Cycling indoors doesn’t give you as intense a workout
You probably usually cycle outdoors, but now that the days are shorter and the weather is not so good you are taking cycling classes and riding the bike indoors, can you still get a good workout that is comparable to normal outdoor cycling?
Answer: Staying active in the winter is vital to your health and essential if you want to maintain your fitness level.
No matter what your outdoor sport is, it is important to find an indoor alternative for when the weather is bad or the darkness gives you safety concerns.
Riding an indoor cycle is much better than not continuing your riding at all.
Much of your fitness gains will depend on where you are beginning.
Are you a beginner or advanced cyclist?
If you have spent many springs, summers and falls cycling and are conditioned to long runs, you will definitely want to keep up your activity during the winter so that you are not far behind where you left off in the coming season.
However, riding indoors and outdoors are very different things.
When you ride outdoors, you have many factors that influence and challenge your body.
The varying terrain and elevations cause your body to use everything it has to stay on the bike.
Your core (abs, back, glutes, and hips) are challenged to balance your body when you are moving in and out of traffic, dodging that pot hole or moving up a long graded hill.
When you are indoors your body is not challenged to such a great degree.
Sure you can increase the resistance to mimic the intensity found when hill climbing, but it is often not as intense as that seen outdoors.
The caloric expenditure is different when comparing indoor and outdoor riding.
When you ride outdoors on the road you can burn up to 720 calories per hour if you weigh at least 150 pounds and are riding 12 to 14 mph.
Most spinning classes include about 40 minutes of all-out cycling and they can burn close to 500 calories.
So the caloric burn is fairly close.
The intensity at which you ride and the terrain on which you ride on is very important in determining caloric expenditure.
Cycling on a recumbent bicycle at a more leisurely pace will burn somewhere around 400 to 500 calories in an hour. Again, the amount is highly influenced by the intensity at which you ride.
The same goes for running and cross-country skiing when comparing them to their indoor comparisons, the treadmill and a cross country machine.
Any time you can exercise your body outdoors, you are benefiting from many more elements, including varying terrain, elevation and your body can benefit from fresh air and nature.
Tags: bike indoors, blog, body, Cycling indoors, cycling outdoors, cyclist