Stationary Bike Benefits for Legs: 7 Reasons Cycling Is Good for You

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If you don’t have sufficient time to visit the gym yet regularly would love to have well-toned legs and a healthy body, a stationary bike is the best choice.

The stationary bike is well-suited for all kinds of trainers—beginners, intermediates, and advanced trainers. In summer or winter, you can hop onto the indoor bike and pedal as much as possible to achieve excellent fitness benefits. Moreover, by using a stationary bike, you can enjoy the following top-most benefits:

  1. Improves your leg strength and endurance levels
  2. It promotes higher calorie-burning abilities.
  3. Using a stationary bike is great for your joints. 
  4. Cycling on a stationary bike can tone and sculpt your leg muscles.
  5. Using a stationary bike can improve your cardiovascular health.
  6. The stationary bike helps you develop well-defined leg muscles.
  7. Exercising on a stationary bike reduces the risk of injury to your ligaments and joints.

7 Benefits of Stationary Bike for Your Legs

Besides calorie burning and body toning abilities, the stationary bike helps you achieve several other integral benefits.

Stationary Bike Benefits for Legs

#1. Leg Strength

All of us love to acquire total-body workouts using the home gym equipment that we purchase, and a stationary bike is a unique machine that improves leg strength and endurance levels of our body multi-fold times.

Biking involves pedaling vigorously, and when you do this action, most of the muscles in the lower body are activated.

Exercise bikes have varying resistance settings, and if you are interested in building leg strength, it is recommended that you gradually increase the resistance levels.

Remember, as and when you do challenging workouts and increase difficulty levels, the legs are subjected to more tension, leading to increased muscle strength in your legs.

Besides the intensity, your workout’s length plays a vital role in toughening muscles and promoting strength training abilities.

Strengthen your core and your lower body by cycling regularly—the constant action of contraction and relaxation of muscles is a good isotonic exercise.

#2. Calorie Burning Abilities

Are you interested in experiencing weight loss and rapid fat-burning abilities? If so, you must never miss out on cycling on a stationary bike.

Being an excellent cardio exercise, cycling is one of the best ways to increase your strength and promote higher calorie-burning abilities than other exercises.

But why is a stationary bike a better weight loss equipment compared to other cardio equipment? It’s mainly because of two main points—burning fat and strengthening muscles.

For those who don’t know, the Harvard Health Publication report states that individuals with higher weight experience more calorie-burning abilities.

Hence, try exercising at least for 20 minutes every day to gain the utmost exercising benefits.

Even the exercise bike model has a significant role in increasing your weight loss ratio—an upright bike burns more calories than recumbent models. Still, resistance levels also play a crucial role in affecting the calorie-burning ratios.

#3. Better for the Joints

While many of you might believe that cycling might cause a high impact on your joints, evidence shows otherwise. A low-impact stationary bike is highly recommended for rehabilitation purposes.

It is necessary to keep your body well-oiled. That is, you must keep your body parts activated. The pedaling action helps you keep your joints moving without succumbing to shocks.

Cycling is the same, be it outdoors or indoors, but cycling indoors has a better advantage as it is low-impact.

Still, before you start exercising, especially if you suffer from any joint-related problems, it is suggested that you consult with your doctor before.

In case you’ve been suggested to cycle for improving joint mobility, it is recommended that you start exercising by lowering the saddle so that not much pressure is applied on the joints. The recumbent bikes are designed for this.

Hence, if you are looking for self-rehabilitation purposes, don’t hesitate to purchase an indoor cycle for use.

#4. Body Sculpting

We are generally in awe of skaters and gymnasts as their legs are well-toned and chiseled. Looking at the lower body of any competitive rider, it comes as no surprise that cycling has the power to tone and sculpt your leg muscles as much as possible.

So, if you do it right and do it regularly, an exercise bike helps you get in shape and tone your legs. The faster you pedal, the higher is your toning ability.

All of us like to reap results in minimal time, but if you are one of such individuals who want to get shapely legs, you must increase your resistance levels to increase workout intensity.

Changing resistance depends on the bike model—while some have a simple console using which you can increase/decrease resistance levels with the touch of a button, some others have a knob that you can turn for changing resistance settings.

While exercising at higher resistance levels brings rapid exercising benefits, it is also possible that you might strain your knees if you continue this routine forever.

#5. Cardiovascular Benefits

Besides weight loss and strength-related benefits, indoor cycling is excellent support for improving your cardiovascular health.

