How To Have Too Much Fun On An Exercise Bike

February 14, 2009

Exercise machines always have great appeal for me because they’re different from how I usually work out. They involve so much repetition of movement that it makes a difference in the strength and appearance of those muscles quite quickly.

Exercise bikes can cost about $100 on sale, are small and easy to move around, and really tone your legs fast. Most importantly, they’re easy on the knees and great for the thighs and rear view.

The repetition has a downside, which is the incredible boredom that sets in. How can you make the time more interesting and have a little fun?

Here are the ways I use to distract myself, make time pass, and get more out of the exercise.

Hey, the usual disclaimer right? Don’t drive holding coffee that’s too hot. Don’t do it if your body hates it. Don’t do what you’re not ready for.

1. Incorporate some core work by raising your arms above your head and waving them gently from left to right in a 1 foot- wide arc without letting your pelvis rock. Do it holding a 1-3lb weight and you’ll get it. It challenges the muscles along the side of the abdomen. You’re forced to vacuum-seal your abs against your pelvis to stabilize your body when the weights are off to the side.

Mehdi writes the great strength- training blog, Strong Lifts. He covers a great range of topics from inspiration and nutrition to specific moves for certain muscle groups. There is no hype here. This is a serious but approachable site, geared to injury prevention.

In this excellent article called How To Perform PushUps Correctly , Mehdi describes stabilizing your abs as hardening the muscle as if you were going to take a punch. That can work really well. I also like the visualization of the vacuum seal. Have you ever watched the ads for those plastic storage bags where all the air is sucked out of them and they crinkle down against the stuff inside till it’s tight? That is the image I use, of my abdominal wall sucking in and crinkling down.

2. Raise your arms and practice the feeling of lengthening by pulling up longer out of the hips and waist. The shoulder blades stay in the same place as when your arms are down. As your rib cage lifts up and away from your hips, the sides of your body get longer. Feel how unloading your pelvis takes the weight off your low back and lets your legs move more freely because they don’t have to support the same load.

3. Imagine a weight from your tailbone, dropping to the floor. This is an exercise used when riding a horse in an English saddle. It helps draw the stomach in towards the spine and anchors the pelvis while encouraging a neutral, flexible spine. The spine stays strong but relaxed and can be responsive to the spine of the animal beneath you.

4. Adjust the tension on the flywheel to be very high and stand up on your pedals. Your pelvis does not rock side-to-side. Think of your pelvis as a bucket you grow up out of. Your legs extend long to the ground. Cycle as fast as you can while holding the pelvis stable. You may find, as I did, that it will not be very fast at all.

5. Turn your toes in with the arch of foot on the pedal, weight on the inside of the ball of the foot. Turn your toes out with the heel on the pedal. Do each for 1 whole song. You’ll feel the inner thighs when the toes face in and outer thighs when the toes point outwards.

6. Put your hands on the sides of your butt cheeks and feel the tightening in your glutes (butt) . Activate your gluteal muscles and keep them switched on. Picture a sponge squeezing the fat out like water.

7. Pretend you’re running uphill and pushing the ground away behind you, but here you’re pushing the pedal behind you and pulling it upward at the same time. So the pedal is coming up because you’re pulling on it, not because the other pedal is being pushed down. It’s a feeling of making a distinct circle with the pedal instead of an up-down repetition. Feel your hamstrings tighten up in a hurry.

8. Push your arms together hard in front of you. Try it pushing your hands together above your head, like a church steeple. The more you pull in your abs, the more pressure you can exert between your hands.

9. Increase the tension to rest. Instead of dropping the tension when you need a break, raise it but pedal as slowly as you like (but no stopping!) . When you release the tension to your usual workout level, it will feel much easier.

10. Alternate 15 seconds fast and slow. You won’t lose yourself in this workout because you’re always counting time, but it’s easy to work harder than usual because you get lots of rest periods. Even if you just do it for a song or two, you’ll burn more calories with the sprint intervals and the time goes fast. Practicing explosive speed and power is good.

Do each move for 1 song and you’ve sailed through 30 minutes on a bike. You’ll have worked in some core, cardio, and strength.

Remember to make sensible decisions that reflect your fitness level. Start slowly and work up. If you can’t hold the middle strong, you’ve done too much. Remember to keep the fundament in place: heart leading and open, stomach sucked it till it pulls the butt under a little.

Hey, cupcake, get up! The workout’s not over till the 10 minutes of abs are.

Posted by Christine Scaman | Filed Under Move Thy Body, Sites To Know

Comments

4 Responses to “How To Have Too Much Fun On An Exercise Bike”

sharon jones on February 15th, 2009 9:29 am

I agree whole heartedly about finding an exercise you LOVE. I had a personal trainer for years, did the gym thing, then when I moved in with my now husband, we built a gym in the spare bedroom. I mixed it up with step aerobics, pilates, yoga, floor aerobics (all usind tapes and DVD’s). However, boredom did set in and excuses emerged. Riding a bike didn’t do it for me either. So I started doing what I loved as a child in England – horse riding. That started in 2003. Now I spend hours in the saddle and have the strongest abs and glutes and inner thighs – all of which help my titanium hip (I had it replaced in 2004) stay stable and strong. I also work at the ranch as a trail guide and I am strong everywhere else because of the lifting saddles etc., and when you’re working hard on a horse training it, you get a cardio workout too! So, the theme again – find what you love to do and it’s not ‘working out’ any more. I even run a business called “Breath of Fesh Air’ in the GTA area designed to get corporate bums out of rooms and into the fresh air on a horse. I love it!
Christine Scaman on February 18th, 2009 3:46 pm

Hi, Sharon,

I was asked once what the best exercise is for toning up. The answer is, of course, the one you’ll enjoy enough to do 5 times a week. It doesn’t matter what you do, just stop waiting for perfect and do something!! Not every day needs to be a marathon day – getting out of breath for a little while every day is all it really takes.

Your business idea is quite inspired. I think, for most people, the idea of being out on horseback epitomizes an ultimate freedom from the rat race. Maybe this is especially true for men, since it awakens their inner cowboy.
sharon jones on February 18th, 2009 6:28 pm

Hi Christine,
You’re so right about stop waiting for perfect. I used to push myself on the elliptical trainer, going hard hard hard for 45 minutes, the sweat pouring off me. I did that 4 times a week as well as strength trained in the hope it would enable me to eat as much as I wanted, alas it did not and when I quit smoking in 1999 I piled on about 25 lbs, whilst still working out.

It took me about 6 years to finally lose the weight. I still yo-yo in the winter but the riding definitely keeps me fit.

Interestingly at the ranch where I keep my horses and where I operate my business from, it’s 90% women! There’s a special relationship between women and horses so it seems.

We do have a couple of urban cowboys and when I have groups out the men enjoy it as much as the women.

Do you ride?
Christine Scaman on March 1st, 2009 5:53 pm

Hi, Sharon,

I’m the same with the over-the-top workouts. What happens next is that my body dreams up some silly medical problem and checks me out of my life for 2-3 weeks. It’s like ” OK, sister, if you won’t sit on the bench, then I’ll take you out of the game and you’ll have no choice!”

Women and horses. Girls and horses. There is something there. I rode (English) for all my teenage years. I had a horse while I was having kids too, but a couple of injuries that could have been a lot worse convinced me to sell him.