Stationary bike - more resistance or more time/speed for more calorie burn? Accurate calories?
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brisadeldesierto
Posts: 41 Member
I have a stationary bike that outputs calories burned, pulse, speed, time & distance covered, but it does not take into account age/weight/sex. I also noticed that this calculation is done entirely by how many times have been pedaled, no matter the speed, the pulsations, or the resistance (resistance is mechanical and there seems to be no connection between the resistance & the computer that outputs the data).
When I select resistance on 1 (no resistance), it's really smooth and way easier than outdoor cycling. I would say outdoor urban cycling compares to me with resistance ~5. With this resistance of course it's harder for me to go as fast and for the same amount of time. So my question is, what would burn more calories? Going faster & longer but at lower resistance, or going slower & less time but at high resistance?
Also, the bike says that after 60 mins of going at ~20 mph (35 km/h) I burned ~395 kcal, which seems like a little too much? This is simmilar to what MFP entry for "Stationary bike, light effort" says. What is your take on this?
My stats: 30 F, 5'6'', 160 lbs.
I know similar questions have been asked already, but there seems to be a lot of information out there and since I've found many different opinions on this matter I'm a little at a loss. But feel free to post any link you might think it's usefull, and thanks in advance for your time/help!
When I select resistance on 1 (no resistance), it's really smooth and way easier than outdoor cycling. I would say outdoor urban cycling compares to me with resistance ~5. With this resistance of course it's harder for me to go as fast and for the same amount of time. So my question is, what would burn more calories? Going faster & longer but at lower resistance, or going slower & less time but at high resistance?
Also, the bike says that after 60 mins of going at ~20 mph (35 km/h) I burned ~395 kcal, which seems like a little too much? This is simmilar to what MFP entry for "Stationary bike, light effort" says. What is your take on this?
My stats: 30 F, 5'6'', 160 lbs.
I know similar questions have been asked already, but there seems to be a lot of information out there and since I've found many different opinions on this matter I'm a little at a loss. But feel free to post any link you might think it's usefull, and thanks in advance for your time/help!
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Replies
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I use a garmin to track my calories burned, i feel it is more accurate since it monitors heartbeat and weight.
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The calorie counts on these things are not very accurate at the best of times. So personally I would just mix it up and do what feels right on the day. Sometimes longer and easier sometimes harder and shorter. You know when you have pushed yourself on either setting,
Then use the MFP exercise tab to enter your exercise. Eat back around 50% of those calories and you should be ok. If you are losing weight at the appropriate rate for your goal then you are doing it right regardless of what the bike says.
Or you could get a fitness tracker that measures HR and see how that compares as @azzeazsaleh5429 has. I have a Fitbit charge 3 which seems fairly accurate.2 -
brisadeldesierto wrote: »I have a stationary bike that outputs calories burned, pulse, speed, time & distance covered, but it does not take into account age/weight/sex. I also noticed that this calculation is done entirely by how many times have been pedaled, no matter the speed, the pulsations, or the resistance (resistance is mechanical and there seems to be no connection between the resistance & the computer that outputs the data).
When I select resistance on 1 (no resistance), it's really smooth and way easier than outdoor cycling. I would say outdoor urban cycling compares to me with resistance ~5. With this resistance of course it's harder for me to go as fast and for the same amount of time. So my question is, what would burn more calories? Going faster & longer but at lower resistance, or going slower & less time but at high resistance?
Also, the bike says that after 60 mins of going at ~20 mph (35 km/h) I burned ~395 kcal, which seems like a little too much? This is simmilar to what MFP entry for "Stationary bike, light effort" says. What is your take on this?
My stats: 30 F, 5'6'', 160 lbs.
I know similar questions have been asked already, but there seems to be a lot of information out there and since I've found many different opinions on this matter I'm a little at a loss. But feel free to post any link you might think it's usefull, and thanks in advance for your time/help!
