Two common questions about indoor cycling are how many calories you burn and will you lose weight?
As always, the answer is “it depends.” The harder you ride, the more calories you burn. However, it also depends on factors such as your weight and fitness level.
Harvard Medical School estimates that a 70 kg rider running indoors at 20 km/h will burn about 600 calories per hour. If you increase your speed to 25 km/h, you could burn around 750 calories.
This can be greatly increased by doing more structured workouts rather than running at a steady pace, and high-intensity interval training in particular has been shown to increase metabolic rate. This number is comparable to riding outdoors, but we know that riders can generally make more power outdoors than indoors.
However, the effects of exercise do not stop even if you stop. The increase in metabolic rate is known to last for more than a day as the body burns stored fat, repairs, and adapts in response to the workout. This is called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or EPOC.
Better structure and focus
Riding indoors not only burns calories, but also causes adaptations in your body that help you perform better when riding outdoors. Wahoo Sports He Science spoke with Mac Cassin from his team about how the body’s response to riding indoors helps with performance outdoors.
First, indoor cycling is usually more intense than outdoor cycling. Less downtime and fewer distractions from your riding. It’s easier to stick to interval sessions and maintain a steady output than it is to ride outdoors, especially if you’re riding somewhere like the UK where the roads are rolling and there are few long hills for training. If you ride a trainer, you can run on a road with no downhill slopes.
Because riding indoors is more structured, you can work on certain aspects of your fitness more effectively than riding outdoors, which can significantly improve your performance.
In terms of work output, there is no difference between riding indoors with a trainer at 200 watts and riding outdoors at the same power. However, it’s often easier to sustain high-intensity, long-duration efforts indoors than outdoors.
adaptation to heat
But one of the big benefits of riding indoors, according to Cashin, comes from the aspect that many riders find most uncomfortable when riding a turbo: heat buildup. Temperature regulation is different indoors than outdoors. Outdoors, the airflow will keep you cool even when numerous fans are turned on you while riding the Turbo He Trainer.
Cassin points out that the human body is about 25% efficient at converting input energy into work. That is, for a power output of 200 watts, the body consumes her 800 watts and the remaining 600 watts is dissipated as heat.
This is a lot of heat energy, not much less than a microwave oven or a small electrical fire.
The body adapts to excess heat by increasing plasma volume, Cassin said, making it easier to transport heat away from the body’s core. As a result, cardiac output increases and extra blood moves around the body, which can increase body temperature over time. Max VO2
Kashin himself has experienced the benefits of indoor training. A few years ago, he says, he broke his collarbone during a race and was forced to train indoors until it healed. Once he was able to go outdoors again, he ran a series of personal best rides and won a series of his KOMs.
Kashin also emphasizes the importance of controlling your breathing to become a more efficient rider. Most people tend to breathe fairly shallowly, he says. As your workload increases, there is a threshold at which you breathe faster and faster without a proportional increase in your workload.
He points out that the diaphragm muscle, which controls breathing, like any other muscle, needs to be trained to perform at its best.
Cyclists can benefit from striving to breathe more deeply when riding at lower intensities, as the rate of breathing, rather than the depth, changes as the workload increases. This makes it easier to determine when you’ve reached your limit. Again, it’s easier to concentrate indoors than outdoors.
Cassin also says that the most efficient cyclists are those who look the most metronome on the bike, rather than looking like they’re wrestling with the bike like Thibaut Pinot. Pointed out. Again, Cassin concludes, it’s much easier to concentrate when you’re on the trainer than when riding outdoors.