How To Keep Your Indoor Cycling Workouts Interesting

Cycling can be excellent exercise as it requires the use of your legs, core, and even arms. Plus, when winter comes, you can move your cycling habit indoors and keep up with your routine on a stationary bike. However, pedaling away in your living room or basement is not quite as entertaining as cycling down the street or along a bike path. If you're going to keep cycling indoors all winter, you'll have to find ways to keep it interesting. Here are a few ideas.

Set up a challenge with friends.

Do you have any friends who also have stationary bikes and are riding through the winter? Consider setting up a challenge. You could see, for example, which one of you can cycle the most miles in a month. Or you could challenge each other to see who squeezes in the most workouts in the month. Make a small bet to keep yourselves motivated. For instance, the loser has to take the winner out to a healthy dinner when the challenge is over.

Do some interval training to music.

When you're cycling, it's easy to just fall into a rhythm and pedal away at the same speed for a half hour. This gets boring, and it's also not the most efficient way to build your fitness. To keep motivated, try making a playlist that alternates between really slow songs and really fast, upbeat ones. Push it through the hard songs, and then pedal slowly to recover through the slow songs. Both the intervals and the good music will make your cycling sessions more interesting.

Adjust your handlebars and seat height.

Every few workouts, try changing up your handlebar height or seat height a little. It's amazing what a difference lowering or elevating your seat just an inch can make. You'll be working different muscles and feeling the burn in a whole new way! Elevating the seat a little makes you work the fronts of your legs more, and lowering the seat makes you work the backs of your legs. In all of this experimenting, not only will you keep things interesting, but you'll more concretely arrive at the best adjustments for you.

If you follow the tips above, you can make your cycling workouts more interesting and stay motivated while working out indoors. Before long, spring will be here, and you can transition back into outdoor cycling again if preferred.

For more information about indoor cycling, contact a company like Plan 7 Coaching.