In this case the best you can probably do is compare it to real life biking, and guesstimate from there. So if your comparison to outdoor urban cycling is a certain speed, you might be able to gauge from that and estimate higher on lower on the MFP database.
As for most calorie burn on a bike, probably the max resistance you can maintain at a cadence of 80-100 for whatever period of time you have available. Power is a function of both pedal strokes and resistance, so for some it might mean higher resistance at a slower cadence, etc... but not for most.1 -
If you want to be accurate, buy a pedal based power meter. Assuming your cranks have standard threading. It outputs Watts and kcal and is the most accurate way to measure5
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Does it give you a Watts reading for like avg or max?
If so it may have a motor involved in the resistance, in which case no body stats from you are needed to calculate a calorie burn and very accurate for just the calories used as energy to turn the pedals. (doesn't include your base or arm muscles used if leaning, ect - so underestimated).
The speed though is worthless as comparison to outdoor - no wind/road resistance.
20 mph outside would be well above light effort, and at your weight much more calorie burn unless going down a hill the whole time. Usually resistance setting doesn't change that reading - they do simple turns of the wheel mean this distance no matter how hard you are pushing.
As to resistance - whatever allows you to turn the pedals at good enough cadence to protect your knees (along with seat position) for however much time you want to give to it.
Harder resistance and doing 60 rpm could have you hurting so bad you can't do anything for several days - that's obviously not good.
Too easy and while spinning fast enough, may not be much of a workout to your body systems and not useful for your time.
In studies the reason why outdoor typically burns more - almost automatic interval nature of it when you include hills and stops/starts. Hence the reason why Spinning classes do what they do.
You can repeat that home - variety in resistance and cadence. Go hard, go easy, repeat.2 -
Personally I think longer time is almost always better.1
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If it's estimating calories purely from pedal rotations then that's completely pointless - might as well sacrifice a chicken! It's cadence (rpm) and resistance that adds up to power and therefore represents energy used.
Distance and speed tend to both be grossly exaggerated for stationary bikes compared for the same power levels outside (you aren't moving anywhere), when I'm cooling down, taking it easy and returning to a normal HR my stationary bike tells me I'm doing about 19mph. Totally unrealistic.
What more burns more calories is producing more power - normally measured in watts, doubt your bike displays that if you think the calorie burn rate varies only with cadence,
The biggest burn you can personally achieve is going as hard and steadily as you can for the entire duration you have available to you. My rate of maximal burn is obviously very different depending on that duration. For 20mins I can burn at an hourly rate of 821 net cals, for multi hour rides my hourly rate of burn is more like 600 net cals.
But quite frankly training like that (just for maximal calorie burns) constantly would be unpleasant, inefficient and deadly dull.
As Robert says above a cadence of between 80 - 100 rpm is normally recommended.3 -
Heartbeat isn't that great a guide. It would probably be better than the OP's bike though.azzeazsaleh5429 wrote: »I use a garmin to track my calories burned, i feel it is more accurate since it monitors heartbeat and weight.
Worth comparing and calibrating your HRM against a far better source such as a power meter equipped bike - then at least you would have an idea of how close it is for steady state rides.
Your weight is an irrelevance for net calorie estimates for stationary cycling - it's not a weight bearing exercise.3 -
As Robert says above a cadence of between 80 - 100 rpm is normally recommended.
So when you guys are talking rpm I’m confused. Is that each push of a pedal counting as one? Like left foot counts as one and right foot counts as one. Or a full circle of each pedal so that the left foot counts as one and you don’t count pushing down with the right foot and then count the second beat when your left foot pushes down again?0 -
As Robert says above a cadence of between 80 - 100 rpm is normally recommended.
So when you guys are talking rpm I’m confused. Is that each push of a pedal counting as one? Like left foot counts as one and right foot counts as one. Or a full circle of each pedal so that the left foot counts as one and you don’t count pushing down with the right foot and then count the second beat when your left foot pushes down again?
@LadySaton
Revolutions of the crank.2 -
Thanks for the clarification!As Robert says above a cadence of between 80 - 100 rpm is normally recommended.