As we know, our hearts and lungs comprise the cardiovascular system, and with regular exercise, these organs acquire the power to function more effectively.

Cycling is a great means to distribute oxygen throughout the body as it increases the oxygen rate. This is mainly because as you cycle regularly, the blood flow to all parts of your body, including your legs, happens.

Hence, as you keep cycling daily, your overall fitness rates increase, and you also reach your peak physical state. Exercising using a fitness bike is a great means to integrate endurance training into your daily exercise routine.

#6. Increase Leg Muscle Size

Be sure of gaining muscle mass and volume when you engage in regular cycling—this is what research studies say.

Being a low-impact exercise, cycling regularly helps you apply force evenly without any shocks, and as a result, your legs develop well-defined muscles.

Do you know that the hamstrings and quadriceps muscles in the thighs undergo constant activation when you keep cycling? Alongside these, even your gluteal muscles and calf muscles are worked out.

The first day or even the first week might seem to bring no results, but after a couple of weeks, you are sure to see the advantages of exercising on a stationary bike given the fact that you do it regularly.

The lower part of your body, including the calves, thighs, and buttocks, gets firmer. If you would like to increase muscle mass and volume, all you must do is keep increasing intensity levels and exercise time with every passing week.

#7. Low-Impact & Minimal Risk of Injury

All of us must exercise for better health. While some of us stick to our everyday exercise routine, not all of us can exercise daily.

Athletes don’t have the luxury to choose to exercise but are indebted to practice exercises every day to achieve excellence in performance.

Hence, performing a low-impact exercise is crucial for athletes, and indoor cycling is a non-load-bearing, low-impact exercise. This means that you don’t put your body under the pressure of bearing your entire weight while working out.

But, how does cycling exist as a low-impact exercise to your knee when the knee joints are constantly engaged in the pedaling motion?

To answer this, imagine how you cycle—it is in a seated position working out your muscles, and hence, there is minimal risk of injury to your ligaments and joints.

It is up to you to choose your desired resistance and intensity levels with cycling. In my opinion, this is a critical advantage, especially when you compare it to exercises such as running and jogging.

Above all, you reduce the risk of injury while using a stationary bike as the chances of accidents, falls, or impacts are zero instead of cycling outdoors.

How Many Calories Can You Burn By Using a Stationary Bike?

When we say that cycling helps you tone your legs and shape them, it means that the excess fat surrounding the muscles is chopped away.

If you wish to burn calories, it is necessary to exercise regularly and stay on a well-balanced diet.

Exercises that help you lose weight include riding an exercise bike, and Harvard Health Publication says that a 155-pound person can burn up to 260 calories in 30 minutes on a stationary bike at a moderate pace.

It is necessary to burn around 3500 calories to lose 1 pound, and working out at this moderate pace is good enough to achieve calorie-burning abilities.

What Muscles Do You Use When Riding a Stationary Bike?

Though many of us choose to exercise on a stationary bike to burn calories faster, the act of pedaling helps you tone your muscles as well.

The main muscles you use while riding a stationary bike include the quadriceps of your thighs, the hamstring (back of the leg), calf muscles, and abdominals.

If you exercise on an upright bike, you even use more of the upper-body muscles than exercising on a recumbent bike. This is because your trunk is given the responsibility of stabilizing the body compared to your legs.

How to Add Intensity?

The very act of pedaling on a stationary bike helps you become stronger and healthier. But, it is always possible to improve our exercising levels by increasing the intensity rate.

The best way to add intensity is to pedal faster, and the second-best way is by increasing resistance levels (source). This is simple as most models have a console that helps you increase/decrease resistance levels with a button’s touch.

Some even let you do interval training, switching between high and low resistance levels now and then mimicking the act of climbing a mountain.

Final Words

A stationary bike is not only a good piece of equipment for improving lower body fitness but a good machine for elevating overall fitness levels.

Don’t miss the chance of strengthening your heart and lungs, too, as this machine helps you achieve cardiovascular benefits and even reduces the risk of illnesses such as Parkinson’s and diabetes.

Use the bike regularly and experience all these benefits right in front of your eyes with every passing week.

References:

  1. https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/stationary-bike-workout
  2. https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities
  3. https://www.nordictrack.co.uk/learn/main-muscle-groups-used-exercise-bike-workout/
  4. https://www.livestrong.com/article/429718-exercise-bikes-good-toning-legs/

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