Matthew_V

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Jay H

Do you have a heart rate monitor? You should measure your peak heartrate and resting heart rate, before, during, and after your biking. Perhaps make some kind of standard regimen like say 15 minutes of hard pedalling at a moderately high cadence (# of RPMs per minute). If you stationary cycle has a cadence meter on it, great, if not you can average it a stopwatch or you can buy a cyclocomputer that measures cadence (Most of them don't but the more expensive ones do).

With the heart rate monitor (HRM) you can measure how hard your heart is working and you can track your progress. I don't think it'll measure how "strong" your heart is, that might rely more on genetics and other factors, but the HRM will tell you how good a shape your heart and pulmonary system is.

As far as the sweating goes, personally, I don't believe it, I think I sweat like a pig but then all my bike friends make fun of me cause it doesn't even seem like I break a sweat on some of our rides. Too many factors involved simply to equate more sweat == more in shape. I've seen some grossly overweight people sweat more than me, if that means anything.

Jay

You are the crispy noodle in the vegetarian salad of life

Holadem

The word you're looking for is Cardio. Exercises designed to improve cardiovascular efficiency. That you couldn't find any info is really baffling, because information overload is a reality with this topic. Run a search with cardio and fitness (even here) and you will have enough to read for a lifetime.

Of course the single most common and probably most efficiency cardio exercise is good old... running. But there are a lot of good substitute, like the stair climber, biking, etc...

Whatever you do, a rough guideline is to do it for at the very least 20 minutes (ideally 30-45), at a pace where you can still hold a conversation. If you're struggling to maintain a conversation, you're probably going too fast. If you can't do the 20 mins, do what you can and progressively you will get there.

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Holadem

John Harrison

Just to add to the previous two posts: Your body doesn't recognize distance you ride, but rather the time and at what effort you are riding.



I just wanted to second this excellent advice.

This may also be of some help: Cardio 101

Bry_DD

I suggest you see a doctor first before you start exercising because it might be more serious than you thought.