Biking in Gym

[indysteel]

KSH, like you, my legs definitely look better from cycling so I don't disagaree with you. I have to wonder, though, if some of the increased definition is from weight/fat loss rather than muscle growth. Either way, I'll take it. Thanks to cycling, I've lost and kept off about 7 pounds, and my thighs and hips are noticeably thinner. I doubt that they'll ever look really "cut" though; that's just the way I'm built. However, if I just look at people doing sit ups, my abs get toned. There's no accounting for genetics.

One book that I like as an intro to both indoor and outdoor cycling is Bike for Life by Roy M. Wallack and Bill Katovsky. It has a lot of useful information about training for fitness (rather than for competition), suggestions for specific exercises to supplement cycling like resistance training and yoga, nutrition, indoor cycling, cycling skills and the like. It's a good all-around, introductory book.

[jllmom]

Thanks for the book rec! I'll have to check that one out!

[aicabsolut]

Btw I'm biking like 13.5 miles in 1 hour at around 90 RPM, is that a beginner amount of miles? What is a long bike ride indoors?

Is that on a regular stationary bike? (Pretty hard to be as efficient on those as on a spinner).. If so, I'd say that's doing a pretty good job. Not too beginnerish at all. Before I started spinning, I rode one of those after taking a few weeks off (just walking) b/c of an injury. I felt like I was working so hard, but my HR was only in the low 140s if that, and I was at about 11mph. I'd consider myself cardiovascularly pretty fit but not at all in biking shape at that point.

A "long" ride on a spinner depends on what kind of workout you're doing. It seems to take me forever to warmup, so the first 30-45 min is torture. But after that, I can spend 2 hrs easy. Higher intensity intervals tire me out faster than endurance or steady state taining of course. An hour isn't a long time on an indoor bike but it's sufficient for general fitness I think, especially if you warm up faster than me.

[jllmom]

Yeah it's a regular bike. The gym I'm at only has one true spinner available and 3 other types of bikes: Lifecycle, another set up like a Lifecycle and another more like a spinner/true bike w/petal under you not in front.

But you can take a spinning class, and that's my goal this January.