So when you guys are talking rpm I’m confused. Is that each push of a pedal counting as one? Like left foot counts as one and right foot counts as one. Or a full circle of each pedal so that the left foot counts as one and you don’t count pushing down with the right foot and then count the second beat when your left foot pushes down again?
@LadySaton
Revolutions of the crank.1 -
scorpio516 wrote: »If you want to be accurate, buy a pedal based power meter. Assuming your cranks have standard threading. It outputs Watts and kcal and is the most accurate way to measure
I've only ever had pedal based power meters, they're just so versatile. The first one was $1,300 on sale and with coupons, now I think you can get a bilateral pedal system for around $500!1 -
Wow thanks everyone for your answers! There's some great info here!
@heybales My bike does not have a Watt reading sadly. And now that you say it, I understand how the distance and hence the speed is completly different from doing bike outside. And thanks for the advice on how to approach the exercise!
@sijomial Haha you made me laugh with the chicken thing. I think it's estimating purely on rotations: it's 1 kcal per 10 times pedaling no matter the speed or the resistance. I tried this several times, it doesn't change. My bike does not show up the rpms either. I see that you also said that using the HR in my case would be better than my bike's estimation, but can the HR also be a good measurement of how "fast" should I go? (since I don't have the rpms and since the speed is useless). In this case, how much would be a good HR to try to mantain during exercise? And would you agree that in this case it would be okay to eat 50% of the calories back?0 -
brisadeldesierto wrote: »Wow thanks everyone for your answers! There's some great info here!
@sijomial Haha you made me laugh with the chicken thing. I think it's estimating purely on rotations: it's 1 kcal per 10 times pedaling no matter the speed or the resistance. I tried this several times, it doesn't change. My bike does not show up the rpms either. I see that you also said that using the HR in my case would be better than my bike's estimation, but can the HR also be a good measurement of how "fast" should I go? (since I don't have the rpms and since the speed is useless). In this case, how much would be a good HR to try to mantain during exercise? And would you agree that in this case it would be okay to eat 50% of the calories back?
HR is a good but personal measure of your exertion but not always of calories, they are of course primarily designed as training aids. For example when indoor cycling unless you have a good cooling fan your HR can be elevated by getting hotter - that increase isn't really indicative of a proportional rise in calories.
It would though translate different combinations of cadence and resistance to a common metric for comparative effort.
How important accuracy is to you I can't really judge (how many hours a week do you ride?). If only a couple of hours a week a bit of inaccuracy is going to be lost in the general estimating of food, activity and exercise. In that case probably not worth investing any money in a solution. Exercise accuracy is a very minor player for most people in your weekly calorie balance compared to food logging accuracy.
How much power you are producing is incredibly varied and mostly related to your fitness level and effort of a particular ride. 100w for a hour (for a female) would I suspect be a pretty reasonable/conservative "finger in the air" for a moderate effort session if you are reasonably fit. That's 360 net calories.
The common "cut by 50%" is an mathematical abomination!
Randomly halving a bad estimate doesn't improve accuracy, it just reduces the size of a bad estimate.
Another option is to try and calibrate yourself to get a guideline for approximate effort and calories. Using a better quality bike in a gym would be great of course but running or a Concept2 rower are all pretty easy to get a decent estimate from.
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I have both a C2 rower and a Schwinn AD Pro (better quality bike). Both have Watts measurements. The C2 Rower is famous for it's accuracy. I find, overall, the Schwinn overestimates Watts (now this is just based on my feel having used both of them for a lot of time) by around 15% to 20%. I wonder how accurate the Watts are on other bikes as well.1
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HR is a good but personal measure of your exertion but not always of calories, they are of course primarily designed as training aids. For example when indoor cycling unless you have a good cooling fan your HR can be elevated by getting hotter - that increase isn't really indicative of a proportional rise in calories.
It would though translate different combinations of cadence and resistance to a common metric for comparative effort.
