On a recent show, you talked about burning as many as 600 calories/hr doing indoor cardio.
I can manage 300 in 30 mins on the elliptical machine, but can’t get anywhere close to that using a bike. How on earth do you do it?! I rode an average of a 3 minute mile tonight – did over 10 miles and burned barely 100 calories according to the bike (I’ve tried them all in the gym). At this rate, I’ll be there forever. On average, the bike shows approximately 10 calories burned per mile – including on hills and with resistance. What gives?
I’ve also tried doing cardio before weight training and after weight training (tonight was cardio after 1 hour of heavy weight training). Which is best?

You can try increasing the resistance to increase the calorie burn. On the treadmill try to walk at an incline, on the bike increase the resistance and try peddling faster. feel your heart rate, if it is starting to get elevated and you have to breath a little heavily then you are going to be burning some calories. Try this next time you are at the gym, find a machine that tells you your calories burn per hour, start slowly and see what it says then increase the intensity and see the calories burn per hour it should be much much higher. If I am on my treadmill at 0 incline I might burn 150 an hour at 3.5mph, if I increase the intensity by increasing the incline to 12 degrees I would burn 750 calories an hour. A huge difference. Sweat, the more sweat the better but remember to start slowly and don't rupture yourself on your first workout, build into it.

You can do cardio either before or after weight training but if you are truly lifting heavy you would want to do it after you lift so your muscles have the maximum amount of fuel during your lifting. I normally do 5 minutes before I lift and then do cardio at another time so I can maximize both but if you have to do both during the same visit I would recommend doing cardio after your lifting, that way you get the maximum muscle building workout and you might be more likely to burn fat once you have used all the glycogen in your blood lifting.

Welcome to the F2F radio group, this show has been a big help in keeping me keeping on on my transition. I hope it also helps you on your journey.

My 2 cents.

All cardio isn't created equal. An elliptical machine will always burn more calories than a bike simply because you are using more muscles at the same time. I almost never ride a bike because it really isn't that efficient at burning calories. If I'm going to go to the gym for half an hour, I want to get the most benefit out of it. I think that bikes are very popular at gyms simply because they are easy... I wrote an article a while ago about how many calories I burn on the different cardio machines out there.

David is also right about the intensity. The harder you work, the more benefit you will get out of it. You don't have to kill yourself with 110% all the time, but 70% should be sustainable for 30 minutes.

There is no perfect solution for whether to do cardio before or after weight training. It is more determined by what your goals are. If you are only looking to gain muscle, you would do your weights first. If you are looking to burn more calories to lose fat and want to maintain that muscle that you have, you could do your cardio first. Also, the specific type of training that you are doing is important. If you are doing really tough interval training, you might be too tired to do resistance training after. The bottom line is that you will become adapted to whatever you choose to do, so no matter what might be the "perfect" way to do it, you need to change things up once and a while.

Nice point Jeff, you really get used to a particular exercise, mixing it up every so often will keep the body guessing.

Exercise should be fun though, riding a bike in a gym is completely different from getting out on the road or trails and getting some fresh air. Your gym is where you make it

But i totally get getting the most of the limited time at the gym, i've recently whittled my workouts down from about 2 - 2.5 hours to 1 hour, i don't have the time for wimpy cardio machines. Started doing tabata sets on the spinning bike, my god!! what a workout.

Great. Thanks. This helps. I’ll stick to the elliptical (and outdoor leisure/commuting riding). I’m doing fairly heavy lifting but not intervals. Like so many other folks, I’ve been working with a trainer who really sticks to the machines. While I’ve seen a huge improvement in building muscle, I’m not seeing an equal improvement in lbs lost and calorie burn. When I end this round of training sessions, I’ll be in the market for someone else.

I have heard that riding a bike in the gym burns drastically fewer calories than riding a bike outside. Because you're using way fewer muscles.

Amie - I think that is true, but it may also be because riding outside imposes a natural high intensity interval training - you most likely will need to climb a hill, at least here in Colorado. Also, riding a bike inside is about as interesting as watching paint dry, but outside it is lots of fun, so you tend to extend the ride and do a bit more. Inside on machines I jump off the instant my time is up.

I've switched my cardio from boring gym machines to getting out on my mountain bike for an hour, and i'll never want to go back!
You get the wind in your face, and you can actually race yourself every morning. i mean you can do that on an exercise bike, but how exciting is that??
My house is a three minute ride from a series of bike/walking paths that run between some of the cities around here, has enough chalenging spots to make it worth the workout (heart rate monitor says i burn about 1000 calories on an hour ride), and saves me times by being able to skip the gym three times a week and see my family in the morning!
I would encourage anyone to take their workouts outside of the gym!

Ditto. Unless its raining (sometimes even if), I don't do any cardio inside.

I love to go trail riding on my MTB. Its a ton of fun and you can burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time. Not to mention, you can get a good dose of vitamin D while you are out.