stationary bikes and treadmills

Treadmills are fairly accurate, however there training value can be diseptive, due to lack of variation with the "training enviroment". Calori burn depending on the mill, and the information accuracy you put into the machine before starting is pretty good

A stationary bike with no computer. Thats a good one. Unless you can work out the revolutions per minute, convert that into distance, im not quite sure where to go from there, any one els know ?? the math for it is Speed x Time = Distance

The only thing to watch with the weight lifting is wether you are lifting for weight ie low reps max weight, or endurance ie low weigh max reps. If you are training fro Tri, go for low max reps. Well thats what I do, and its working for me !!!!!

Craig

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll have to give a rough estimate since I am not even going to try to count the times the wheel goes round. I have been using the old stationary bike because i believe it's the most accurate representation of a bike, those recumbent thingyies, elliptical trainers and the bikes that handles move just seem to depart from what I'll be doing in a triathlon, the downside is that they are old and their computers don't work.

About the distance on the stationary bike. I think the other two responses covered it but here it is more simple(or maybe not.)

1) Measure the diameter of the wheel in inches, multiply this by 3.141592.....this will give you the distance of 1 rev(in inches)
2) Count the amount of wheel revolutions(not coasting) that 10 pedal revolutions results in
3) After you warm up and get into your standard cadence count the amount of full pedal strokes you make per minute

To get your total distance.....
Take the number you got in divide by 12(inches/foot) then divide by 5280(foot/mile) multiply by answer from 2) divide by 10. Next, multiply this number by the answer from 3) then multiply by 60(minutes/hour). This will give you mile per hour. Multiply this mile per hour times the amount of hours you cycle for the distance. More simply do the following:

1) x 0.000094697 x 2) x 3) = speed in mph
multiply this by time(in hours) to get your distance

The numbers for my road bike 1) = ~86.6 inches / rev (700 mm wheel), 2) = 24 (depending on the gear) and 3) = ~90 so....I travel at 17.7 mph.

Because of the way that the exercise bicycles put resistance on, it may be difficult to correlate these calculations with equivilant road miles. (For example if you use the old style of bike with the belt resistance and have it cranked down, you may only be traveling 10 mph but it could be equivilant to traveling 10 mph up a 10 degree grade (steep hill).)

Good luck with your training.

Edited by clightle 2003-10-24 5:22 AM

another thing you could do is purchase a bicycle meter and install it on the bike.

You mentioned that you are riding an old style stationary bicycle at the gym because you were wanting the best simulation of an actual bicycle. Have you checked into bicycle trainers (some people call them turbos)? You can find some as cheap as $50-70 on ebay with about $20 shipping. They are basically a stand that you put your own bicycle in that provides resistence via wind, magnetic, fluid, or some type of friction. I use a trainer because I can fit it into my schedule pretty well because I don't have to travel anywhere to ride it and the outside weather doesn't matter. Another great benefit is that you have more time on the bicycle that you will actually be using, which allows you to set it up better. The only downfall that I see is that they are boring to ride unless you are watching a good movie or watching a traininer specific workout (spinervals).

Good Luck!!

I found the ones at my gym are WAY OFF compared to what my HRM says!!! Unless the tm is asking for age, weight, sex, height- it could be off. Compared to my HRM, the TM could be at times less than half what my HRM claims