Electric bikes (ebikes) offer a very wide range of benefits so allowing you to travel further as well as faster, offering a green alternative for commuting in addition to enabling more people in order to experience the joy of cycling. However, with a motor and battery offering assistance while you pedal, can you get fit on an ebike and get a great workout?
With a lot of different aspects of cycling apparently focused on performance gains, ebikes are often met with scepticism for giving a helping hand on hills or a sweat-free ride to work. However, riding an ebike can still improve your fitness.
Research About EBike Workouts
Researchers who are from Brigham Young University recruited 33 subjects, mostly men between the ages of 18 as well as 65, to ride both regular mountain bikes in addition to electric, pedal-assist mountain bikes on a rolling six-mile, single-track course. Afterward, they evaluated their heart rates and found that riding an e-bike is not without effort. In fact, it necessitates almost as much physical exertion as riding a traditional mountain bike does.
Riding both finds of bikes put the vast majority of participants in the vigorous-intensity heart rate zone. The typical heart rate of a test subject who rode an ebike was 93.6% of those riding conventional bikes. Moreover, ebikes appear to be an excellent form of aerobic or cardiovascular workouts, even for experienced mountain bikers who regularly engage in this fitness activity.
In addition, the researchers surveyed their test subjects, both before as well as after riding, in order to determine their attitudes toward ebikes. Some reported their preconceived notions were confirmed, while others admitted the experiment challenged their beliefs. Most were positive toward ebikes before the test, with only 18% saying they were opposed. Some attitudes changed, though, with fewer participants willing to admit after the test that e-bikes were just a passing fad.
How Many Calories Are Burned With An EBike Workout?
While there is no doubt that traditional bikes burn more calories, ebikes are not too bad. Just 20% fewer calories are burnt. The continuous utilisation of ebikes results in the considerable burning of calories which results in significant weight loss in addition to greater muscle strength.
Ebikes strengthen our core muscles. As they are much heavier as opposed to normal bikes – and hence require more effort in order to balance and manoeuvre, they give the result of the weight training exercise. Likewise, as one moves an e-bike in or out of garage or lift it requires great strength. Unquestionably, ebikes give us great weight training sessions.
Well, it is human nature that people usually try doing such physical things, which have a “less strain on human muscle” or – in other words – those tasks which offer “less fatigue”. Same is the concept between simple pedalled bikes and ebikes. As ebikes are somewhat assisted by a motor, therefore it is fairly easy to ride an ebike as opposed to a conventional bike.
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