Biking not providing enough exercise

heybales

besenok wrote: »

Thank you everyone for the great input!
So, to clarify -
1. I am trying to bike outside, on a normal cheep-o mom bike (some Marin model). It does have 21 gears.
2. I actually never enjoyed biking, but have been using it to commute around town for years.
3. I tried to bike up a smallish hill repeatedly - and yes, I feel like I am pushing the pedals as hard as I can (I do get mild muscle soreness afterwards) , but moving up at a super low speed (which makes sense), but my heart rate is just not going over 120 at most. I understand that if I did that for say 3 hour instead of 45 minutes, then it would do something perhaps, but I just don't have the 3 hours to spare
4. I know that weight gain is mostly diet. I have already decreased my caloric intake over the past 2 weeks by about 30%. Not easy to do as I am constantly cooking and baking for my family...

Thank you!
I think I might just really not be doing it effectively and having no extra time to spare - I would generally go for a 30-45 min run for my cardio, but not enough time for a decent work out on a bike. Argh. Maybe my solution should be to cut down the calories to bare minimum to keep from gaining more weight, and wait until either my ankle heals enough to start running again, or gyms open up again. Whoever comes first!

Pushing as hard as you can.
I'm picturing a very slow leg moving grind. You may discover your ankle, or knees, won't enjoy that either.
Lighten the push load, and spin faster, to hit the same speed, and get a better aerobic benefit out of it. Match your running turnover for instance, which may give you 80-90 cadence (160-180 turnover). You will feel like you aren't pushing as hard - but using more muscles for the efforts helps.

I'm wondering if the Fitbit is accurately reading HR. Maybe the HR is much higher than running and you discovered the inaccuracy line many find - above which it just won't read right.
When you get to the top of the hill next time - immediately stop and count neck pulse for 10 sec, should be 20 if really hitting that 120, if it's more then device is wrong.

You can make the biking as "effective" as the run (if that means elevated HR for same period of time) - many times it is harder to do though by the interval nature of up and down, stop and start, ect.
Which actually means the same avg HR may be met by actually going through a much larger range of HR's then your running would allow.

mmapags

Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »

I have a stationary bike that says I burn 20 calories in a half hour. That's obviously wrong so I ignore it. Ignore your fitbit. I bike 4km.

Why ignore a useful tool to obtain an estimate? The comparison between your stationary bike and a fitbit makes 0 sense.

NorthCascades

besenok wrote: »

Thank you everyone for the great input!
So, to clarify -
1. I am trying to bike outside, on a normal cheep-o mom bike (some Marin model). It does have 21 gears.
2. I actually never enjoyed biking, but have been using it to commute around town for years.
3. I tried to bike up a smallish hill repeatedly - and yes, I feel like I am pushing the pedals as hard as I can (I do get mild muscle soreness afterwards) , but moving up at a super low speed (which makes sense), but my heart rate is just not going over 120 at most. I understand that if I did that for say 3 hour instead of 45 minutes, then it would do something perhaps, but I just don't have the 3 hours to spare
4. I know that weight gain is mostly diet. I have already decreased my caloric intake over the past 2 weeks by about 30%. Not easy to do as I am constantly cooking and baking for my family...

Thank you!
I think I might just really not be doing it effectively and having no extra time to spare - I would generally go for a 30-45 min run for my cardio, but not enough time for a decent work out on a bike. Argh. Maybe my solution should be to cut down the calories to bare minimum to keep from gaining more weight, and wait until either my ankle heals enough to start running again, or gyms open up again. Whoever comes first!

I limp home from a 20 minute MMP test on a bike, because it wrecks me.

What gears (front and back) is the chain on when you do your hills? Should be the small one in the front and the big one in the back.

jjpptt2

Sounds to me like you need to take a step back from your fitbit for a while... you're clearly doing something, clearly doing it at the highest effort you can, yet some electronic device is telling you it's not good enough, so now you're questioning yourself. That makes zero sense.

sijomial

So ride up a bigger/longer hill. (But use the gears properly for the sake of your ankle.)

Ride faster up the hill - just plain ride faster!

Unless your HR is being misread (you didn't confirm if you have tested your pulse...)
You also didn't confirm if you are keeping your cadence up (proper use of gears)

As people can hit their true max HR in well under 15 minutes on a bike the problem isn't with your choice of cardio equipment but how you are using it.

NorthCascades

Can you rent a fancy road bike for a day? The knowledge you have will be with the modest price.

There's is a placebo effect with racing equipment where people feel like they're on really fast gear, so they can go really fast, and that belief causes them to push harder.

besenok

Its not that I rely on my Fitbit more then on my experience of biking - its just that it confirms that I am not getting anywhere near to the same level of exercise as I used to, and I'm just too able to get up there

And yes, I do have my bike on lowest gear This I figured out a few years ago /


Can't rent anythign right now as we are in SIP which who know when it will end.

NorthCascades

You're eating enough carbs right? Most of your calorie from carbs?

When I've eaten too much fat and not enough carb, I can't get my HR over my lactate threshold HR. I knew I was capable of 30 more bpm, but I couldn't make it happen because of how I'd been eating. I didn't realize what was going on at first, I just thought I couldn't exercise at my normal intensity.

Machka9

besenok wrote: »

3. I tried to bike up a smallish hill repeatedly - and yes, I feel like I am pushing the pedals as hard as I can (I do get mild muscle soreness afterwards) , but moving up at a super low speed (which makes sense), but my heart rate is just not going over 120 at most. I understand that if I did that for say 3 hour instead of 45 minutes, then it would do something perhaps, but I just don't have the 3 hours to spare

What heart rate monitor are you using?

When you ride on flat ground, with a cadence of say 80 rpm, and a speed at least 20 km/h, what's your heart rate?

Now trying to keep roughly the same cadence (although it might slow a bit), ride up a hill. Now what's your heart rate?

Another option is to install Strava on your phone, sync your HRM with Strava and do you ride. Then see what it tells you.

icemom011

jjpptt2 wrote: »

ritzvin wrote: »

[1] Step trackers aren't going to recognize cycling. (don't try to log it using a step counter).

That's a good point. If your FitBit uses motion/movement to detect activity, then it will never work well with cycling as your hands/arms are relatively still.

Hmm, mine does. I have Charge2, it religiously logs it as "outdoor bike", but gives me a little less calories than Garmin. Sometimes they are close, but only my road bike has power meter, so i kind of trust those numbers, and a commuter/ hybrid doesn't, so Fitbit provides a good info. You can choose your top activities in Fitbit and allow it to automatically recognize and track those.

vivo1972

Load your bike with panniers and mtb tyres if you can. You will sweat and get strong legs