Back in November I made a commitment to improve my fitness. The Thanksgiving resolution – year 3. Fortunately, this year I have had no significant injuries and I have continued my resolution all year. April and May were a bit down due to excessive travel, but this month I have rebounded and probably have my most successful exercise month in history! I attribute my success to an addiction to The Expresso Bike. Early in June, after golf I went to my local YMCA to work out. I saw this bike and decided what the heck – time for something different than the elliptical machine.
The Expresso Bike allows one to register and connect to the internet so that one can store workout data. Each day you can work to improve our time, power, calories etc. on a variety of interesting bike rides. You have an LCD screen with simulated courses ranging from 1 mile to 20 miles. Most courses have elevation changes, and as you ride the bike, the pedaling resistance adjust for the slope (up or down.) You have 30 gears to choose amongst.
This month (I started June 6) I have these results:
Miles:333.45
Time:0d 20h 4m
Calories:14225
Yesterday, for example, I pedaled almost 19 miles in 65 minutes, burning almost 900 calories.
If one reads about practicing any skill, feedback is important. Each day on the bike I am competing with myself, trying to improve. The Expresso web site provides data that enables you to chart your progress. I know my speed on each course in the past, and even can race the “ghost” of my previous best ride on that course to gauge my progress.
This exercise bike pushes my competitive buttons. I look forward to competing each day.
So, I believe that I will last the entire year, and not need to do another Thanksgiving challenge, because I will just be continuing my continued commitment to exercise. I have a resting heart rate of 56, not bad when your resting heart rate is less than your age.
As a physician, I believe that I have a responsibility to embrace a healthy lifestyle. I believe my exercise obsession helps my health and provides a good role model for my students and residents. Perhaps I can even challenge you, my readers, to enhance your exercise program.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
It is great to see that I am not alone in my obsession. I have been downloading and tracking my workouts and heart rate data via a polar heat rate monitor for nearly 10 years now. With the added feedback of power output in watts provided by these bikes I am now understanding more about the interplay between the body’s two energy systems, the aerobic and anaerobic systems. I now have data to support my belief that nearly all physical ailments are only, symptoms or rather reflections of energy system imbalances. Our bodies are human vehicles for the spirit and the mind to move, live and learn in this world of ours. Our machines are either running too rich or too lean. Rich running machines will accumulate excess body fat because this richness is actually excess acids continually circulating in “The System”. These acids must be stored in the body as fatty acids or else the acidity will break down other parts of “The System” over time.(chronic disease) Lean running machines will actually appear lean but may need to be challenged to store more sugars to compliment the mixture of O2 uptake. These lean running machines already burn body fat well at lower exercise intensities and that is why they are lean. A rich running machine is accumulating acids, thus diabetic acidosis is becoming more and more common with our youth that are less and less active and are eating and drinking more refined sugars. Lactic acid has a ph of 2.5 , soda pop has a ph of 2.8 and thus a daily workout is the stimulus the body needs to regulate and balance excessive sugar intake due to physical and mental cravings for excess sweets! Yes I like sugar, but at times, when I’m out of balance I will fast as part of re balancing my energy systems or I will drain my system of sugars like I did this weekend by riding 130 miles on Saturday and racing in a time trial the next day with only 4 hours of sleep due to the logistical turnaround with the intent to push to the very edge of failure. I succeeded on both counts and made it to the top of the 23 mile 3900 foot climb in under 2 hours. I may have failed to win the race but I did accomplish the mission of tasking my body to deal with sugars or lack of them better. No slave can serve two masters, master your body and better able to serve others, you will be! The race I want to win is the “human race”. I want to cross the line last with as many friends as I can find along the way!
Have you bought a bike? Any recommendations?
Hi Matt.
I have not purchased a bike yet but I plan to have a studio full of these bikes in the future. For now I use one of two that just showed up at the Anytime Fitness club last January. I signed up to use the $10/ month service to race against other rider’s ghosts in the global system. This has helped me learn more about other rider’s use of their energy systems and management of power over different courses. I would recommend you click on the link in Dr. Bob’s article that takes you to the Expresso Fitness home page. Then click on the “find a bike near you”link at the bottom of that page in the Customer Stories section. If you can find a bike near you it could be a good way to test one out before you spend the $5000 or so for one of your own. I hope to promote these bikes in the future and work for you, the consumer, to get you the best price possible. If you have other questions just send me an e-mail at cardiosystems@gmail.com You can also follow my daily updates on twitter as JoeCardio.
Thanks,
Joe
I’m glad to hear you branched out from the elliciptal machine!
When I was getting my teeth cleaned the hygenist was telling me about her triathalon training. She’s got the Nike i-chip device. It fits in your shoe and talks to your iPod nano and then you can load it all to an internet site where you get little flashing stars when you hit milestones. It’s got her psyched!
I’ve had a number of exercise things at home and have come to the conclusion it’s better to use the ones at the gym. Then they have to fool with keeping it working. The machines are expensive and bulky and extremely hard for a homeowner to get rid of once they’re broken.
If you’re at the “Y” have you considered a spin class? They can be a change of pace in your program. You won’t get the feedback on those machines but it’s something different.
Wow, coolest bike I have ever seen! I go on Sundays for bike rides because there is less traffic, but am still afraid to get “touched” by cars. I wonder when “virtual experiences” such as with a google earth course will be possibile and affordable for people living in the city.
Way to go doc. I keep my own jogging log on my blog. I average about 60 miles of running/walking a month. I’ve probably worked off the equivalent of 75K calories or more.
This really is one of the most impressive pieces of exercise equipment around. I included it in an article about hi-tech exercise equipment on ObsessionFitness.com (note the irony in the site name and your article title.)
If you’d like to read the article click my name above or paste this link: http://obsessionfitness.com/its-not-all-about-wii-fit-hi-tech-endorphin-pumpers-that-make-fitness-fun/
The truth about weight loss is that, none of the quick fixes work for it. It starts with a firm determination that you want to lead a healthy and active lifestyle. Once you achieve that mindset, the rest of the journey becomes very easy. We first need to plan with a sound mind what our objectives in life are and why do we want to loose weight. Once we decide to do it, it helps a lot to read weight loss motivating articles.
{ 1 trackback }