subject: Biking For A New Body [print this page] Riding on an exercise bike may not be the way that you thought you would be able to start losing weight. There are a lot of people that discount the exercise bike and instead head for the treadmill or the elliptical.
Although there are pros and cons to all of the machines, you must remember the benefits that you can receive from the exercise bike. The next time that the elliptical machines and the treadmills are crowded head for an exercise bike.
First, you have to make sure that you take your warm up seriously. Because you are going to be sitting down your whole workout you want to make sure that the warm up you are taking part of will adequately stretch your muscles.
If you are not participating or pushing yourself in a warm up you may begin to notice that your muscles become more sore than usual. There are a lot of people that do not take their warm up seriously and suffer the consequences.
Taking the time to get to know your body and how much of a warm up you need is also necessary. You should start your warm up by stretching your muscles and pushing them to reach a new extension.
When you can push your muscles to new limits you will be able to really feel your stretches. Your stretching should not be comfortable when you are just beginning to extend your muscles and make them more flexible.
In the beginning you may not even enjoy the stretching that you are participating in. Pushing your muscles to those new limits can be painful in the beginning and it can also be frustrating to work at.
There are not a lot of people that are naturally just flexible. If you find that you are less flexible than you thought you were do not let yourself get discouraged but instead set some goals for yourself.
After you have stretched and gotten the blood flowing to your muscles you should then lightly work your muscles. The more blood flow that you can get to your muscles the better the workout can be.
As you are pushing your muscles to new limits on the exercise bike you want to make sure that they are adequately warmed up. If they are not warmed up you can easily strain, pull or otherwise injure the muscles.
When you have completed your warm up you should then participate in a structured workout. Each workout that you participate in should bring you closer to a goal that you had set for yourself.
Throughout the workout you want to make sure that you are staying on track. It is easy to slow down your pedaling or to lower the resistance of the machine without really giving the actions a second thought.
Although you do not want to over exert or injure yourself, you have to make sure that you stay on track. As you are pushing yourself to a new limit you will then be able to make great strides in the goals that you have set for yourself.
Taking the time to get to know your body is absolutely necessary. You should never be pushing yourself to the point where you are getting injured and you also want to make sure that you are never under achieving.
After you have finished your workout you will then want to participate in a cool down period. Many people forget about this period and step off of their bike to move onto another part of their workout.
Although it is not extremely detrimental if you do not participate in a cool down period it is something you should try to do. When you are cooling down you will be allowing your body to start the healing process.
Throughout a hard workout your muscles will start to tear microscopically. When they heal and rebuild that tissue they will start to get bigger and they will also start to get stronger.
Taking the time to allow your muscles to start to get stronger is something that can be very beneficial. If you know that you are not going to have time for a cool down period you can also make sure that you are eating a lot of protein.
When you are eating a lot of protein and you are not eating carbohydrates your muscles will begin to heal very quickly. You can get in a good workout by using the exercise bikes and if you incorporate these tips you can get yourself one step closer to the body you want.
