Jogging Vs. Biking

Date:  Aug 23, 2013

I have a few gadgets helping me to monitor my daily exercise.  Meet my Fitbit.  This is basically a pedometer.

It tells me how many steps I walk every day.  So, by right, for healthy reason, we have to walk 10,000 steps a day.  So, for a person like me, who drives car to work, and go lunch at near by restaurant.  So, I found out the cruel facts that on a non-exercsing day, I only manage to clock less than 7,000 steps for the whole day without exercising.  But when I jog for 10 minutes and walk for an hour, which is roughly about 8KM, I can clock 12,761 steps during that 1 hour plus walk.  The whole day will end up a nice 16,000-18,000 steps.  This is jogging plus walking.  

This Fitbit gear has a nice dash board.  It tells you almost everything.  It is a very nice gadget to have.

One cool thing to do is to monitor your Sleep quality.  How many turns I made during my sleep.  etc.

The next gadget I have is my iPhone running RunKeeper.  This gadget not only can keep track of your steps, it also gave GPS to log down where you walk, jog and go.  Of course, it will gives you the "real" distance.

It can keep track of many sports.  Like this one is the half way cycling I had this morning.  After 1 hour, I managed to bike for 18.87KM.

Then, when I cross check this with my FitBit, I discovers the following...

1.  I bike for almost 30KM today.  I felt like I have a good 1hour and 40min exercise.

2.  But my Fitbit translate it into "walking" stats for me.

3.  I am shocked to learned that I only walk 7056 steps after that 1hr 40min biking workout.

4.  That translate into 4.89KM.

5.  So, when I pedal the bike, it considered as 1 step.  Each pedal I take, it moves 6 times of the distance as if I am walking.

6.  So, what does this tell you between jogging and biking?

7.  The workout of jogging is much more.  Because of the steps that you have taken.  

8.  Don't be fooled by the distance.  When you cycle, you will cover a great distance.  When you walk, you cover shorter distance, but you have to put in more steps to achieve that.

9.  So, you relate this back to when you driving, you walk lesser.  Hmm… So, when you cycling, you are actually working out lesser too.

10.  No wonder, every time, when I cycle > 20KM, I feel so good, but I am not so tired.  But when I walk & jog for 8KM, my sweats come out like no body business.

So, previously, I usually do only 20KM.  And it is obviously not so enough to burn the calories.  So, now, I will set target to cycle 30KM.  (Try to).