What are the Main Hand Positions When Riding an Exercise Bike?

I believe that many of us started our fitness journey with the primary goal of losing weight, gaining muscle, having a strong and toned figure, or generally making a big improvement in both our physical health and mental health. But it's not easy to achieve these great goals unless you insist on using a good piece of fitness equipment for regular exercise. Nowadays, among a lot of fitness equipment, the indoor cycling bike is a popular choice and also an effective way to make you healthier, slimmer and enhance cardiovascular function. It is a cardiovascular exercise similar to real cycling, which can make you feel the pleasure of outdoor cycling without leaving home.

Compared with other types of aerobic exercise equipment, fitness bicycle exerts less pressure on joints but still provides excellent aerobic exercise. If you have used the exercise bike, you may notice that its handlebars can have different shapes and sizes. During the exercise on it, you may also notice that your hand positions on its handlebars may change. So, what is the purpose of these different hand positions? Is this important? The short answer is yes, which is very important. And the purpose is to ensure that your body is optimally positioned and make you feel comfortable every time you ride. Although you can choose different hand positions on the handlebars of a fitness bicycle during riding, I will introduce you to the four main hand positions that are most commonly used when riding a fitness bicycle, hoping to help you.

What are the benefits of exercising on it?
Before I introduce you to the four main hand positions when riding a fitness bicycle, it is necessary for you to know the benefits of riding it. There are many benefits of exercising correctly on an exercise bike, and I will introduce you to a few main benefits below. Firstly, riding a fitness bicycle will help your heart keep healthy. Riding is an excellent cardiovascular exercise, which can enhance your heart and lung function and promote your heart health. Secondly, riding a fitness bicycle can help you burn a lot of calories. You can burn more than 600 calories per hour through fitness bicycle workouts to achieve weight loss results. Thirdly, riding a fitness bicycle mainly helps to strengthen your legs and lower body. The pedaling action can help strengthen your calves, hamstrings and quadriceps. Besides, it can also exercise the muscles of your core, back and glutes. Finally, riding a fitness bicycle is very gentle to the joints. Riding is a low-impact exercise without putting too much pressure on your joints.

What are the main hand positions when riding it?
The following are the four main hand positions most commonly used on the fitness bicycle.

1. Overhand grip
This is usually considered by many riders as the most common and comfortable hand position. It will make you feel safe and secure, while keeping you in an upright torso position. This is a good position to build general riding strength and endurance, provide stability and improve leg speed.

2. Hook grip
This hand position not only provides similar benefits to the overhand grip, but also provides a significant angle variation in the wrist to fit comfort needs and limit positional related tension pain for riders.

3. Extended grip
The extended grip is most suitable for a short sprint exercise on an indoor bike. This hand position puts the rider in a position where strength and stamina can be trained at higher levels of resistance while positioning the body in a safe a secure form. But make sure you do not perform this grip in the seated position, as this could put you at risk for developing back pain.

4. Aero grip
This hand position provides the greatest resistance reduction for outdoor riders, but it has little effect on indoor riders. It should be noted that this hand position requires a significant amount of flexibility. If this position makes you feel uncomfortable at first, please raise the handlebars of your fitness bicycle and slowly lower them until your flexibility increases.

What tips can help you improve your riding?
Here are some tips to help you improve your riding. First of all, if your hands feel uncomfortable in a certain position on the handlebars of the indoor cycling bike, then try a different position until you can ride comfortably for a long time. It is inevitable that your body needs time to adapt to a new position. Secondly, during your riding, please change your hands position to prevent possible pain and injury from riding for long periods in one position.

To sum up, I introduced you to four common and main hand positions when riding an exercise bike in this article. You might as well try them on your next ride.