Recumbent Exercise Bike - Programmes

ChilliBob

Hey everyone, 

I'd like to get a recumbent exercise bike, having tried one on holiday, however, I'm unsure how I'd monitor my progress/get workout plans etc.

The one I had looked at was s NordicTrack one which would use the ifit platform, which has a monthly fee of say 12-14 quid I think, and there seems to be quite a few complaints about the service.

So, I thought I'd use it without a plan but then I was scratching my head thinking how I'd monitor progress and keep motivated. I would assume just doing say 5k, keeping my heart rate at x level and seeing how my time could improve.

I come from the Concept2 world really, where I use my rowing machine and the concept2 app allows you to send all sorts of great workouts to the device for free, along with more data than you'd ever need!

Any tips most appreciated. It's especially recumbent I'm looking for as my back is often not great, and at the moment I'm dealing with a knee sprain, so lower impact is better!

Thanks for reading! 

andygb

I have only just seen this post. I am a qualified fitness instructor and I assume, that since you have used a Concept 2, you are already pretty fit. The worst thing about indoor fitness kit, is that they can be boring if you do the same routines every day, so it helps if you mix it up, rather than use one level all the time. I used to do intervals on both rower and recumbent bike - 40 minutes total, warmup 5 minutes at low resistance, then 10 by 1 minute fast pedaling on medium level, with 1 minute rest, then a 10 minute cool down. Then you could try sprints, with warmup, then 10seconds as fast as possible at high resistance, with 50 seconds rest, do twenty of those (they will hurt towards the end) and a nice, 10 minute cool down at low resistance.