When I'm on an exercise bike, I find that the first ten minutes are by far the toughest. When I go on the bike, I alternate between cycling fast and then even faster at regular intervals. In the first ten minutes, I'm out of breath and if I haven't been on the bike for a while, I'm unable to get through this initial ten minute period. But if I can get past that, my breathing settles down and it becomes much easier. Why is that? This evening I was on the bike for 45 minutes. When I came off my heart rate was high, I was dripping sweat, my legs ached, I was saddle sore but I wasn't really out of breath. What is that makes that first ten minutes so much harder than the rest?
All sorts of technical reasons but most likely lazyitus. The leg muscles are big, are designed to walk, not cycle. Your body doesn't really want to get fired up if it doesn't have too. Try doing something dynamic before going on the bike. Dynamic stretching is important anyway but also try a little bit of dad dancing or anything that slowly warms you up and loosens you up too.
A random question, when you go on the exercise bike, how long are you warming up / spinning? When you start how long does it take before you get in to full intensity?
To be honest, I don't warm up (which is probably bad). I just get on the bike and go straight into it. I do it in three minute intervals where I do two minutes fast followed by a one minute burst which I then immediately repeat and keep going from there (so two minutes fast, one minute burst, two minutes fast, one minute burst etc...) I went on tonight and the most difficult part was at around the six minute mark where my legs felt heavy and I was out of breath. By that point, I was thinking that I'd probably be able to do six intervals i.e. 18 minutes. After that initial struggle, I was able to control my breathing and ended up doing 15 intervals so I was on the bike for 45 minutes. It pretty much typified what I mentioned in the original post.
I find it takes me about 10 minutes to get into it too, I like to sit on the bike and spend a few minutes on really low resistance while I set up my TV/music then fire up slowly, once the heart rate is up I reset the timer and my workout starts there
During quarantine, I decided to buy myself a few exercise machines. In fact, at first it was hard to do it, but then everything went back to normal. Now every morning I go down to my basement and train.
In September, I started using the exercise bike again after several weeks off. I was able to build up to setting a personal best of 75 minutes alternating regularly between fast and even faster intervals. Yesterday, I went back on the bike for the first in nearly six weeks, focussing on those same intervals but I had to come off after only six minutes. My legs felt like lead and I was wheezing. This didn't really bother me because the first ten minutes are by and away the hardest anyway and, with perseverance, I'll be able to do 45 minutes without too much fuss like I've done before. But (and sorry for the unpleasant physical detail) I was coughing a bit today and brought up some phlegm. My first assumption was that I've got a cold which I probably had when I went on the bike yesterday or could it actually be a reaction to going on the bike again?
Just five days later, I was able to spend 30 minutes on the bike alternating regularly between fast and even faster intervals. It's amazing how the body adapts.
I had the same thing where I was feeling bad the first 10 or so minutes then kind of mediocre after. What helped me was doing something to really get my heart rate up before I start. Jumping jacks, jump squats, half burpees, whatever works for you. Then my pace became naturally faster and it felt a lot better.
The first 10 minutes are definitely the hardest. It's as though my lungs need that time to catch up with my legs.
I never used to warm up until I discovered this by accident, and it was really a big improvement for me. Try it out! My theory is that as you get older warming up becomes more useful, because I know that my body didn't work this way 15 years ago.
Hello again. Just to let you know that tonight I was planning to go on my exercise bike but by the time it got to 10pm, the idea of stripping down to my T-shirt and shorts in my cold flat and going straight on the bike didn't really appeal to me all that much! I decided to do some upper body exercises as a possible warm-up to see if I could use that to motivate myself to go on the bike. I was under the (probably false) impression that leg exercises would weaken my legs before going on the bike. After the upper body warm-up, I went on the bike and I was able to spend 48 minutes alternating regularly between fast and even faster intervals. This time last week, I was lying on my bed coughing and wheezing after only managing to do 6 minutes!
