An exercise bike is an excellent way to build cardiovascular fitness and burn calories in the privacy of your own home or in a more social fitness-center setting. Because your feet do not leave the ground during exercise bike training, you get a non-impact workout with little or no stress on joints and bones. Getting started on an exercise bike has almost no learning curve and you'll start producing results immediately.
Warm Up
While a higher heart rate produces a higher calorie burn, you'll want to start slowly each time you work out on an exercise bike. Pedal slowly using an easy resistance setting, gradually raising your heart rate during a three to four minute warm up period. This will help your heart rate, blood circulation, lungs and muscles warm up together and coordinate their efforts.
Keep it Steady
If you are new to exercise, you probably don't have the cardiovascular stamina for high-intensity sprint training, or even prolonged aerobic exercise. Work at an intensity level that has you breathing harder than normal and breaking a light sweat, but at a pace you can maintain for 30 minutes or more. The American Heart Association recommends that you exercise at this level five times per week for improving and maintaining heart health. If you need to take a break every few minutes, feel free to do so. You are building stamina during your first week or so on the bike and you'll be able to work out longer as you continue to use the bike. To add variety, stand on the pedals if you can maintain your balance. Of course, if you use a recumbent stationary bike, you won't be able to do this.
Use a Heart Rate Monitor
Heart rate monitors are an inexpensive way to keep track of your workouts. You track the amount of calories burned, as well your average heart rate, high and low heart rates and time in your target heart rate. A target heart rate for a beginner would be between 50 and 65 percent of your maximum heart rate, or MHR. You can roughly calculate MHR by subtracting your age from 220. Take that number and multiply by .50 and .65 to get your target heart rate range for moderately intense exercise. Staying in your target heart rate range will prevent you from becoming fatigued too soon.
Add an Aerobic Workout
One of your goals on an exercise bike should be to create aerobic workouts that provide high levels of cardiovascular benefit and calorie burning. To create an aerobic workout, you must exercise at 70 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate for 15 minutes or more. The AHA recommends that if you exercise at this level, you do so for 20 minutes per workout, three times per week.
Cool Down
It's a good idea to gradually wind down your workout, rather than having your heart go from many beats per minute to a sudden drop because you are doing no activity. Decrease the pace of your pedaling over the course of three to four minutes.
Stretch
If you've ever been stiff or sore a day after you've hike, biked, played tennis or participated in other physical activity, you've experienced Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness. You can alleviate DOMS with a good stretch after you exercise. Not only will you feel better later, you'll improve your muscle flexibility.
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