How important accuracy is to you I can't really judge (how many hours a week do you ride?). If only a couple of hours a week a bit of inaccuracy is going to be lost in the general estimating of food, activity and exercise. In that case probably not worth investing any money in a solution. Exercise accuracy is a very minor player for most people in your weekly calorie balance compared to food logging accuracy.
How much power you are producing is incredibly varied and mostly related to your fitness level and effort of a particular ride. 100w for a hour (for a female) would I suspect be a pretty reasonable/conservative "finger in the air" for a moderate effort session if you are reasonably fit. That's 360 net calories.
The common "cut by 50%" is an mathematical abomination! Randomly halving a bad estimate doesn't improve accuracy, it just reduces the size of a bad estimate.
Another option is to try and calibrate yourself to get a guideline for approximate effort and calories. Using a better quality bike in a gym would be great of course but running or a Concept2 rower are all pretty easy to get a decent estimate from.
Such a detailed answer! I really appreciate it!
Up until now I was doing between 30 mins to 1 hour 6 times a week of the stationary bike, and I would definitely not call me a fit person. Some days I would go longer & faster but at low resistance, and some days slower and shorter but at medium resistance. When I go "fast" (for me), I keep my HR around 110-120 bpm, because I noticed this is the fastest I can go steady without getting out of breath. My rest pulse is ~65 in the morning. I do have a fan next to me! I sometimes turn the AC on too (summer).
I used to not log the biking because most days that would be the only exercise I did, since some days I would not even walk 3 k steps. However, I now cut off my calorie intake even further (1400 to 1300) and added a small weight training routine (I would say about 15 mins) and another 15 mins of aerobics focusing on different muscles 6 times a week. And I somehow figured it would be easier to log the biking than to log the rest of the exercises/steps (the days that I walk more). But seeing how inaccurate that is, I might not log anything at all!
When you say calibrate myself, do you mean going to a gym and using a bike that measures for instance the watts, and then try to figure out how much effort I was doing to produce that amount of watts, then try to replicate it at home? If so, what kind of bike should I be looking for in a gym, besides that it measures the watts produced?
Thanks a lot again!
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MikePfirrman wrote: »I have both a C2 rower and a Schwinn AD Pro (better quality bike). Both have Watts measurements. The C2 Rower is famous for it's accuracy. I find, overall, the Schwinn overestimates Watts (now this is just based on my feel having used both of them for a lot of time) by around 15% to 20%. I wonder how accurate the Watts are on other bikes as well.
I can't say anything about gym bikes, I only ride outdoors. To measure watts on an outdoor bike you have to buy, install, use a device called a power meter. Each one has a published accuracy spec. My Vectors are on the sloppy side at +/- 2%. I think most of the error comes from using an accelerometer to measure cadence.0 -
brisadeldesierto wrote: »Wow thanks everyone for your answers! There's some great info here!
@heybales My bike does not have a Watt reading sadly. And now that you say it, I understand how the distance and hence the speed is completly different from doing bike outside. And thanks for the advice on how to approach the exercise!
@sijomial Haha you made me laugh with the chicken thing. I think it's estimating purely on rotations: it's 1 kcal per 10 times pedaling no matter the speed or the resistance. I tried this several times, it doesn't change. My bike does not show up the rpms either. I see that you also said that using the HR in my case would be better than my bike's estimation, but can the HR also be a good measurement of how "fast" should I go? (since I don't have the rpms and since the speed is useless). In this case, how much would be a good HR to try to mantain during exercise? And would you agree that in this case it would be okay to eat 50% of the calories back?
Eat 100% of them. Log everything you eat, log your weight regularly, give it a month, see how your actual weight loss compares to what the logs predict, and then adjust from there if you need to.1 -
Calibrate yourself would ideally use a higher end exercise bike that does measure in watts and then compare your typical rides. Average watts per hour X 3.6 gives you net calories.brisadeldesierto wrote: »HR is a good but personal measure of your exertion but not always of calories, they are of course primarily designed as training aids. For example when indoor cycling unless you have a good cooling fan your HR can be elevated by getting hotter - that increase isn't really indicative of a proportional rise in calories.
