The calories you burn on a bike trainer depend on the difficulty of your workout, how long you spend on the trainer, your weight and your relative muscle mass.
By Heart Rate
A 40-year-old, 180 lb. man burns about 914 calories per hour riding at an average heart rate of 150 beats per minute. A 150 lb. woman the same age burns about 588 calories per hour. To calculate your specific calorie expenditure using average heart rate, use the following formulas:
Men: Calories per minute = (-55.0969 + 0.6309 x HR + 0.1988 x weight in kg + 0.2017 x age) ÷ 4.184
Women: C/min = (-20.4022 + 0.4472 x HR - 0.1263 x weight + 0.074 x age) ÷ 4.184
Comparison
You can burn more total calories on a trainer than you can outside because there are no downhills, no traffic signals and no cars, so you're pedaling the whole time.
Intensity
To increase your ride’s intensity and calorie expenditure, you can increase the resistance on your trainer or your pedaling cadence. While a higher resistance may feel “harder,” a higher cadence taxes your cardiovascular system and raises your heart rate more, which is actually a more time-efficient way to burn calories.
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