Lifecycle for fat burning

[Rainbows]

Hi all, I was wondering your opinions on using the lifecycle (the one where you sit down) as far as exercise for fatburning? I recently suffered an ankle injury and this seems to be one of the only low-impact options.

thanks


*edit:

found this
"HIIT THE FAT!

High intensity interval training, known as HIIT for short, is the technique of alternating short (usually 30-60 second) periods of very high intensity cardio with short periods of low to moderate intensity. HIIT Workouts generally last only 15-25 minutes, total.

HIIT has received a lot of press lately as being superior to steady state exercise. In some ways, it IS superior: HIIT burns a lot of calories during the workout, but where it really shines is after the workout. Your metabolic rate stays elevated longer after the workout is over than steady state, low intensity cardio.

Here's an example of an ascending 21 minute HIIT workout on the Lifecycle stationary bike:

Level 3: 5 minutes (warmup)
Level 5: 1 minute (work interval)
Level 4: 1 minute (recovery interval)
Level 6: 1 minute (work interval)
Level 4: 1 minute (recovery interval)
Level 7: 1 minute (work interval)
Level 4: 1 minute (recovery interval)
Level 8: 1 minute (work interval)
Level 4: 1 minute (recovery interval)
Level 9: 1 minute (work interval)
Level 4: 1 minute (recovery interval)
Level 10: 1 minute (work interval - maxed out)
Level 3: 5 minutes (cool down)

This is just an example of course; you'll need to adjust the workout based on your fitness level. You can adjust the duration of the intervals, the number of intervals performed and the difficulty level. You can perform similar workouts on almost any piece of cardio equipment.

HIIT is often touted as a superior fat burning method, but it really depends what you’re comparing it to. When compared to low intensity, long duration cardio (as it frequently is), HIIT wins hands down. Low intensity cardio like casual walking is never the best way to lose fat, except for beginners who are not physically prepared for high intensity yet.

If your intensity is moderate to moderately high and held steady for a long duration (30-45 min), then you’re likely to burn more fat with this approach than you would in a 15-20 minute HIIT workout. (Post workout calorie expenditure is relative to exercise intensity AND duration). However, if the intensity is high enough, you can get a very time efficient workout in a relatively short period of time using HIIT.

HIIT works, but it's not a panacea. What's most important for fat loss is that you burn a lot of calories with moderate to high intensity cardio. My best advice is to use BOTH forms of cardio training, leaning towards HIIT when you're short on time or when you’ve plateau’d on moderate, long duration cardio for a long period. Remember, your body adapts to everything."

 

[Sassy69]

If you are limited by what you can do, then do what you can. HIIT is the best return on investment for cardio. But back to your injury - its more important that you let that heal fully - joint injuries have a nasty way of never really healing fully so don't sacrifice that for "fat burning" -- diet can help and if you can keep active w/ the bike, great! Then when you do get to the point of full recovery then move back to other forms of cardio to accommodate the "your body adapted to the bike cardio" thing.

 

[Ghede]

what sassy said...

Yes, the recumbent bike is the most low impact machine you can use for cardio in a standard gym, so you intuition on that is right on... HIIT however might be an issue with the clearly maximal strains you put on your joints whilst hammering the hard end of the interval...

I would suggest LSD training for the duration of your recovery... until you feel like its a good time to step it up... if that time is NOW, disregard rec.

 

[Rainbows]

thanks for the input guys, I'm pretty bummed now. I have been getting my running mileage up there but I transitioned from an area that had a soft-trail to an area that is paved. So, i think i hurt it doing this running on a harder surface.

 

[Sassy69]

thanks for the input guys, I'm pretty bummed now. I have been getting my running mileage up there but I transitioned from an area that had a soft-trail to an area that is paved. So, i think i hurt it doing this running on a harder surface.

I feel ya - just when you get things going ... BAM! For comparison, I was targeting 2 BB shows in July as one has been my nemesis since 2000 and the other is a national show I qualified for last yr. Hitting some crazy new PRs this last month, cutting is going great, ended up bailing on them. Partly because my current job hunting is taking precedence but also because as a direct result of my PRs, I managed to really aggravate the shit out of some pre-existing rotator cuff issues, thus causign my whole upper back to lock up in one gigantic muscle spasm -- all of a sudden 5 lb cable work hurts, or if it doesn't hurt, it immediately causes my upper back to lock up again. Result: sassy doing a lot more cardio these days, zero lifting and exploring new & different ways to train going forward.

One thing about fitness -- its one thing to have a path laid out for you with your envisioned progress points, but its always changing - rarely does progress come w/o some cost somewhere. And sometimes payment time comes when you were lookign forward to some nice little progress windfalls. I am thinking particularly of Jenscats & her messed up ACL... All you can do is evaluate what needs to be done to accommodate the most rapid path to recovery and not get hung up in "what could've been" - as that mindset will see you "trying" to do things that may actually aggravate the current injury and set you back that much further to full recovery and then back on your original path again. Sometimes you just have to step back some in order to move forward.

And I do speak from experience in that the hardest thing to do is to do nothing.... aka Hurry Up & Wait.

But that may also give you a chance to look at your diet as your tool to fat loss instead of the cardio. Have you tried carb cycling or any other fatloss oriented diet manipulations?

 

[Rainbows]

I feel ya - just when you get things going ... BAM! For comparison, I was targeting 2 BB shows in July as one has been my nemesis since 2000 and the other is a national show I qualified for last yr. Hitting some crazy new PRs this last month, cutting is going great, ended up bailing on them. Partly because my current job hunting is taking precedence but also because as a direct result of my PRs, I managed to really aggravate the shit out of some pre-existing rotator cuff issues, thus causign my whole upper back to lock up in one gigantic muscle spasm -- all of a sudden 5 lb cable work hurts, or if it doesn't hurt, it immediately causes my upper back to lock up again. Result: sassy doing a lot more cardio these days, zero lifting and exploring new & different ways to train going forward.

One thing about fitness -- its one thing to have a path laid out for you with your envisioned progress points, but its always changing - rarely does progress come w/o some cost somewhere. And sometimes payment time comes when you were lookign forward to some nice little progress windfalls. I am thinking particularly of Jenscats & her messed up ACL... All you can do is evaluate what needs to be done to accommodate the most rapid path to recovery and not get hung up in "what could've been" - as that mindset will see you "trying" to do things that may actually aggravate the current injury and set you back that much further to full recovery and then back on your original path again. Sometimes you just have to step back some in order to move forward.

And I do speak from experience in that the hardest thing to do is to do nothing.... aka Hurry Up & Wait.

But that may also give you a chance to look at your diet as your tool to fat loss instead of the cardio. Have you tried carb cycling or any other fatloss oriented diet manipulations?

thanks for sharing your story. I can barely do flat benches because I also had a rotator cuff issue--it took 2 years for me to be able to do a lowly 225 bench again, but I use inclines now and all is well.

As for fat loss, I do actually do modified TKD diet where I have carbs after my weight training and on the weekends, been losing 2lbs a week steadily during my running-able phase. This week will be my first attempt at using some other cardio, so I'll cross my fingers.