Brief Background:
Started 1/26/2004
Height 73 inch
Weight: 225
Mesomorph body type
Most of my fat concentrated in gut :eek:
Age 33
Lifestyle: Desk Job [computers] some moving around during day.

I got the diet under control by logging it in www.fitday.com great site.
Was doing like 3200 calories and 50% fat. Yuck. Now I'm on 2000-2100 with pretty close to 40 prot / 40 carb / 20 fat split. No junk food, no soda no cheating.

Now the problem is I have a recumbant bike and it's equipped with two user programs that do either 60% heart rate or 85% heart rate based on the age you enter. [It has the usual other programs as well]

On monday I did 30 minutes at 60% which puts the heart rate at 112. I felt like I did nothing. Not even sweat on the brow. I could feel a little in the legs but not even close to a burn.

On Tuesday I did 5 minutes at 60% / 112 then 10 minutes with the age set to 20 at 60% /120 then 5 minutes at 60% /112 still not even breaking a sweat.

I swear I could smoke a cigarette sitting there. [Yeah I'm working on that next.] I get a better work out at band practice. 3 hours of rocking out on guitar standing and jumping around with my fool friends.

Question: Should I increase duration or step up to the 85%/158 program. If so how long should I go 85%/158 as a rule of thumb? Considering I'll keep the 5 minute 60%/112 warm up and cool downs. Maybe fool with the age setting and try hitting 135 or something? I'm not ready for HIIT yet as this is the first week but I don't feel like I'm really doing anything. I don't want my wife to find me dead on the exercise machine but I could do the 60% program at my age setting for hours.

Other info: Had an EKG, EchoCardiogram, Exercise Stress test a couple of months ago. Just part of getting older and being safe. On the exercise test my resting rate was 90, I got up to 120 very fast, hung out in the 150-160 range most of the test with mild out of breath but still able to talk fine. Hit up to 200 BPM [yeah wow] - Doc wanted to "see what would happen" no shit. Did that for a few minutes on an incline treadmill. Could still talk but defniitely feeling the strain in my legs and was getting out of breath. Worked up a pretty good sweat but was not drenched. Test was about 15 minutes. Diffculty increased every two minutes or so. Blood Pressure fine. Cholesterol a touch high but still below 200. :confused:

Doc said all test A-OK. "Stop freaking out and start exercising - and quit somking."

From the sounds of it, I would recommend investing in some better equipment or joining a gym. I know it can be on the expensive side, but think of it as a long term investment. After all, if you're serious about getting in shape, you should be willing to shell out a few dollars to improve your training.

If you get better exercise on your doctor's treadmill than on your bike at home, then that's a good indicator of the need for better equipment. Anyways, keep pluggin and good luck!

I think my routine is more the problem. Of course if my bike sucks I will be pissed because it just cost $350 bucks. It is a magnetic resistance recumbant with 8 pre-programs and 2 user definable based on target heart rate. I can of course just use the heart rate monitor and make up something myself. That's what I need help with. I think I got a better exercise at the doctor because he was pushing me to max to see where I would be gasping.

From the sounds of it, I would recommend investing in some better equipment or joining a gym. I know it can be on the expensive side, but think of it as a long term investment. After all, if you're serious about getting in shape, you should be willing to shell out a few dollars to improve your training.

If you get better exercise on your doctor's treadmill than on your bike at home, then that's a good indicator of the need for better equipment. Anyways, keep pluggin and good luck!

Wanna give a jumprope a try???

I've compared through my heartrate monitor I can get withing 10bpms on my max heart rate and It's alot of fun.... (at least for me).

I run sometimes, jumprope, or use the bike and the bike is the least effective taking like 20 mins just to start breaking a sweat but it still does the job If I try harder and do it for a little longer then I do the other two exercises.

Yes it's the routine not the bike, bike sounds fine and we don't all want to, can afford to to go a gym 5 times a week.

Does your bike have pulse sensors for taking heart rate? i assume it must. Personally i prefer to work on a certain speed and check my heart rate, rather than trust a machine calculations based on weight and age etc. My bike will do lots of funky stuff but i just want it to take my bpm every now and then and tell me what speed i'm at and on which resistance setting.

I personally work out at 160bpm, which on the lowest resistance setting is 82-84 rpm. I'm 190lb, 25 and just started up again after over a year of inactivity, so those settings are probably a bit high for you, technically they're a bit high for me too, just above the recomended intensity for my age, but i go with what works for me.

I'd worry less about what the machine tells you and go with what's best for you, you shouldn't be getting out of breath really but you should be working up a sweat, once you find what you think is a decent speed, check your heart rate, if it's within recomended range, or close enough, go with it, your machine should have an "on" setting where you don't need to preprogram anything.

Hmm? Why do you keep doing something that doesn't feel like a workout? Try out the settings to find out what suits best for you, but your heart rate should be, as far as I know, 120-130+ consistently for at least some 15-20 mins, half an hour is a good target for one day. I don't really pay attention to my heart rate, but for non-HIIT -workout, there's a good rule: You need to be doing enough to be sweating throughout the workout, but you should be able to have a conversation with someone while working out. If you can't comfortably do that, you're working too hard for normal cardio.

Listen to your body, not the machine ;)

Fire up a good hard workout...I used to run on the Eliptical and not break a sweat, till I upped the resistence, and starting pushing myself. I second the "listen to your body" theory.
J

Thanks for the tips. I was upped the duration and the intensity today and got a sweat going.

I did 5 minutes at 60%/112

29 minutes at 120-130

1 minute mini HIIT at the end with max effort got up to the 140s

5 minute cooldown at 60%/112

I'll do that for a week more to pre-condition myself for a harder routine.

By the way is there a point or benchmark where you can say that you've trained regular cardio enough to prepare for doing HIIT?

Personally, I've found the bike to be by far the least effective workout. I prefer those ellipticals crosstrainer things that are like running but no impact. Stair climbers are pretty descent too (or just running the stairs. If you live in an apartment use the stairs, wicked workout). A good run is also quite a good workout if you have the knees for it.

Chris

I can personally testify to the effectiveness of jumping rope. Builds stamina, endurance, cardio and burns off lots of calories. What more can you ask for? If I remember right, 1 min of jump rope is equal to 3 min of running (I think that's how it went)

They only cost like 20 bucks, and it will give you a solid workout.