It would though translate different combinations of cadence and resistance to a common metric for comparative effort.
How important accuracy is to you I can't really judge (how many hours a week do you ride?). If only a couple of hours a week a bit of inaccuracy is going to be lost in the general estimating of food, activity and exercise. In that case probably not worth investing any money in a solution. Exercise accuracy is a very minor player for most people in your weekly calorie balance compared to food logging accuracy.
How much power you are producing is incredibly varied and mostly related to your fitness level and effort of a particular ride. 100w for a hour (for a female) would I suspect be a pretty reasonable/conservative "finger in the air" for a moderate effort session if you are reasonably fit. That's 360 net calories.
The common "cut by 50%" is an mathematical abomination! Randomly halving a bad estimate doesn't improve accuracy, it just reduces the size of a bad estimate.
Another option is to try and calibrate yourself to get a guideline for approximate effort and calories. Using a better quality bike in a gym would be great of course but running or a Concept2 rower are all pretty easy to get a decent estimate from.
Such a detailed answer! I really appreciate it!
Up until now I was doing between 30 mins to 1 hour 6 times a week of the stationary bike, and I would definitely not call me a fit person. Some days I would go longer & faster but at low resistance, and some days slower and shorter but at medium resistance. When I go "fast" (for me), I keep my HR around 110-120 bpm, because I noticed this is the fastest I can go steady without getting out of breath. My rest pulse is ~65 in the morning. I do have a fan next to me! I sometimes turn the AC on too (summer).
I used to not log the biking because most days that would be the only exercise I did, since some days I would not even walk 3 k steps. However, I now cut off my calorie intake even further (1400 to 1300) and added a small weight training routine (I would say about 15 mins) and another 15 mins of aerobics focusing on different muscles 6 times a week. And I somehow figured it would be easier to log the biking than to log the rest of the exercises/steps (the days that I walk more). But seeing how inaccurate that is, I might not log anything at all!
When you say calibrate myself, do you mean going to a gym and using a bike that measures for instance the watts, and then try to figure out how much effort I was doing to produce that amount of watts, then try to replicate it at home? If so, what kind of bike should I be looking for in a gym, besides that it measures the watts produced?
Thanks a lot again!
I did the same to dial in a Polar FT60 HRM against a power meter as I was using a variety of bikes in 3 different gyms and the only constant was me and my HR.
As you say your HR is pretty low and your fitness level isn't that great (yet!) then maybe drop my finger in the air estimate back to 80watts. 80w average for an hour would be net 288cals.
Good effort to be progressing your exercise volume like that. :flowerforyou:
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MikePfirrman wrote: »I have both a C2 rower and a Schwinn AD Pro (better quality bike). Both have Watts measurements. The C2 Rower is famous for it's accuracy. I find, overall, the Schwinn overestimates Watts (now this is just based on my feel having used both of them for a lot of time) by around 15% to 20%. I wonder how accurate the Watts are on other bikes as well.
Like @NorthCascades - on non-stationary bikes it's, at most, +/- 2%. I think mine are +/- 1.5%. Most people, from what I can tell, buy power meters with more than a fairly accurate calculation of calories in mind (calories is probably lower down on the list).
For stationary bikes I suspect it's very dependent on the market for said bike. I would expect that WattBike and the new bikes coming out from Tacx and the like are significantly more accurate than bikes that aren't as high end/that aren't marked to cyclists (though from what I've heard WattBike calculates calories oddly - the power is accurate though). Tacx, for instance, is reporting their power accurate to less than +/- 1%.
The 15-20% accuracy that you're predicting on the Schwinn is, for me, unexceptable - especially given that I care about power on the road as well. I mean transfering something like FTP from inside to outside can be a bit rough because of how hot it gets inside, but it's not that drastic. That's me though.1
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