A recumbent bike is a modern spin on the upright in-home fitness bike. Rather than sitting on a typical bicycle seat you are positioned in a roomier chair with your legs stretched straight out in front of you. This allows you to burn lots of calories and get in a great workout without putting as much stress on your joints. An upright bike effectively works every muscle throughout your entire body, but the recumbent bike is a bit easier on the upper body. You can still use dumbbells while riding to create a complete body workout.Recumbent bikes were originally designed to be used in physical therapy for patients who would benefit from working their muscles on a bike but could not stabilize themselves on the seat of a regular bike or who had difficult lifting a leg and climbing up onto upright bikes. Over time the technology evolved and the market for recumbent exercise bikes for the use of weight loss and fitness at home boomed.
You can look up any major manufacturer in the residential fitness market and find a nice selection of recumbent bikes today. There are many different models selling at different price ranges, but the Schwinn 240 Recumbent Exercise Bike is a great example of a mid-range recumbent bike that offers a nice array of features.
Schwinn is a reputable brand name in the fitness industry and they currently offer an impressive line of the recumbent bikes designed for residential use. The Schwinn 240 Recumbent Exercise Bike model sells for well under $1,000 and is one of their most popular products because it offers all the basic features consumers expect from their home fitness equipment.
Let's start with the design. The Schwinn 240 Recumbent Bike has a reasonable sized seat and allows the legs to stretch out in front for a safe ride. It has a big console and both the seat and console can be adjusted to fit users of different heights. The design also includes a heavy 20 pound flywheel which makes the ride smooth and adds stability to the overall bike.
The frame on this recumbent bike is open so users can step through and sit down without stepping over the center bar that upright bikes usually include. There are some recumbent bikes on the market that do not have the step through design, but they are by far less popular than this design.
If your goal is to lose weight or get in shape, you will enjoy the wide range of workouts that are possible with this one bike. The bike has 16 levels of resistance and a variety of preprogrammed workouts in the console. This is fairly standard for recumbent bikes selling in this price range. The console can be used with wireless heart rate monitoring devices as well, but you don't get the wireless strap when you purchase the bike.
You don't get all the bells and whistles on this bike, but you get all the expected features plus a bit more for a nice price.
Some of the other features that you may be able to find on higher priced recumbent bikes include heart rate controlled workout programs, mp3 player connection ports with built-in speaker systems, and television screens that flip up from the console. There are even high end recumbent bikes that can communicate with a computer to show you imagery of real life scenery around the world while you bike the landscape from those destinations. The technology in the fitness industry is nothing short of amazing!
By: adamso7
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