An exercise cycle is a versatile machine that offers amazing cardiovascular benefits. This machine is the best choice for home as well as gym use. Some of the benefits offered by this cycle are limited space usage, multitasking capability, and affordable cost. Exercise bikes mostly fall under three main groups that include recumbent bikes, indoor cycles, and upright bikes.
If you are thinking of buying one, then it becomes very important to consider the benefits offered by each of the exercise bikes before you choose one. Workouts using exercise bike helps in improving tone muscles, burn fat as well as cardiovascular fitness.
One of the best parts of exercise bikes is that irrespective of fitness levels of a person, exercise bikes can be used by anyone. There are very fewer chances for you to get injured. Cycling is one of the best workouts as it gives you significant benefits without putting undue tension on the back and knees.
In this article, we will be talking about the exercise cycle for weight loss, their types, features and benefits.
Table of Contents
Types of Exercise Cycles
There are mainly four types of exercise cycles available on the market. All these different types of cycles come with their own set of features to accomplish a specific type of fitness goal.
Upright Bikes
The upright bike is the classic bike of all the other kinds of exercise bikes available on the market. Its petals are aligned below feet of the user, while its seat provides support to the weight of the user. Along with lower body and cardio, a few upright bikes also engage your upper body muscles like arms, back, and the core. Its minimal design, along with portability makes it easier to carry and use.
Recumbent Bikes
The main attribute of a recumbent bike is the reclining design. Its chair like seat enables users to lean back conveniently. The pedals in this bike are placed in front of the feet of the user in place of below the feet. This gives more support to the rider.
Handlebars are present at the sides in place of the front. Upright design assists in lowering stress on joints. Recumbent bikes offer the lowest level of intensity and engage very few muscle groups. This bicycle is ideal and beneficial for people who are suffering from knee or back issues. It helps them to quickly recover from injury.
Indoor Cycles
Indoor cycles are the same as upright bikes but have a few distinctive features. The handlebars in this bicycle are located farther from its seat and shifting riders are placed in the forward direction. Indoor cycles also enable users to stand at the time of cycling. This leads to more engagement of the lower body region that involves more muscle groups during the cycling process.
Indoor cycles provide maximum calorie burn that results from all the other exercise bikes. As these cycles lack specific features like heart monitors, these cycles can be executed without electricity.
Air Bike
Air bike is another important category of home/gym exercise bike. These bikes function with wind resistance. The greater the stress you feel while pedaling, the greater is the resistance. Air bikes are the only exercise bikes that have got movable arms. Lower as well as upper body workouts can be easily performed simultaneously or independently on this machine.
Best Buy Exercise Bikes Online In India
The availability of a wide range of bicycles available on the market can easily overwhelm you. The selection of the right bicycle can really become a challenging task when you haven’t done any research about it before visiting the sports store.
To help you in your decision-making process, here we are providing you a list of highly recommended exercise bikes. The selection of these bikes is done on the basis of their features, quality, and price.
1. Powermax Fitness BX-110SX Fitness Bike
This exercise bike provides a layered foam padded seat that comes with a height adjustment feature to offer maximum customizability. You will find a back-support pad that provides a high level of comfort to the rider.
Powermax Fitness exercise bike comes with an easily readable computer display that helps you track your workout progress while you cycle. To make your ride safe and secure, this bike provides counterweighted pedals with easy to adjust foot straps. Adjustable continuous resistance makes your training session powerful.
Powermax Fitness exercise bike comes with a 4 kg flywheel system. There are a total of eight training intensity levels that have to be manually selected by the user based on their capacity. This exercise bike is designed to carry a maximum user weight of 110 kg. Its brake system is magnetic in nature with a ribbed belt one-way drive system. This exercise bike is TUV/GS certification approved.
2. Fitkit FK500 Steel Based Airbike In Black Or Grey
With Fitkit exercise bike, you can easily burn more calories in less amount of time. It depends on the intensity level you choose. Using the tension resistance system, you can easily customize your workout session. Its fully padded seat efficiently adjusts to the height of the rider to provide the best level of ergonomic fit.
