Body fitness and work out bikes have had a long history together, especially in the gym. There are two different types of bikes, exercise bike and the spin bike.
Choosing between these two, which one could be best suited for your workouts, is entirely dependent on what your work out objective really is. In fact, as you plan on cycling work outs, it is perfectly normal to wonder whether you would be better off using the spin or exercise bike. But what really is the difference between these two?
Before before explaining differences between these two, it is important to understand their primary uses.
Uses
Exercise bikes, also known as stationary bikes, are more often used for general health and fitness programs without any more specific fitness objectives than improving your muscle strength, achieving more weight loss and of course having a grip on your cardiovascular fitness levels.
Spin bikes on the other hand, will help you achieve all as with the exercise bike and then on top of that introduce a few other variables simulated as though you were riding an actual outdoor bike in real life. Unlike the exercise bike, where you would hold the handle bars while seating straight, there is a little hunch over for the spin bikes that makes the overall appearance and actually experience of the rider resemble the hunch of the sport cyclists.
This of course helps in real life to reduce the air resistance and consequently cause you to use less energy in pedaling. So a regular outdoor cyclist who just seeks to train more at the gym, may be better off using the spin bike rather than the exercise one, since such a bike attempts to simulate the outdoor variables, except for the air resistance.
With that in mind, here are the specific facts you need to know before you make that decision as to which bike will be best suited for your work outs.
Exercise Bike
- This bike is generally easy to mount and work out on, especially if you already know how to ride the regular outdoor bike.
- It can also be used for regular cycling and helps you burn a moderate amount of calories.
- Because working out is done almost entirely while seated the chances of getting injured are very low.
- With this bike you progressively increase speed or even the resistance and make pedaling tougher as a result. That will require you to use more energy, which will cause your heart to beat faster and increase the amount of calories you will be burning.
- It helps you focus on the quads, glutes, calves and hamstrings.
- Comes with a console which gives you a better stats about your work out session, like your speed, distance travelled, calories burnt and others.
Spin Bike
- Just as easy as the exercise bike is to mount and use, so is the spin bike. Infact, it will almost create a near feeling of being on the regular outdoor bike.
- However, spin bike workouts will help you burn higher amounts of calories.
- You can also progressively increase or lower both the speed and resistance, but you can also stand while riding. Increasing progression level stiffens the flywheel and forces you to expend more energy as you push harder on the pedals. This feature can also be utilized in the same manner on the exercise bike as well, which consequently is good for your cardiovascular fitness.
- Because of the standing option, the risk of injury is moderately higher relative to that of the exercise bike.
- The flywheel for this type of bike is relatively heavier compared to that of the exercise bike. This is one of the reasons why you will end up burning more calories on this bike than the other.
- Unlike the exercise bike, this does not have the console. This means, you will not get all the stats of your workouts
Conclusion
Getting to choose which bike is best suited for you will entirely depend on what you want to use it for. If say for example you wish to monitor how many calories you burn, distance travelled or how much time it would take, you will be better off with the regular exercise bike.
However, if you wanted to work out more muscles on your body, burn calories faster and have the option of standing while working out, you would certainly achieve all that with the spin bike.
Good thing is these two different types of bikes can easily be found online at very affordable rates.
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