Stationary Bike- Moderate or Vigorous?????

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Goldrusher
Goldrusher Posts: 12 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
In the exercise section there is a regular bike and a stationary bike. with moderate and vigorous categories for each. The regular bike says that vigorous is 14-16 mph. There are no speed figures for moderate and no speed figures for the stationary at all, only the two categories. Is the vigorous at 14-16 mph the same for stationary as it is for regular bike riding?

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  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited October 2020
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    Stationary bikes don't move.
    The speed figure displayed it bears little relation to reality of the effort needed to achieve that speed outdoors primarily due to no rolling resistance, air resistance or fighting gravity. Its only use is as a comparison between your workouts.
    No you should not think indoor speed indication translates to outdoor speed categories. I wish I could fly along at 24mph for an hour like my indoor bikes says - but need an extraordinarily long downward slope for that!

    As a side note most outdoor cyclists can find far better estimates than the very vague estimates in the database here which for me are badly exaggerated.

    Unfortunately feeling moderate or vigorous also isn't a great guide to calories expended. Calories don't have feelings.....
    A pro rider would be exerting themselves moderately at my maximum sustainable pace. An unfit person trying their hardest might be burning half my calories.

    Does your bike give you average watts (power output)?
    If yes then you can get a very, very accurate net calorie estimate.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,835 Member
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    In my list of commonly used exercises, I've got ...

    y8yry4v9scvt.png

    Most of the time I go with the "light" option.

    Or I use Zwift, connected to Strava, and go with that. :)
  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
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    When I used to use my stationary bike (I have too many cardio pieces and decided that the calorie burn on the bike and my level of boredom weren’t worth it) I would go with what the bike told me minus 10%. I have a life fitness something or other out of a gym though and it lets me add my weight in and uses that to help calculate calories burned plus my effort (I’m assuming).

    My personal rule of thumb for all cardio equipment that tells me calories burned is to subtract 10% for error. Maybe I don’t realize it and I leaned over the machine and used it to be lazy for part of my work out, maybe the machine assumes I burn calories faster than I really do, etc. I would rather err on the side of caution and be pleasantly surprised when I get on the scale and lose more than I anticipated.
  • nighthawk584
    nighthawk584 Posts: 1,992 Member
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    even though I pedal my spin bike at a vigorous pace (and doing intervals of higher tension) , I just calculate it as moderate and that works for me. When I ride outside, I calculate by speed average.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,676 Member
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    I go by effort. If I'm doing HIIT or a workout with higher resistance, it's a moderate effort. DH, who pedals slowly while reading a book, using the bike just to loosen up tight muscles, would be a light effort. I am sweating while wearing a t-shirt, he isn't while wearing a fleece shirt. It's pretty obvious.
  • minstrelofsarcasm
    minstrelofsarcasm Posts: 2,212 Member
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    I log everything as vigorous, but use the calorie counts from my fitness tracker, so it doesn't really matter which intensity I assign to it. I just like the mental image of someone aggressively cycling.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    Regarding interval training......

    Intervals can feel a lot harder, make you sweat more, spike your heart rate but often don't burn more calories than a moderate intensity steady state ride. Picking moderate instead of high intensity is often a good choice.

    e.g. if I do 150watts at a steady pace I'm burning 540 net cals an hour and it feels totally comfortable and not breathing hard. If I do equal duration 100w/200w intervals it feels much harder and I'd have a higher average HR, puffing harder, sweating more but I still burn the same net calories.

    Also you can probably go all day at ~150w and then do it again tomorrow. If you're really doing HIIT you're too exhausted to continue about 15 minutes into it and need a rest day afterwards.

    That's a good choice if your getting ready for a race with lots of anaerobic surging and quick recovery, but for weight loss it's about the least effective exercise you can do.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
    edited October 2020
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    Dogmom1978 wrote: »
    When I used to use my stationary bike (I have too many cardio pieces and decided that the calorie burn on the bike and my level of boredom weren’t worth it) I would go with what the bike told me minus 10%. I have a life fitness something or other out of a gym though and it lets me add my weight in and uses that to help calculate calories burned plus my effort (I’m assuming).

    My personal rule of thumb for all cardio equipment that tells me calories burned is to subtract 10% for error. Maybe I don’t realize it and I leaned over the machine and used it to be lazy for part of my work out, maybe the machine assumes I burn calories faster than I really do, etc. I would rather err on the side of caution and be pleasantly surprised when I get on the scale and lose more than I anticipated.

    This all sounds pretty familiar. I basically have no idea how many calories I'm really burning on skis or a rope. I'm glad that it doesn't have to be like that on a bike. For that, I take the number of joules i did, change the label to calories, and Bob's my uncle. If the OP's bike reports joules, that's the answer.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Goldrusher wrote: »
    In the exercise section there is a regular bike and a stationary bike. with moderate and vigorous categories for each. The regular bike says that vigorous is 14-16 mph. There are no speed figures for moderate and no speed figures for the stationary at all, only the two categories. Is the vigorous at 14-16 mph the same for stationary as it is for regular bike riding?

    @sijomial answered this but it might not have been clear so I'm going to rephrase his answer.

    A stationary bike is always going 0 mph because miles are a measure of distance. The computer is telling you how many miles you would have could have gone with your effort, but that's an estimate. Riding outdoors people can measure the distance they traveled, usually with GPS. Measured miles aren't the same as estimated ones, so you're not going to get super great calorie estimates for one from the other.
  • LoveyChar
    LoveyChar Posts: 4,335 Member
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    I'm getting ready to ride mine now. It's old and has a tension knob that turns to tighten for vigorous effort and to loosen for less. I'm like above posters in that I lessen it, meaning that I log it as light effort when it's probably actually moderate effort that I'm engaging in and moderate if I am actually pedalling vigorously.
  • ChristopherLimoges
    ChristopherLimoges Posts: 298 Member
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    Maybe you could try to measure how fast you can run before?
  • zebasschick
    zebasschick Posts: 910 Member
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    which i choose often depends on my heart rate.
  • jhanleybrown
    jhanleybrown Posts: 240 Member
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    If your stationary bike has watts you have an accurate way to etimate kcals used. This is more accurate than any other method and is typically within 5% accurate (provided the wattage is accurate).

    Kcals = ave watts X time (in hours) X 3.6

    I've found the estimates on MFP to be pretty far off which I guess is understandable. For road biking, the estimates are 50% too high at the speed given (although that one is a hard way to estimate as speed is determined by your watts/kg) and the stationary bike ones are typically too low.

    In any case, if you get watts from a stationary bike, use formula above. It is very accurate.

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