Due to its small and compact form, this exercise bike occupies less space and gets conveniently ported in any part of your room. Fitkit FK500 exercise bike provides a digital meter that displays the time, distance, calories, and speed of your workout by which you can constantly track the progress of your workout.
Transport roller comprises wheels that ensure easy movement. Adjusting caps are provided for the uneven floor. To make the seat convenient for people with different height, there is an adjustable seat height available for different users.
3. Powermax Fitness Air Exercise Cycle
Powermax Fitness bike comes with a capacity of 100 kgs. This bike has three kgs of a flywheel. Its design enables air to work as resistance to offer effective home and gym workout. Its scan mode allows you to continuously toggle speed, time, calories and distance reading to provide easy monitoring of the various metrics at the time of working out.
Tension controller knob present in this bike enables effective resistance level adjustment. In this way, it offers varying levels of intensity of the workout. There is a locked facility provided in the foot pedals to prevent a rider from slipping. This stationary bike comes with an anti-slip wide base that offers enhanced stability.
4. Cockatoo Imported Air Bike Multiple functions
Cockatoo exercise bike provides dual-action handlebars that engage your upper as well as a lower-body during the workout. It adjusts the tension of the body easily with a simple turn of the knob. Its sturdy stainless based design of the frame that makes the bike durable.
Digital display facility helps in tracking the speed, time, number of calories burned and distance.
This exercise bike offers a low-impact workout by putting less strain on your joints. Using it for thirty minutes daily can give you muscle-building and calorie-torching advantages. Its hybrid design fits properly in your office, bedroom, or any other small space.
5. Lifeline Exercise Bike with Accessories
The lifeline exercise bike is non-motorized, and portable exercise cycle that comes with an electronic meter. It displays distance, time, speed, scan and calories burned. Improved mobility of joins and a higher range of motion of the knees, joints, hip joints, and ankles are impacted by cycling.
This stationary cycle puts low stress on back, ankles, and knees and gets your heart to pump without any undue mechanical pressure on joints. Lifeline exercise cycle is a popular exercise bike that is designed to be user-friendly as well as convenient work out equipment for domestic use. Sturdy back support, as well as a convenient saddle, offer a high level of comfort to its users.
6. Reach Orbitrek Cross Trainer and Exercise Cycle
Reach Orbitrek comes with an exercise bike that offers dual benefits of cross trainer and cycling. This battery-operated bike is known for its sturdy Belt Drive System. It has a capacity of 100 kgs. Its stationary height adjustable handles, large-sized non-slip pedals, cushioned seats, and wheels help it comfortable and easy body movement.
An adjustable resistance knob enables variable levels of resistance to easily accommodate any level of workout from starter to advanced intensity. Its LCD Monitor helps you monitor your fitness levels easily with statistics like time, speed, calories, hand pulse and distance that gets illumined on the display screen.
With this digital meter, you can easily track speed, time, calories as well as distance. With its moving handles, you can use it in the form of an elliptical machine, or in the form of an exercise bike with the stationary handles and attached the adjustable seat.
7. Lifeline Exercise Air Bike with Back Seat
Lifeline is one of the leading sports-brand helps in creating trusted, innovative, and effective fitness equipment that is manufactured to assist exercisers to achieve their fitness objectives. This elliptical bike will bring a positive transformation by allowing your core, lower and upper body to get engaged in an affordable and high-quality machine.
Lifeline air bikes are portable, and non-motorized bikes designed for home use. Manual tension knob assists in the adjustment of strength. Ergonomic adjustable handles offer padded grips. Easily adjustable handles and seat, stainless-steel frame, easy on joints, variable resistance levels, lock in paddles are some of the features that make it great for a full-body workout.
8. Cardio Max “JSB HF78” Magnetic Upright Fitness Cycle
JSB Cardio Max upright magnetic bike comes with effective backrest support, superior four kgs of flyweight and three cranks makes this bike the best addition to your home fitness routine. The foam-based handle provides anti-slip, skin-friendly and anti- absorbing functions at the time of the workout.
Its distinctive compact and foldable design makes it quite portable. This bike is best suited for fat loss, slimming, and cardio training. It comes with a sixteen-level resistance controller. The non-skid pedals with easy to adjust footrest straps provide a smooth cycling experience to the user.
