- If you want to lose weight, then you simply need
to burn more calories than you consume on a regular basis,
and you can do this by either altering your diet
or doing more exercise, and if you do opt for exercise,
then the question is which sport is best
for burning those excessive calories?
- Yeah, so we've already compared the difference
between swimming and running in a rough experiment,
and now we wanted to look at the differences between cycling
and running.
So to do that, we're going to step things up a little bit.
We're going to head into the physiology lab here at Team Bath
and we are going to get science involved.
- Today, we have chosen cycling and running due
to the fact that they are both land-based activities
so we can get more scientific with our calculations,
but also because they're both commonly used
to help you lose weight.
- Yeah, and before we delve into the comparisons
of the calorie numbers themselves, we thought it would be
worthwhile looking at the pros and the cons
of each sport individually.
(upbeat music)
- Running is weight-bearing, therefore it helps
to beat osteoporosis through the loading
of the bones and the joints.
- Cycling, on the other hand, will cause less wear and tear
on our joints, and as a result will less likely
give us an injury.
- Running requires minimal equipment
and can be done pretty much anywhere.
- However, cycling does require a bike
and a little bit more kit, although most gyms do have
indoor spin bikes so there are some alternatives as well.
- Both sports can be social, although cycling is probably
a little more so as it can be done
at a slightly lower intensity.
- Now, leading on from the last point,
you can of course cycle longer as it puts less strain
on our bodies.
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- We've chosen to use calories as the measurement today
as most people are aware of this unit
and it's a simple way to measure energy.
We are actually though going to be referring to kilocalories
which are the equivalent of 1,000 calories
as that's the number that you'll get on any food labels,
but also on your fitness trackers.
- Yeah, and put quite simply, in order to lose weight,
you need to be consistently burning more calories
through your exercise and daily activities
than you're taking onboard through food
and drink over the course of each day.
- But with that in mind, let's look at how we can measure
our calorie output.
Now, there are several options out there,
but some are more accurate than others.
- Now, you could use a simple calorie calculator,
and this is a case of you putting in your sex, your weight,
your age, and then guessing the intensity
that you have been working at, but you're going to get
a very rough number out of this
because that calorie calculator is going to have to figure out
how hard that you were going to give you an indication
of how many calories you burned.
- Stepping up from that would be a fitness tracker
or a sports watch which can continually measure
your heart rate throughout the activity so it knows
the intensity you've worked at and then combines that
with the personal data that's already stored on that
to be able to give you a more realistic estimate
of just how many calories you've burned in that activity.
- So today we're going to take that one step further yet again
to measure our calorie output by using the most accurate
of measurement techniques.
So we're going to head off into the lab
to see exactly what that entails.
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- Hi Jonathon, thanks again for the use of your lab
and your time.
Today, we want to look at the calorie consumption
comparing cycling to running, and I wanted to know
how we can do it and how we can actually
measure that accurately here.
- Okay, so what we'll do today
is we'll measure oxygen consumption.
So commonly referred to as VO2, and people heard of VO2 max,
but this will be submaximal so it's how much oxygen
you're using at a certain exercise intensity,
and from that, with a few assumptions you can work
out calorie consumption.
- And obviously that varies depending
on what intensity you're working at.
We haven't got that much time today, so if we were
to pick two sort of levels to work at,
what's the best two to choose?
- I think for what you want to do today
'cause obviously you want to look at levels
that people might sustain so we might look at level two,
fairly aerobic work, and then probably level four,
so kind of threshold-based work which might be zones
that people would sustain for certain periods of time really
and you do, when we're doing VO2 measurements,
you see a huge difference in oxygen consumption
from the transition from walking into running.
- Okay.
- Even for any, say, one K change in speed.
- All right, well I'm intrigued to find out
what the results look like.
- [Fraser] Myself and Heather will be measuring our calories
burnt whilst running and then cycling.
Heather has drawn the shorter straw
and will be working harder closer to her threshold
in zone four, however, I'll be sticking
to a more aerobic capacity at my zone two intensity.
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- [Heather] Most people presume that running burns
more calories than cycling, so we're keen to find out
if this is true, and if so, what is the difference?
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- [Fraser] With both the bike and run completed,
it's time for Jonathon to do some calculations
and work out the calorie output for our respective efforts.
- [Heather] All right, we've just about got
our breath back, Jonathon.
I want to have a look at the numbers.
First of all, how do my calories come out for bike compared
to run if we looked at it for the hour?
- If we work it out for an hour,
running is about 991 calories per hour
and then biking is 868.
- [Heather] Okay.
- [Jonathon] So that's a difference of about 124.
- And then how do Fraser's numbers look?
- So Fraser's are slightly higher.
So reasons behind that is obviously he's slightly bigger
so he's using more oxygen.
So in terms of actually energy using you'd expect it
to be higher.
So that's 1,156 for running and 994 for biking.
So that difference comes out to a little bit more than 212.
- Now, I think it's safe to say that we both thought running
was going to come out on top in our little experiment here
which it did.
Considering the weight-bearing element of that sport,
plus the fact that it is more of a full body workout
compared to cycling, it gives it that advantage.
- However, cycling you can obviously do
for a far longer duration, so if you've got plenty of time
on your side you might be better off using cycling
to burn more calories, but I personally find that running
is the easiest way for me to lose weight.
Partly because it suppresses my appetite,
but partly because when I go cycling I quite often
have coffee and cake.
- Which is no bad thing at all.
Now, if you have got one of these sports
that you perhaps lean towards if you're trying
to lose a little bit of weight, please let us know
and drop those down in the comments.
I'd really love to hear about that.
Hopefully, you enjoyed our video so please hit
that thumb up like button and find the globe wherever it is
onscreen so that you can get all the other videos
that we have done, and if you want to see a video
that we did about losing calories a little bit larger,
1,000's of them, well, you can get that video here.
- And if you want to see a comparison between swimming
and running when it comes to calorie consumption,
you can find that one just down here.