Recumbent stationary bike...1000 watts??

[casperjeff]

I have an older recumbent exercise bike...ProForm 970...bought about 5 years ago. Hasn't had a lot of use until recently. I pump up the resistance to 9 so I can feel some real pushback and do 15 minutes in 3 minute 'sprints'. I really don't see a lot of resistance at the lower levels.

Now here is the isue....it clearly shows as I am peddling, between 980-1040 watts. That can't be right, can it? Most calories expenditure charts I've seen for stationary bike break down by wattage...and they only go up to 250 or so. So....is this thing broken or am I really burning a LOT of calories for those 15 minutes?

 

[corndogggy]

For whatever it's worth, during the Tour de France one time, Chris Carmichael, who is Lance Armstrong's coach, was on TV and the announcers asked how much wattage he's pumping out when he's really on it, and Chris replied "about 1,000 watts". The announcers about fell out of their chair. Typically a GREAT world-class rider, great enough to be on the tour and leading the pack at the end, going balls-out will be producing 400-450 watts in the last few miles, but they've been going all day too. Most normal riders can only sustain 150-250 at max effort.

Now, if you're ultra-powerful and are doing very short sprints, you may very well be hitting 1,000 watts, but given what I just said above, and the fact that it's a stationary bike and that it's a recumbent which isn't a very powerful position... I seriously, seriously doubt it. If you're just starting out, given what bike you had, if you're going pretty good for a few minutes, I bet it's more like 200 watts. Just keep in mind that for fat burning, you'd be better off slowing down a little and stretching it out for 45 minutes non-stop instead of doing very short sprints.