Exercise Bike Workouts – Making the Time Spent Exercising Fun

Pedaling along to exercise bike workouts is a great way to pass the time during a morning session. Since you don’t want to be stuck in a boring routine and lose your motivation, here are a few tips to keep you in the saddle and doing more.

Wasting Time or Getting Down to Business?

Like most owners, you likely have your stationary bike set up in front of a TV or within earshot of a radio. It provides distraction and makes the hour seem short, but did you really get a good workout?

Do you catch yourself pedaling slowly while watching your favorite show, and not ramping up the RPMs? Stationary bike riding is not a weight-bearing exercise machine like the treadmill is, so it can be easy to take the half hour session too lightly and not push yourself.

Variety is the Spice of Programmed Workouts

One solution is to follow a good exercise bike workout program, one that will challenge you and work your heart and lungs. If you are not using the pre-set programs on your display console, you should be.

If possible, get a quality bike that offers a variety of programs. Pre-set time and distance workouts automatically change the resistance setting on the bike to simulate flat or hilly terrain. There are also exercise bike workout routines that are known as Heart Rate Control programs which monitor your workout and then adjust the resistance easier or harder to keep you in a specific heart rate target zone that will be 60% to 85% higher than your resting heart rate. Now, that’s a workout!

Other exercise bike workouts include Fat-Burning programs that tell you when to pick up the tempo, and there are the exciting Random programs that constantly change up the session with different combinations. You can also find bikes that have High Intensity Interval programs for training for speed, strength, and endurance.

Virtual Touring Workouts

Even better are exercise bikes that come equipped with an LCD screen on the console that play the latest technology in interactive programming. Pedal along as you virtually tour country roads, city streets, desert landscapes, and hilly terrain right on the LCD screen.

You can find yourself in the middle of a pack of racers on the Tour de France or try even non-bike adventures, enjoying the thrills of virtual game simulations with an interactive game bike.

If you don’t have a stationary bike with such a screen, you can buy scenery DVDs of great foreign locations that will make training fun. These DVDs, played on a TV screen, are great for recumbent bike rides and last for an hour or so. They keep you in the saddle and pedaling as you tour Scotland, Italy, Hawaii, Egypt – anywhere you want to go.

Spend More Time on the Bike

Again, casually pedaling can be too passive for a good cardio workout, but if you just use the bike ride DVDs for motivation to get on the bike regularly, then that’s fine too.

For best results, plan to do exercise bike workouts at least 3 days a week or more for 30 minutes each time, with a warm-up and cool-down period included. Use DVDs and the bike’s own programming to make the time spent exercising fun.

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