’ potent effects. Endorphins are chemicals that the body releases in response to physical activity. Riding a stationary bike can improve feelings of general well-being, improve mood, reduce stress and anxiety, and lower the risk of depression.

stationary bike

7. More Efficient Than Outdoor Biking

You can almost always get a more effective, challenging workout on an exercise bike than cycling outdoors, so if you’re a cyclist or simply looking for the best workout, rest assured. Indoor cycling workouts offer a more reliable, consistent hard effort since there is no need to stop at stop signs or enjoy the welcome coasting breaks on a downhill.

8. Approachable For All Levels Of Fitness

One of the best aspects of stationary bikes is that almost anyone can use them, regardless of where they are in their fitness journey. Most people can change the settings and intensity on an exercise bike to customize the workload on a stationary bike, regardless of age, fitness level, body type, or amount of muscle. As an illustration, a novice who is struggling with knee pain and wants to shed some pounds might begin by increasing their endurance on a recumbent bike. To improve overall fitness during the off-season, a fit triathlete can use an exercise bike for high-intensity training.

9. Great For Hiit Training

Exercise bikes are ideal for HIIT training because you can easily ramp up and down the intensity of your effort by changing the resistance and pedal speed (rotations per minute). It’s a very adaptable piece of equipment because you can use the same exercise bike for quick warm-ups and cool-downs.

10. Safe

Biking outside carries inherent risk. The possibility of suffering a serious injury or even passing away increases when riding in traffic and when there is a chance of falling. The same fitness benefits of outdoor cycling can be achieved on exercise bikes much more safely. Riding a stationary bike can be a wiser alternative to taking a risky outdoor bike ride, particularly for seniors, people with poor balance, or those who live in cities or other high-traffic areas.

Conclusion

How much time should be spent using a stationary bike to burn calories?

The short answer is that you can burn one pound of fat by riding your stationary bike at a moderate pace for seven hours. Alternatively, you could ride for five hours at a brisk pace to lose the same amount of weight.

However, this is not a very effective weight loss strategy on its own, in my opinion.

Diet is the most crucial part of a weight loss plan if someone is serious about losing weight. Eating healthfully and judiciously.

To make sure we stay as healthy as possible, our weight loss strategy should incorporate strength training, keep in mind intensity and duration and most importantly we absolutely cannot skip over or ignore – diet.

In my situation, I made the error of failing to recognize that, when it comes to weight loss, eating healthfully comes first.