How to Lose Weight by Bicycling
The first thing guys often do when they want to shed their spare is pull on their trainers and hit the pavement (or treadmill) for a run. Problem is, unless you’re a runner, you’re not likely to get far enough to burn fat. Or worse, you’ll get hurt in the process. The better solution: Reach for a bike.
Bicycling, of any kind whether mountain, road, gravel, or stationary, is low impact and lets you coast for quick recovery bouts, so you can go as long and/or hard as you need without putting stress on your joints or increasing your risk for injury or burnout.
How Cycling Helps You Lose Weight
Cycling is an easy way to burn hundreds of calories. A 180lb man burns over 650 calories (that’s more than a Big Mac) during an hour of brisk (i.e., comfortably hard, you can still talk, just in short sentences) riding.
The right cycling workouts (more on that in a bit) can also build muscle, which turns up your metabolism and improves body composition. Short bouts of high intensity exercise, which are easy to do on a bike, are especially good for lowering insulin resistance (which can contribute to fat gain) and for burning health-wrecking visceral belly fat, the kind guys often struggle with most.
Cycling Workouts for Weight Loss
All cycling can help you burn fat and lose weight. But following a plan that includes a variety of intensities will yield the best results.
Go hard. Rides that include short, intensity efforts (a.k.a. high intensity interval training or HIIT) are scientifically proven fat burners. In one of the ground-breaking HIIT studies, a team of Canadian researchers found that riders performing four to six 30-second, full-throttle sprints three times a week burned more than twice as much body fat as riders who rode for 30 to 60 minutes at a moderate, aerobic intensity. Short, max power efforts also build muscle, especially our powerful fast twitch muscles.
HIIT efforts are generally from 10 seconds 5 minutes in length. The key to doing HIIT is to go as hard as you can for the duration of the effort. So, if you’re doing super short efforts (i.e., less than 30 seconds), you’re going to be going 100%. If you’re doing longer efforts of three to five minutes, you’ll be working at about 90% of max heart rate (or a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 for rate of perceived exertion) for the duration of the interval. Short intervals are usually paired with equally short or even shorter recovery periods so your body can adapt to repeated maximal efforts. Do these twice a week. (Note: Because they’re super hard, do these away from traffic when outdoors, or indoors on a trainer.)
Build your engine. More moderate riding also helps burn fat a few ways. For one, you can do it longer to burn more total calories per ride. It also helps build your aerobic capacity so you can recover more quickly from an effort and prompts your body to make more capillaries in your muscle, which increases blood flow to your working muscles, and increase your mitochondrial density so you can make more energy faster. The knock-on benefit of this is you’ll be able to handle more sets and reps and training volume in the weight room without getting gassed. The workouts with the biggest bang for your buck for building your aerobic engine are longer “sweet spot” intervals, where you’re working at about 75 to 85% of your max heart rate for 10 to 20 minutes, resting half of the interval time between sets. (Find out more about the benefits of training at this intensity here.)
Head to the hills. To burn more calories and fat while making more metabolism-revving muscle, include climbing in your cycling routine. As you pedal up an incline, gravity tries to pull you back down. The steeper the grade, the more forceful gravity’s pull. That forces you to recruit more muscles (and burn more calories) to maintain forward momentum. No hills? Simulate them with a few big gear efforts. On flat terrain, shift into a larger (i.e., harder) gear that takes some work to push, but doesn’t stress your joints. Staying seated, pedal hard for 5 to 10 minutes. Do 3 to 5 sets, resting half of the interval time between sets.
How to Put it All Together
To put it all together for the ultimate way to bike to lose weight, here’s what a sample week could look like:
Monday and/or Saturday: 45-to-60-minute moderate ride with 2 x 10 minute sweet spot intervals.
Tuesday/Thursday: Tabata intervals (i.e., eight rounds of 20 seconds effort followed by 10 seconds recovery). Can be done same day as heavy lifting day.
Sunday: Head to the hills or do some big gear muscle-making efforts.
The best part is cycling is fun and if you join a group, class, or online community, it’s social, as well. That’s important because if you actually enjoy an activity, you experience what scientists call “hedonic motivation,” which means if you like it, you’re more likely to stick with it and make it a habit. Since research shows long-term weight loss requires a commitment to exercise, it’s important to find that activities you enjoy and want to do. And cycling is one you can do for life.
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