Recumbent Exercise Bicycles

Is using a recumbent bike an effective means to lose weight?

When I go to the gym, I tend to use the recumbent bike quite a lot. I usually ride it for about an hour around level 9. I sweat like crazy, but after an hour it says I've only burned about 300 calories. Is this even going to be effective? Feels like from how much I sweat, I'm burning way more....

Public Comments

1. Not really. If you were mountain biking then yes. Recumbent biking really doesnt work you enough to see significant improvement.
2. 300 calories is equal to one iced tea. cardio is great for your heart, but to effectively lose weight you want to do an aerobics class with light strength training. good luck!!
3. Recumbent bikes aren't as effective as running, but they are a lot better on your joints. You might want to look at your heart rate. Sweating a lot could just mean you sweat a lot, some people are easy to make sweat. level 9 is only the manufacturer's perception of level 9. level 9 on some machines could be pretty easy compared to other machines. oh and the heart rate monitors and calorie counters on most machines are usually pretty bad measurements. get a good heart rate monitor, like a Polar or Garmin. and wear that while working out (it will feel redundant with the HR monitor on the machine but trust me it is way better). then figure out your target heart rate, there are many calculators on the internet, as well as in the manual for your new heart rate monitor. Then when working out you try hard to stick around your target heart rate. Your target heart rate is where your body is at optimum fat burning mode. too much higher and you can have permanent heart damage, too much lower and you won't be burning many calories. my hr monitor beeps when you are too high or too low to keep you in check. my wife's can hook up to the computer and graphs your calories burned and heart rate over time. it also has a built in gps for mapping runs and bike rides.