Exercise bike vs walking, weight loss is the concern

The exercise bike or walking, both are effective ways of low-impact workout for losing weight and staying fit and healthy.

If you want to maintain a healthy weight and improve your cardiovascular health, both of these activities are perfect and the two most popular aerobic workout activities. You can do both cycling and walk, indoors and outdoors, which also makes them accessible in all weather conditions.

However, which activity suits you best, can be decided according to a few factors.

Exercise bike vs walking:

Cost and maintenance:

At first, the difference we will discuss is the cost. Obviously, you can already guess, cycling requires a bike, while for walking you only need a pair of appropriate shoes.

The best exercise bike to lose weight is an expensive purchase, even the entry-level ones are ranged from a few hundred bucks to thousands of dollars for high-end, advanced ones.

The stationary bikes also come with an additional cost for maintenance. While walking does not require any extra cost for maintenance at all. You can easily start to walk today using the clothes you have on your wardrobe and with a good pair of shoes. Even though we do not approve of that we recommend you to find yourself a good pair of walking shoes if you are up for it.

Which one burns more calories?

First of all, keep in mind that, how many calories you will be burning through both working out on the exercise bike and walking depends on your body weight, workout intensity, and workout duration.

Below, we have created a chart for a 150-pound person to make you better understand.

Intensity	Biking	Walking
Light	240 calories per hour	154 calories per hour
Moderate	285 calories per hour	179 calories per hour
High	357 calories per hour	250 calories per hour

According to research, a 155 person can burn 596 calories per hour by exercising on an exercise bike, while using the same amount of time, this same person can burn up to 298 calories. As we have mentioned earlier, the amount of calories you burn depends on your intensity, speed, and duration, while you can increase the intensity on an exercise bike by adding resistance, which means you are getting the maximum amount of calorie burn while using the exercise bike.

Which one burns more fat?

According to a study, walking increases the fat metabolism than riding a stationary bike and burns more fat.

Which one is better for weight loss?

We hope you know that weight loss requires you to burn calories and fat. According to our above discussion, you might have already known that working out on the exercise bike helps you burn more calories and fat than walking for the same amount of time, which means, if you are looking for a way to lose weight faster, cycling can the best option for you.

If you want our opinion, then we would recommend you to choose walking and enjoy your workout activity by slowly reaching toward your goal, without rushing for success.

Which one is best in case you are short on time?

If your goal is to burn calories faster and to lose weight quickly or build muscles in a short time, working out on the exercise bike can be the right choice for you.

Role of weather:

If you love walking outdoor, weather can have a huge impact on your workout. Yes, it can get too hot or rainy, windy, or maybe snowy, all of these can jeopardize your walk, while in this regard, you can simply work out on the exercise bike at the ease of your home.

Effects on legs:

Walking is a weight-bearing or load-bearing activity, which builds stronger bones, and lowers your risk of developing osteoporosis. While working out on an exercise bike does not put any weight on your legs, they use your muscles, which makes them less preventive of osteoporosis, however, the recumbent exercise bike does protect your knees and joints.

Which one is better for muscles?

Both cycling on the exercise bike and walking use many of the same muscles such as the gluteal muscles of the hip and hamstrings to keep you moving. These muscles increase their activation when you increase your speed, especially when you pedal by standing up and walking uphill or upstairs.

The quadriceps muscles work out better while cycling compared to walking, but calf muscles are involved in both riding a bike and walking.

Even though both activities work out almost the same muscles, riding an exercise bike requires the muscles to work out harder to exert more force.

Which one helps to build more strength?

According to a study, riding the exercise bike increases strength and muscle hypertrophy. The rate of gaining more strength through cycling is greater in older adults, even though younger adults can achieve the same at a high intensity.

Which one is better for injuries? Exercise bike vs walking?

Injuries can make your workout difficult. However, it is important to stay active even while you are injured to stay fit and healthy.

A study showed that cyclists have a high chance of low back pain, as they stay in a flexed trunk position for a prolonged time. However, according to another study, walking reduces chronic back pain and disability.

Both working out on the exercise bike and walking ease the pain associated with knee osteoarthritis, and are a great option for joint pain due to arthritis.

To be honest, if you experience pain during walking then go for cycling and if you find bending of cycling more painful, then walking can be your better alternative. However, the wisest decision is to consult a health professional in this regard.

The difference in workout variation:

On the exercise bike, you can increase speed and resistance as you want. Some stationary bikes also allow you to experience real road riding, including uphill simulations from the ease of your home. But if yours, does not offer that variety, you may find your exercise bike boring. While walking allows you to spend time outdoors with nature, and trail different scenic views. And of course, does nature bores you?

Which one should you choose, exercise bike or walking?

If you want to lose weight in less time or enjoy a faster pace, the exercise bike can be a great start for you. However, if you like to take things slow, and believe in slow and steady wins the race, you can go for walking without a second thought.

Exercise bike vs walking? Which one is better in terms of health benefits?

Walking and cycling on the exercise bike both offer different health benefits, including improving blood pressure, circulating blood flow throughout your muscles, and also allowing the heart to pump more blood to the cells thus increasing heart rate.

However, according to research, walking regularly can reduce your blood pressure, improve your heart resting heart rate, reduce body fat, body mass index, cholesterol, and depression. While, another research shows that, working out on the exercise bike also offers the same benefits as well as reduces the likelihood of premature death from all-natural causes by 41% over the five years of follow-up.

Again walking can put pressure on your joints and legs, while you are not being affected by this if you prefer the exercise bike. If you suffer from any lower limb joint or muscles injuries or recovering from injuries, working out on stationary bikes have fewer negative effects than walking.

Both working out exercise bike and walking offers an excellent aerobic and low impact workout. To be honest, it’s not about exercise bike vs walking, it is about what you find comfortable and enjoyable. You can try both and see which one benefits your more and go for it. Let us know your thoughts on exercise bike vs walking and which one suits you best? Or are you an exercise bike person or a walking kind of person?