Exercising on a road bicycle or exercise bike creates non-impact workouts for burning fat and calories. Depending on how often, how long and at what intensity you use them, bikes can help you lose weight and keep it off. While biking does not build significant muscle mass, it can raise your heart rate to levels which promote weight loss. Outdoor riding, an indoor cycling class or home exercise bike workouts can help you meet your weight-loss goals.
Impact
Exercise can be non-, low- or high-impact, depending on how much of your weight lands on your feet and stresses your joints. Running and aerobics are examples of high-impact exercises because the feet leave the ground and then land on it heavily. Walking and step aerobics are low-impact. Cycling is a non-impact workout, since your feet remain against the pedals for the duration of your routine. Standing on the pedals adds more weight to your workout and may create some stress on your knees or hips.
Heart Rate
The higher you raise your heart rate, the more calories you burn. Cycling allows you to exercise at a moderate intensity, raising your heart rate as you improve your cardiovascular stamina. Starting slow, with your heart beating between 50 and 70 percent of your maximum heart rate, helps you build stamina while you burn calories. Raising your heart rate and keeping it between 70 to 80 percent of your maximum for 15 minutes or longer creates an aerobic workout, which is the most efficient way to burn the most calories. Interval, or sprint training, raises your heart rate to between 80 to 90 percent of your maximum heart rate. You will burn more calories per minute at this rate, but fatigue much sooner.
Calories
Exercising between 50 to 70 percent of your heart rate burns more calories from fat as a percentage of the calories you burn. Aerobic exercise burns fewer fat calories percentage-wise, but more calories per minute, leading to a greater total calorie and fat-calorie burn, according to ISSA -certified fitness therapist Monica Neave. Sprint training burns the most calories, but they are primarily from glycogen, or how your body stores carbohydrates. Aerobic exercise provides the best type of exercise for weight loss, since it burns calories at a heart rate you can sustain for a long period of time. According to MayoClinic.com, a 160-lb. person burns almost 300 calories per hour at 10 mph, providing a similar calorie burn to an hour of water aerobics and slightly more than an hour of treadmill use at a very brisk pace of 3.5 miles per hour.
Muscles
A pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat, so building muscle can help you lose weight. Exercising on a bike helps build lower body muscles, especially the larger quadriceps muscles on your upper leg. Standing on your pedals, using a higher gear setting or riding uphill creates more resistance and helps build muscle. Using your muscles for long periods of time also improves your muscular endurance, which is your ability to perform work over time.
Cross Training
Cross training helps you avoid plateaus in your exercise and weight-loss efforts. Cycling is a convenient way to add aerobic exercise to other weight-loss workouts you may be doing. You can vary your cycling workouts by using a road bike, an exercise bike with dumbbells in your hands, standing while pedaling, changing gears or sprint training.
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