Indoor Cycling versus Outdoor Cycling

The many forms of being physical active are as diverse as those participating.  People who exercise regularly often compare their preferred form of fitness to that of others, whether comparing strength training to spin classes or even splitting hairs within the same field (hot yoga to Bikram, anyone?), but unless you are literally competing against other professional athletes, your only real opponent should be yourself, one day earlier.

Today I want to focus on cycling, as the wave of spin studios sweeping the nation are shining a new spotlight on a sport that’s over a century old.  There’s a healthy debate over the merits of outdoor cycling versus indoor cycling or ‘spin.’  As a fairly advanced outdoor cyclist, I can attest to the many physical and mental benefits of tackling the terrain on two wheels.  However, I’ll be the first to tell you that a spin class at the gym kills me just as much as any other person in there, regardless of my skill level. The intention of this article is not to dismiss either biking option, but to highlight what style of fitness each falls into, and what kind of physique they are more suited for developing.

Before we start, let’s take a minute to define indoor cycling or spin.  For the sake of this article, this is any cardio bike-like machine that you might find in a gym, not an indoor trainer or rollers that you would set your road bike into to train indoors.

So what’s to love about indoor cycling? You're in a single place with a high level of control- no more worrying about bathroom stops, cars, and breakdowns.  With the various controls and systems on your stationary bike, setting deliberate and measured goals for your indoor cycling workout can allow you to achieve quite a lot in a small space.  You can choose between a solo workout and a group class workout.  Many indoor cyclists prefer a class for the motivation factor; the strong social aspect, real-time coaching, and energy from a group setting helps them reach new goals. Generally, the style of exercise done in indoor cycling or ‘spin’ classes is high-intensity cardio, with interval work sprinkled in to help recovery. 

For building cardio fitness and burning tons of calories in a comparatively short amount of time, indoor cycling classes are a fantastic choice. When I see folks around my gym riding solo on the bike, or when people choose the bike as their cardio for our one-on-one training sessions, it is usually because it’s a low-impact (good for joint health), comfortable cardio exercise.  On the flip-side, without strict and measurable goals like heart rate or calories, is can be easy to just hop on a bike and take a leisurely spin for 30 minutes to an hour without resistance, which doesn’t do much for your fitness.  At the end of the day, the greatest strengths of indoor cycling are the ability to control variables of your cardio workout and-- with proper goals and settings, the ability to build cardio fitness in a short amount of time. However, this control also serves as a weak point if not properly utilized and backed with goals and motivation.

With the proliferation of indoor cycling classes and platforms like SoulCycle and Peleton, (many of which come at a steep price tag), there has been debate over the merits of indoor cycling- whether or not the benefits are worth the ‘hype.’  While I’m a natural skeptic, in this instance, the science seems to suggest that there’s more to indoor cycling than just a slick ‘media spin.’

In 2008, researchers sought to determine whether indoor cycling choreographed exercises (often referenced as ‘spin classes’) helped participants reach or exceed their ventilatory threshold (VT; near maximal effort; see my Terms & Definitions post for more) for extended duration, which would classify the exercise as high-intensity or vigorous exercise. They measured heart rate, rate of perceived exertion, and VO2Max, a measure of gas expenditure from breathing. The participants in the study were young healthy and physically active females who were experienced with indoor cycling, and had been attending weekly classes for the preceding two months. They found that subjects spent near half of the class time above VT, affirming indoor cycling as a high-intensity exercise (Battista et al., 2008).

The takeaway from that study illuminates that when participating fully in the programs of the class, a person will be exercising at their maximum for extended durations. As with any new program of exercise, consult your doctor before participating. Not everyone needs high-intensity exercise all the time, and certainly not everyone can handle high-intensity exercise. A workout that isn’t well-suited to the health needs and condition of the individual can pose risks (Bianco et al., 2010). Accordingly, it’s important to tailor your training to your needs. Among its benefits, indoor cycling allows you to gauge difficulty by setting time, type, and intensity of the ride. 

