Exercise and Fitness
Tips To Use Recumbent Exercise Bike to Lose Weight
by Robert C Jones
These days Recumbent Bikes are gaining popularity as one of the most comfortable ways to lose considerable amount of weight within short period of time safely in comparison to traditional upright exercise bikes. These bikes typically guarantee the reduction of injury risk to a great extent along with providing comfort to the user. This bike has a backrest and a pair of pedals in front of the user to use it for recumbent exercise bike workout. It is better than conventional workout bikes because you can get effective results even by putting very less stress of your lower spine as well as less strain on your wrists, neck and arms. The bucket seat attached to its backrest makes its ride more comfortable for you, even if you are new to it.
Some people are of the view that recumbent bikes cannot help in effective and intense workouts as you have to sit in semi-reclined and comfortable position. But if you use it properly you can certainly get effective result of your recumbent exercise bike workout. Some tips are provided in this write-up to make your workout session successful, even if you are a beginner.
Seat adjustment: You must adjust the seat of your recumbent bike before starting to spin its cranks. You can start spinning its cranks by placing your feet on its pedals after adjusting its seat once. While adjusting the seat your focus should be on the extension of your knees as they should be a bit bent when your leg is on the back of the crank. You can slide your seat forward or backward to adjust it in right position.
Proper form: One more thing that is very important while using recumbent bikes for workout exercises is your proper form. Though you can place your hands on the handles in front of your but you should not bend forward for do it. If you have to bend forward then you should adjust your seat so that you can sit in a straight posture with your back against the backrest and maintain it throughout the workout session. It will also help you in pushing the pedals hard. You should make similar adjustments if you want to hold side handles otherwise your muscles can get imbalanced if your lean forward while exercising on the bike.
Light warm-up exercise: After adjusting the seat of your recumbent bike you should spend few minutes on it for light warm-up. You can increase this duration and pace gradually to loosen your tissues and muscles and increase the temperature of your core body.
Dynamic stretches: You activate multiple joints and muscles in your body when you start pedaling on your recumbent bike. You should continue warm-up paddling unless your muscles and connecting tissues are loosened up adequately otherwise they can get injured. To ensure the safety of your muscles and tissues you should do dynamic stretches in motion for few minutes after warm-up paddling. Some of the dynamic stretches you can do may include walking lunges, knee highs, touching alternate toes, side bends, ankle bounces, trunk rotation and leg swings etc. You should focus on gradually and smoothly increasing the range of motion on every repetition while performing dynamic stretches.
Duration of exercise: You should do recumbent exercise bike workout frequently and for enough time period to get the best results. According to the experts one should do exercises for cardiac health for 30 minutes and for weight loss 60-90 minutes for at least five days in a week. You should stick at least to lower level of prescribed time period to lose your weight and get health benefits effectively.
Adjusting resistance: You can increase your speed on recumbent bike by pedalling it faster. As you get familiar with the bike you should do these exercises regularly. You can also increase the resistance by making its pedals harder to push for improving its effectiveness. This increased resistance will strengthen your leg muscles. So, it should be continued to get the desired results faster.
Interval training: You can do intense exercises and lighter exercises alternatively in interval training program. It will help you in increasing the calorie loss of your body along with making your workout session interesting for you. You can plan your interval workout either by decreasing and increasing the resistance or by increasing and decreasing the speed or both in combination to increase the effectiveness of your workout.
Time intervals: You should give time interval between two sets of exercises. This interval can vary in each set but it is must as it will give time to your muscles to recover after every intensive exercise. As a beginner you should follow 2:1 ratios i.e. give your muscles double time to recover than the time you have given to intensive workout. For instance, you should recover for one minute if you do intensive activity for 30 seconds. You can increase your workout time by keeping the recovery time same as you get used to intense exercises and proceed to advanced levels.
Finish the workout session: When you are going to complete your workout session after warm-up exercises and increasing speed and resistance, you should lower the speed and resistance to give at least 30 seconds to your muscles for recovery. You should finish your recumbent exercise bike workout session with cool down exercises for 5 minutes by pedalling at slower speeds. In order to make your workouts more interesting you can opt for different interval times.
Bottom Line
Thus, the interval training in recumbent exercise bike workout can help you in increasing the fat burning capabilities of your body. In order to get the desired results you will have to do these exercises regularly. You can increase the intensity of the exercises in a gradual and safe manner to get the results faster and more effective. Though you can burn more fat in your body through interval workouts on recumbent bike but you cannot get desired results if you do not combine your workouts with nutritional diet plans. Your healthy diet plan and intensive workouts on recumbent bike can collectively help you in losing your body fat as early as possible, depending upon your dedication for it. To get the most suitable recumbent bike, you should read more details about recumbent exercise bike reviews.
About the Author
Robert C Jones is a CEO. One of the sites is https://www.recumbentexercisebike.co which contains reviews of sports equipment. To maintain good health, he always exercises using his recumbent exercise bike at his home.