9. Body Gym Stamina Air Exercise Bike With Back Support
Body Gym Stamina brings an impactful air exercise bike that a five-window monitor display. It comes with a manual resistance control system. It has adjustable seat U/D and F/B and the maximum bodyweight that it can carry is 90 Kg. Body Gym Stamina air bike is easy to assemble.
It provides an LED screen display that shows a variety of computer functions that include distance, speed, calories, time, and scan. Its padded hand grips make it quite convenient for the user to move them.
This bike is designed in a way that the pressure is regulated easily as per the user’s preference. The seat is comfortable and adjustable to provide a smooth and silent function. Twister function aids in relaxing your feet. Dips aids in slimming your thighs, hips, and waist.
10. Kobo OB-6 Exercise Bike
Kobo OB-6 is a scientifically designed exercise bike that provides the feel of a spin bike that comes with additional hand movements. Foam-layered adjustable handle and comfortable saddle meet the needs of people of varying heights and build. This bike has the capacity to carry a maximum weight of 120 Kgs easily.
This spin exercise bike offers perfection while performing lower and upper body workouts. Kobo OB-6 is the perfect machine that helps you achieve cardiovascular workout goals and targets in a secure and safe manner.
Kobo OB-6 bike aids in the regular application of acupressure while you perform the workout on the machine. This assists you in toning your muscles along with burning unnecessary body fat.
How To Choose The Best Exercise Bike For You
Before you visit a sports store to buy an exercise bike, you need to find out what do you expect from a bike. You need to think about how frequently you will be using it and how much do you wish to exert yourself. Do not overestimate your abilities.
Form a manageable workout plan. Once you make realistic estimations in regard to the use of the machine, it will become easier for you to decide the one that meets your workout goals.
Essential features
Irrespective of your fitness goals, model, and price of the exercise bike, it is important to pay attention to the must-have features that have to be present in your bike. Some of these features being various resistance levels, comfortable seats, good support, etc. Make comfort your priority, even if it takes you to spend a little more.
This is because when the bike is comfortable, only then you can utilize it in the best manner. To make the seat a little more comfortable, you can even buy an additional seat cover that comes with padding or gel.
To prevent your feet from falling, bikes come with straps that you need to tie before operating it. Advanced exercise bikes come with an inbuilt computer that shows basic statistics such as time, the number of burned calories, and speed.
Optional Accessories
A few models of exercise bikes also provide additional accessories that you may find them optional. One of these features is built-in fans that provide air resistance, that keeps you cool during you operate the bike.
Some people love to listen to music at the time of riding the cycle as it gives them motivation and a boost. So, if it is your need, then you can go for exercise bikes that come with an inbuilt acoustic sound system. It enables you to play music loud while you enjoy doing your workout.
Another optional feature that may provide you convenience at the time of long continuous workout sessions, is a water bottle holder. This is where you can keep your bottle, without interrupting your workout. The magazine stand is another optional accessory for people who have a habit of reading their favorite magazines during their workout sessions.
Weight and Weight Limit of the Bike
The weight of the bike is an important attribute that riders should focus on when they are looking for a bike. The bike you choose should provide you stability so that you don’t experience any discomfort on it.
The more weight that your bike carries, the higher the stability it is going to provide. Ensure that your own weight is not more than the maximum level of supported weight, or else it can lead to injury.
Excessive Noise
Go for a quieter bike that does not produce noise while in operation. Bikes that have fans are noisier. This is because they feature air resistance. The stronger you pedal, the greater will be the breeze and louder will be the noise.
Health Benefits Of Using An Exercise Cycle
Exercise bikes offer a lot of benefits in terms of physical and mental health to a person. Below are mentioned a few benefits of an exercise bike:
1. Strengthen your body and tones it
Cycling will definitely tone and strengthen your leg muscles. The basic muscles that are worked when you ride a bicycle are your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, calves and hip flexors.
2. Weight reduction
Cycling offers a lot of benefits to people who are looking for weight reduction. It is an ideal means designed for obese people to reduce unwanted weight from their body. The number of calories that one burns depends on gender, age, etc.
