That’s a big question of the day – Elliptical Vs Spin bikes – which one wins the race? The choice is different and we would have to look through different criterions to answer the question well. There are a couple of questions to which to get answers before reaching out to any conclusion. What are your goals – to stay fit, to lose weight, to tone the muscles or rehabilitation? So, let us first try to find out the answers to all these questions and then you would eventually get your answer for the question of today.
Stay Fit – Elliptical Bike Vs Spin Bike
Both spin and elliptical bikes are excellent cardio exercise machines that offer numerous benefits namely:
- They exercise your heart vessels and blood vessels thus improve the blood circulation. They in turn lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases, blood sugar and high blood pressure.
- Both these machines help in improving one’s endurance and they are even safe for joints and recommended to those who have higher chances of hip, knee or ankle injuries or have constant pain in these areas.
Well, both the machines are good for exercising. The elliptical machine on one hand involves the entire body and spin bike is preferred for workout of the lower part of the body. It all depends on what you wish to achieve – weight loss, muscle strength or muyscle toning?
Muscle toning – Elliptical Bike Vs Spin Bike
Definitely a big yes! as both the machines are cardio machines, they help you tone yur muscle – legs, buttocks but will not double your muscle mass. They are not building machines after all!
Stationary bikes work on your thigh and calf muscle. The biceps and the triceps automatically get exercised as they help in maintaining the correct posture thus cutting down the chances of back pain.
Elliptical bikes on around 80 percent of our body muscles. For the upper body, the muscles that get the benefit are back muscles, arms, chest and stomach and for the bottom muscles: buttocks, thighs and calves get exercised.
In totality, if you want to strengthen your lower body, both elliptical and stationary bikes are suitable. If you want to include arms, well elliptical bike is preferable.
Weight Loss – Elliptical Bike Vs Spin Bike
Both the elliptical and spin bike allow you to lose weight depending upon the intensity and the duration of the exercise. Let us see which lets you burn more calories.
As per some observations by experts, for 1 hour duration the calories burnt are 400 to 750kcal in spin bike and its around 455 to 830 kcal when you use elliptical bike. So, we see that with elliptical bikes, you are able to burn around 15% more calories in comparison to spin bike for the same duration. But, experts believe that the real difference lies in the intensity of the workout. You can burn more fat on a spin bike if it is an intense session than merely sitting on an elliptical bike.
The difference between both the machines is not large and if you workout regularly and intensely, you will achieve the desired results with both the machines. So, we learnt that both the machines follow a cardiac workout, help you maintain shape, lose weight and strengthen muscles.
Some other considerations
Place and Price
Spin bike takes much less space than elliptical bike and so if you have space crunch, you should consider buying the former. Again, elliptical bikes are expensive than the spin bikes. So, the ball is in your court now. We at Lifeline Fitness have the best fitness equipments like single station gyms, exercise bikes, bench and weight systems, treadmills etc all at par with international standards and at affordable pricing.
