The change to indoor exercise

Last week was a really cold week up here in Calgary. I rode to work once and the temperature other than that has been dropping to around -20 which is a bit too cold for me. I hummed and hawed about my exercise and even though I should transition immediately to indoor training I was a little slow. Last night I finally worked out indoors.

I got home from work, changed into shorts and popped in a DVD of the Survivorman TV show. I hit the exercise bike for 26 minutes and then my elliptical trainer for another few minutes and then relished the fact that my indoor workout was a great way to keep myself in shape.

Even though I ride my bike almost everyday from about March to October or November I really am not sure how good that workout is. I try to ride quickly but the breeze and the fact that I am moving stops the sweat from really building up on my skin and clothes so it is really hard to judge the workout.

When you are training indoors you can definitely feel how hard you are working out. Last night when I was on the exercise bike I could really feel how hard I was working and my next workout on the elliptical trainer will be a lot more difficult in that it will work my arms well. After having a few workouts indoors I am sure that my body will be sore again. Everytime that you change you workout you get sore because you are working the muscles differently then you did before.

Of course when I wrote the last articles about this subject I talked a lot about the weights in my basement and how you need to have those too. The strength training that you do will add a lot of calories burned, mix up your workouts and actually help you lose fat. Did you know that a pound of extra muscle that you put on will force your body to burn an extra 50 calories a day? This can add up really quickly.

What do you think? Are your workouts tough enough? Are you working out indoors or hoping to just wait until spring comes back?

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Tags: calgary, elliptical trainer, exercise bike, muscles, survivorman, sweat, working out, workout, workouts

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One Response to “The change to indoor exercise”

Supplements Canada says:

December 2, 2007 at 6:38 pm

Don’t get me wrong, I love going for bike rides outside and getting my cardio under the sun, but in general I prefer to do my cardio indoors. Not because I love the artificial light or the sweaty guy next to me on the piece of cardio, but because you can have more control.

Just like you said above, a nice thing with using cardio equipment is you can really push yourself that much harder because you can provide yourself with the exact challenge ie. level 5, level 7, or even level 10. Sometimes when you are running or biking outside, while you may be working out hard, you never know exactly what level you are going at. I suppose if you were to have a heart rate monitor that would help.

In the end, I find the toughest workouts are the ones where based on the numbers I push on the bike or treadmill, I am committed to doing that program until it is done.