Going With an Exercise Bike or Elliptical Machine
For home work out and mainly to lose weight, people in general buy exercise machines. Thus, it is perfectly logical to first establish the kind of machine that is the most adequate one for your weight loss objective before you actually purchase an elliptical machine or an exercise bike.
Keep in mind that stationary bikes mainly target the lower body, predominantly using the abdominal muscles, the quadriceps and hamstrings. Several health and fitness individuals and associations stated that the average calorie burn rate of stationary bikes is between 100 and 300 calories/hour. However, the actual rate is greatly influenced by the intensity and resistance level used throughout the exercise.
On the other hand, elliptical machines target more muscles groups and thus, work on the entire body. A standard exercise on an elliptical machine uses the back, shoulders, abdominal muscles, obliques, the arms and legs. As a result, the workout on such a machine will help you burn a minimum of 300 calories/hours of exercise.
Compared to an exercise bike, the elliptical machine offers a higher calorie burn rate because of the usage of more muscles group and of the core strengthening properties. However, keep in mind that even if people consider that they will burn more calories and will lose more weight with the use of an elliptical machine that is not always true. You will burn more calories and lose more weight only if there is sufficient intensity and resistance during the exercise along with appropriate heart beat monitoring for successful weight loss. Results will appear if the workouts are consistently performed over a longer period of time.
We can all agree that exercise bikes and elliptical machines build lung capacity, aerobic fitness and burn calories. Both machines have their own advantages and disadvantages as well. Actually, you can buy any of the machines, as long as you enjoy working on them and offers you enough motivation to regularly exercise.
Briefly, exercise bikes offer low impact exercises and are great for people with knee and back problems. However, they mainly target the lower body, burns fewer calories and it can be boring moving only the legs.
Elliptical machines are fun to exercise on and targets more muscles. They are not suited for those with knee and back problems, while others might have difficulties in mastering the movement.
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