Outdoor cycling has been a popular form of exercise since its invention over a century ago.  However, practical considerations that come along with outdoor cycling dissuade many would-be outdoor cyclers from pursuing it as a form of vigorous activity. One key issue is the base start-up costs of road cycling. In a 2019 article from bicycling.com, author/editor Bobby Lea provides a list of road bikes that can be purchased for less than $1,000. For context, $1,000 is typically the benchmark price that an outdoor cycler would give offhand when explaining the sport. As a regular outdoor cycler, this sounds reasonable to my ear, but to most people--especially those still testing the waters--dropping hundreds of dollars on a sport they’re just trying out seems like a steep investment.  This takes us back to indoor cycling, where the ‘buy-in’ can be as little as a monthly gym membership or class pass.

It’s vitally important to be both safe and strategic in choosing your cardio workout.  While we know that physical activity matters in gaining and maintaining health, individual considerations should be made; know yourself and your capabilities and needs. There is no doubt that cycling of any kind brings clear benefits to health, but just like any other form of exercise, it is important to know what it is doing for your own body and whether it’s a good match for your health and condition. The U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (Healthy People Initiative 2020) categorizes indoor cycling as a ‘vigorous activity’ (Battista et al., 2008). ‘Vigorous’ sounds extreme, but it simply means that during this activity, you spend a fair amount of time above your ventilatory threshold. 

Cycling, whether indoor or out, represents high-intensity cardio that literally pushes you to your limit, otherwise known as your aerobic threshold.  Exercise at and just below the aerobic threshold is where you are putting the most strain on your cardiovascular muscles- believe it or not, in healthy adults, this is a good thing.  By creating positive strain on your cardiovascular muscles, you are setting yourself up for chronic elevated resting metabolism.  We usually talk about this kind of benefit at a population level, as it has implications on chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. The individual cyclist isn’t usually thinking about population-level benefits; rather they seek personal fitness and performance goals, which we’ll cover later. 

Every decade, the U.S. government seeks to establish a set of fitness recommendations geared at improving the health of individuals, and in turn, the nation.  The Healthy People 2020 Initiative I cited above is one such initiative. Among its goals are "increasing the proportion of adults who engage in aerobic physical activity of at least moderate intensity for at least 150 minutes/week, or 75 minutes/week of vigorous intensity, or an equivalent combination." Today, fewer than half of all Americans reach this threshold. By helping each other better understand our options for vigorous intensity fitness- like cycling- I believe we can help Americans begin to see the wide range of health-supportive workouts that can raise our individual and collective fitness levels.

So what’s the bottom line?  Individualized exercise training. Every person is unique, so the road to reach your full fitness potential is every bit as unique. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a place for group exercise classes; as the studies above suggest, well-designed group exercise classes can be a powerful tool for personal success when a person knows the needs and abilities of their own body.  So follow your interests, know your limits, and keep your eyes on the prize- whatever that may be for you.

Takeaway points

1. Know yourself; your needs, capabilities, and goals

2. Consider the most appropriate exercise options for yourself

3. Indoor Cycling is a High-Intensity/Vigorous Exercise

4. It is an enjoyable activity, if you like it, do it; but be safe

REFERENCES

     Lea, B. (2019). 10 great bikes that cost $1000 or less. Bycicling.com, https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a22160983/cheap-road-bikes/

     Healthy People 2020 (2010). Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, https://www.healthypeople.gov/ 

    Battista R. A., Foster C., Andrew J., Wright G., Lucia A., Porcari J. P. Physiologic responses during indoor cycling. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2008;22(4):1236-1241.

    Bianco, A., Bellafiore, M., Battaglia, G., Paoli, A., Caramazza, G., Farina, F., Palma, A., (2010). The effects of indoor cycling training in sedentary overweight women. The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 50: 159-65