Can you still lose comparable weight while Biking????

swimming is better

swimmer wrote:

swimming is better

Hmmm..........you may be onto something..........any tips on training?

I gained 5 pounds of muscle from cycling, actually. I find it hard to spin in a low gear.

If you put in sufficient time on the bike which is 4-5x time that you run, you should be able to maintain the same weight.

You will not lose comparable weight swimming from my experience...and you may gain some fat as your body will hold on to fat to try and stay warm. Swimmers do not have ripped, cut, skinny bodies like runners and bikers.

Biking is a great way to lose calories. If you are biking hard, my rule is 2 miles for every 1 running and that seems to work. I ride a hybrid or mountain bike though so it is much slower covering the distance than a racing bike. I can get 16 mph out of my hybrid and 13-14/hour out of my mountain bike on roads(11-12 on trails). The biking will also help build leg strength similar to hill workouts. It has really helped my running.

Biking will make you fat. The only way to avoid this is to incoporate a number of hills into your ride. Otherwise, you will not be able to get your heartrate up high enough to burn significant calories. Also you should bike 2-3 times longer than you would run.

I would agree that swimming is a better cross training method for burning calories. The only problem is that it can get quite boring.

In my experience during injury biking 4 miles on flat roads or 3 miles on hills = one mile of running. So a somewhat hilly 35-mile bike ride is roughly = to running 10 miles. It will take a couple of hours though, or more.

Swimming 1 mile = running 4 miles = biking 15 miles. That is a rough estimate but many varietal factors come into play: type of bike, course, effort, etc.

Pool running is about a 1:1 to running ratio in terms of time. And I got to the point where I would count the time biking up a steep hill hard as close to a running effort, and discounted the time riding down hill as zero effort. That is (uphills) where you'll get some good cycling work in. Also note your heartrate while biking is 7-10 beats lower than running when maxed out because your weight is supported.

You'll keep your weight down, but you won't run too well when you first come back because your hamstrings will atrophy with the time off. Plus your quads will develop and become out of balance. It might take 6 months to get your running legs back entirely if you bike for 3. But it beats sitting around on the couch while you're injured and getting soft.

One Keg I would say your close, I would say 25 miles biking = 10 miles running? Where would find this out for sure?

Cross Trainer wrote:

Swimmers do not have ripped, cut, skinny bodies like runners and bikers.

Huh? Swimmer's bodies may not be skinny, but they certainly are "ripped and cut" as much or more than runner's. For sure the guy that does a mile in the pool every other day doesn't have it, but a competitive swimmer will certainly have the bod. When I was competitive swimming back in my college days I had the best bod of my life and I could eat everything that wasn't stapled to the floor and still lose 10 pounds during the season.

The best way to lose a few pounds (or keep those unwanted pounds off) is to smoke a few cigs during the day. 8-10 should do it.

The key to weight management is to remain in energy balance so that energy in=energy out. Rather than focusing on how much cycling=how much running, watch you weight. Weight yourself once a week. If you weight is going up, eat a little less and maybe ride a bit more or some combination thereof.

Do not skip meals! This is one of the worst things someone can do. 1) You lose the thermic effect of that meal that can raise energy consumption about 10% for a period of time and 2) People tend to eat higher fat foods at the next meal.

I use the general rule of thumb of 1:2 ratio between running and biking.

The short answer is yes... with proper diet you'll be fine at your current weight and probably loose weight.

However, I like to stress that anyone from a running background take it easy the first couple of times on a bike. Runners have the tendency to try to get a workout out of everything. Biking is a different animal. Don't worry about speed or pace. You can blow yourself if you try to go on a 3-4 hour ride with the 'feel the burn' mentality. Keep your gears in something manageable. Gearing: you should set up in your 39 sprocket up front (i'm assuming you have a road bike) and 16/15 in the rear.

So, start off with an hour bike ride and make sure you feel refreshed and comfortable on the bike at the end of it. Nice easy pace. Don't worry about your speed or heartrate.

Once you feel comfortable on the bike. Monitor yourself via a heart rate monitor. Stick your heart rate between 120-140 and do that for 2-3 hours. It may feel as if you are not doing much. You'll be fine.

As an aside to runners out there. The single most common trait of a runner starting out as a cyclist is the inability to utilize smaller gears. They feel like to get a workout, that is they push a very hard gear to 'feel something'. This is generally not beneficial. You will feel like dirt and your legs will be shot for the next day or two.

Remember nice and easy. save your legs for running

-lhd

Riding a bike for an hour is torture. Almost as bad as swimming. The only way I can do it (ride) is to pop in a movie or watch a good college football game.

James T wrote:

Riding a bike for an hour is torture. Almost as bad as swimming. The only way I can do it (ride) is to pop in a movie or watch a good college football game.

1) Try leaving the house on a real bike, not your mom's AirDyne.

2) Judging from your previous posts, James T, I'm guessing you watch lots of BYU football to minimize the number of black athletes you have to watch.

Am i correct in assuming that i should be on a low gear (read: easy gear) most of the time, so that i'm "spinning" for the majority of the ride? Like, basically not getting out of the seat at all, even on climbs, unless absolutely necessary, and just keeping it at a gear where i can spin at a pretty quick cadence, instead of putting it into 18th gear and pedaling slowly and hard.

BTW, i only have a mountain bike. Anyone know where i can get a road bike real cheap?????

Yes, you should keep a relatively high cadence, but at the same time you should get out of your seat some. Also, you should make sure to keep a high cadence along with a fair amount of resistance. By simply "spinning" the whole time you will not get a very good workout. I'd suggest doing some intervals like 2-3 minutes on and 5 minutes off. Your cadence should be a little slower during the interval and a little higher during the off. This will break up your ride while at the same time getting your heartrate up.

The best thing though is to incorporate hills and go hard up and easy down. Make sure though that you are pedaling down and not just cruising, whenever possible(if the hills are too steep, pedaling might not be feasible).

im not quite sure how some of you can say that it is a 2:1 ratio of biking to running. i did a 40 mile ride when i was about 14, there was no way that i could have run 20. hell, the farthest i had gone (and it killed me) was around 8-10. id say the ratio has got to be around 4:1.

and for the person that was asking how to find this out, there is no number. its all a matter of our own guesstimates.

Biking is bad as a cross trainer for runner. The resistance is opposite in running. In biking you are pushing youyr leg down on the pedal with resistance towards gravity to an open leg while in running you are pulling your leg up away from gravity to a 90 degree angle. Plus it makes your butt bigger from sitting on the seat.

People THINK biking helps running but it actually hinders stride length development.

another miler wrote:

im not quite sure how some of you can say that it is a 2:1 ratio of biking to running. i did a 40 mile ride when i was about 14, there was no way that i could have run 20. hell, the farthest i had gone (and it killed me) was around 8-10. id say the ratio has got to be around 4:1.

and for the person that was asking how to find this out, there is no number. its all a matter of our own guesstimates.

The ratio of energy used can vary so widely that a rule of thumb is not all that useful. When I was riding a lot, I rode about half the time in really hilly areas. I could be going really hard up a 7 mile long moderately steep hill and only be going 10 mph (=6 min/mi) for a 42 min. On the flats with a nice tailwind, that same effort would put me 20 miles up the road instead of 7 miles...

Also, a 15 mile mountain bike ride in tough terrain can kick my butt more than a run that long on level terrain (I run almost that much daily.)

Go by effort and time at that effort