If your objective is to lose weight, and lose it fast, then you cant beat the exercise bike to provide you with the variety of workouts you need to burn off the fat.
Why use the exercise bike for weight loss?
There are two main reasons. The beauty of working out on the stationary bike is that you can control your exercise intensity and control your heart rate to optimize fat burning. When you train outdoors, there are many distractions, such as traffic lights, cars and people that take your mind off, or prevent you from training at a given level of intensity to maximize fat burning. The second reason is that if the weather is bad outside, it is normally a great reason not to exercise. You don't need any excuses not to train. I have learned that one of the most important components of a weight loss exercise program is consistency.
What are the best exercise bike workouts?
This is where it gets interesting. The old school believe low intensity cardio exercise is the best. For many years, people thought that if you get your heart rate between 60% to 70% of your maximum heart rate, you will maximize fat burning and lose weight faster .
A number of studies have now found that interval training will not only accelerate weight loss, but you don't have to train for as long. Interval training involves spurts of high intensity exercise, followed by low intensity recovery periods. The percentage of fat burned during exercise falls (compared to other sources of fuel), but the total amount of fat burned increases. Fat is also burned after the interval training stops, as the body recovers from the intense effort. That is the key to interval training.
Examples of Exercise Bike Interval Workouts.
A recent study by the University of NSW has proven that interval training is more effective than low intensity cardio exercise. This is the workout they used in their study (the results will impress you):
Warm up for 5 to 10 minutes;
Sprint for 8 seconds;
Recover for 12 seconds;
Repeat the above two steps for 20 minutes;
Warm down for 5 minutes.
That is it. Depending on your fitness, you may want to cut the time doing intervals down a bit, and gradually build up to 20 minutes. The Uni study, on 45 women, showed they burned fat 6 times faster than the second group of women who did 40 minutes of low intensity cardio exercise. So you can train for half the time and lose 6 times the fat!
Check out my weight loss website for more fat blasting exercise bike workouts weight loss, and to learn about your optimal fat burning heart rate. I also review the best exercise program lose weight. Pick up the free 4 week workout program while you are there.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Garrett