Stationary Bike and the Maffetone Method

My stationary bike provides my go-to cross-training workouts and serves as a great backup plan every time I am have a running injury, or just cannot get out of the house that day. When something hurts (Achilles, hip, knee, etc.) from running too much, I will stay inside and bike for a few days. This usually lets, or even helps, the pain or swelling subside so I can get back on the road. A month ago I started running with the Maffetone Method of low heart rate training, and I have stuck to running and walking during that time. (Click here to read my 30 day Maffetone Method update.) However, this week my right knee has been bugging me a bit, so I decided to break from running and dust off my stationary bike last night. This led to a very different experience than I have had so far with low heart rate running.

Maffetone-Method-Low-Heart-Rate-Biking

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MAF FORMULA

I just turned 32 a few days ago, so following the MAF formula of 180-Age, all of my aerobic workouts must keep my heart rate below 148 BPM. For running I usually just try to keep it between 140-148, and I have no problem getting my heart rate into this range. The problem is running slow enough to keep it from going too high. When I started biking last night I quickly realized that I was having the opposite problem. It was going to be very difficult to keep my heart rate in the 140s because I was struggling to get it anywhere close to that high.

Per Maffetone recommendations I warmed up for a few minutes before I started trying to get my heart rate into that aerobic, fat-burning zone. During my easy warmup my heart rate barely broke 100, so I bumped up the resistance level on the bike and sped up a bit, which got it into the 120s. This made for a slightly harder workout, but it was still a manageable speed and resistance. It felt like I could do this for an hour and get a pretty solid workout, but my heart rate was still way too low.

STRUGGLE TO RAISE MY HEART RATE

In order to get my heart rate over 140 I had to keep cranking up the resistance, which put it at a level that I was not prepared to sustain for more than a few minutes at a time. It felt like I was cycling through mud, and my quads and hamstrings were really feeling the burn. After several weeks of incredibly slow running, no speed work and avoiding the biggest hills in town (because I knew they would make my heart rate spike too much), this resistance was a bit shocking to my legs.

The difficulty of the bike resistance left me unable to ride at one steady speed and resistance level, so I was constantly changing things up every few minutes. I would turn the resistance down for a bit and pedal as fast as I could handle, probably between 20-25 mph. Even going that fast, which is very fast for me, I could not keep my heart rate over 140 bpm if the resistance level was too low.

So I figured out there were basically 2 ways to keep my heart rate up:

  1. Medium resistance at a very high speed
  2. Very high resistance at slow to medium speed

Low resistance could not get my heart rate over 125 bpm no matter how fast I pedaled, but I found that both of the options that worked to get my heart rate over 140 were very difficult for me right now. So I just alternated between these 2 options for 30-40 minutes, which was about as much as I could handle last night. Then I finished with an easy 15 minute cool-down to complete a 1 hour workout.

STATIONARY BIKE CONCLUSIONS

  • I need to strengthen my quads and hamstrings so I can better handle higher resistance on the stationary bike.
  • The stationary bike is quite a versatile tool.
    • I have typically used it in an almost therapeutic way to keep my muscles moving and blood pumping when I am unable to run for whatever reasons.
    • I occasionally used it to replicate different running workouts such as long slow runs or shorter speed sessions.
    • Now I can use the bike for resistance training, and if I want to get my heart rate in the proper ranger, I have to use heavy resistance.
  • While I am running slow all the time right now as I build my aerobic base, the stationary bike offers me an opportunity to make my legs move really fast again. While it is not the same as running fast and carrying my body weight, it is nice to break up the mundaneness of all the slow running.
  • As hard as I have to work to keep my heart rate in the 140s on the stationary bike, it seems like it could really help my fitness to make this a regular part of my weekly workout schedule again. I just do not get that burning feeling in my legs or heavy breathing during my runs right now, so the stationary bike allows me to remember what it means to work really hard during a workout again, all without getting my heart rate above 148 bpm.