Haven’t considered cycling as an exercise to lose weight? Well, bicycling is not only a great leisure activity but an excellent cardio workout.
By hopping on your bike and going for a long, easy ride or doing something short and fast both bring immense health benefits and joy into your life. It can help boost your heart and lung health, improve your blood flow, build muscle and lower your stress level. On top of that, it can help you burn fat, calories and eventually lose weight.
If you’re looking to lose a few pounds, cycling is a great for weight loss, not to mention a fun way to start. However, there are a few things you need to know and structure to have an effective biking workout for weight loss.
1. Increase Intensity
When you cycle at a slow and leisure pace, it probably won’t help you much in losing weight. You’ll make more progress towards your weight loss goal if you push yourself to work harder and that can be done by increasing the intensity of your ride.
Essentially, the faster you ride, the more calories you’ll burn. Because your body uses more energy to cycle faster, hence you shed more weight.
A steady and moderate cycling session burns about 300 calories in 60 minutes, however, at a faster pace of 14 to 15.9 miles per hour, an average person who weighs 155 pounds can burn up to 372 calories in just 30 minutes.
Image via : Bicycling
2. HIIT
Next, try opting for a HIIT session, it is a great way to challenge your body, reduce face and lose weight!
As HIIT involves short explosiveness of intense exercise alternated with intervals of low-intensity exercises.
For example, a HIIT working for biking will look like this:
I.Cycle as fast as you can against a high resistance for 30 to 60 seconds.
II.Then, do 2 to 3 minutes of easy cycling with low resistance.
III.Repeat this pattern for the next 20 to 30 minutes.
Overall, HIIT helps you burn more calories in a short amount of time while improving your cardio fitness.
Image via : Lesmills
3. Go For The Extra Mile
Besides that, try going a couple of miles extra, just as you think you’ve had enough. This does not only train your mental strength but your endurance training.
Ideally, you want to start slowly when building endurance. Thus, you can start with 10 to 15 minutes of cycling in one session, then slowly add a few minutes to each session until you’ve reached at least 150 minutes of cycling in a week.
Image via : Polar
4. Cross-training
Lastly, to avoid a plateau in your weight loss training, incorporating cross-training is a great way to add variety to your workouts.
For instance, you can hop on your bike for a long outdoor ride one day and then head to the gym for some weight training the following day.
Incorporating two activities into one cross-training session can help you boost weight loss. Try riding on your bike for 20 minutes, then another activity for an additional 20 minutes.
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