3. Cardiovascular Fitness
Cycling is a simple yet effective way to perform cardiovascular exercise. Cardio training on a static bike prepares you for marathons. Regular cycling keeps your cardiovascular system healthy so that you get increased the supply of oxygen to the blood and energy to the body. Also, it assists in lowering the chances of risks caused due to stroke and even lower blood pressure.
4. Enhance athletic abilities in a person
A stationary bike is more than just a home gym equipment. This bike enables specific training that is performed under a controlled environment to produce, improve and track cycling fitness. It also improvises your technique to a great extent. Whatever be the weather conditions, this home-based exercise equipment can be used anytime to keep improving your athletic abilities, fitness, and overall health.
5. Low impact on muscles
The low impact of stationary gym bikes aids in lessening risks related to strain or injury. Their low impact and smooth motion make your workout easy on your joints and muscles.
How To Use Exercise Cycle For Weight Loss
- Exercise cycles work on the principle of load against which you need to push yourself. You can set the load as per the requirement, but proper care needs to be taken such that load higher than your capacity must not be set. You can adjust the load, later.
- It is suggested to start with a lesser load. As you start pushing against the load further, you get adapted to it. Eventually, you can increase the load in levels, thus allowing your thighs to adapt to the change.
- The exercise cycle machine can help you lose large pounds if you follow the routine. You need to increase the load as well as reduce the diet in order to sweat more and lose more fat. Proper care about the cycling load is necessary else you will find yourself in too much pain, which is a negative sign.
- Don’t forget to set a perfect angle of the cycle which reduces the pain in the back. A proper angle of inclination helps in reducing the back pain while cycling as the pressure is eliminated as well.
- Setting up of the saddle point plays a major role as the exercise cycle machine exerts a reactive pressure and if the pressure points don’t get properly placed, it can lead to increased pain and discomfort. One of the main reasons why most people quit cycling in the early stages is because of this pain, which they cannot afford. Knees must never bend as you cycle to lose your weight as it can lead to a more painful problem of arthritis. You should keep the level of the saddle closer to your waist, hence this will prevent the hips from bending down which will allow the proper circulation of blood in your body.
- Weight loss using the cycle machine can be possible only if the cycling is done in a regular and disciplined manner. You need to increase the load against which you are cycling in a periodic manner, which will help in relaxing the muscles.
- You can try out the different modes of cycling which include increasing the speed of cycling at an interval of ten minutes which gives you an experience of cycling over the mountains. You can even try hitting the pedal with your favorite song plugged in your ears. Losing weight through cycling using an exercise cycle machine can also increase the strength of your cardiovascular system and immune system.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Are exercise bikes beneficial for weight management?
Cycling is really a good means to reduce or control your body weight. It does this by increasing the metabolic rate of function of a body, develops muscle as well as burn unwanted fat accumulations in the body.
After when you finish your cycling workout, your body will start with the job to repair your muscles that are used at the time of the workout. This burns more calories even after having finished exercising. This results in gaining effective control of body weight.
2. For how much duration should you exercise on a bike every day?
To experience cardiovascular benefits, it is advised to ride a static bike for a minimum of half an hour daily. Engaging yourself in this amount of physical activity daily will enhance your health and overall well-being of your body. Thirty minutes of riding a stationary bike will burn more calories on a daily basis, that is needed to keep your weight balanced.
3. Can you ride an exercise bike daily?
Performing some type of physical activity every day is smart when your goals are to reduce unwanted body weight and ensure physical and mental fitness. A half an hour ride on a bike when performed daily will burn approx. 5 kgs of fat over a year. With the correct adjustments, you can’t just enhance your cardiovascular health, but also lift your overall mood, and enhance your fitness too.
Conclusion
The exercise cycle provides an excellent cardio workout. Whether you are overweight or want to strengthen your leg muscles, cycling proves to be an ideal exercise, provided, you do it in the right form. It is very important to know about your fitness objectives beforehand to buy the right exercise bike for yourself.
I hope our best picks and buying tips will help you find the best one that accomplishes your fitness goals in the best way.