I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret. I’m a cyclist. Yes, I’m one of those weirdos wearing spandex, pretending to win the Tour de France at the local park. I’m far from the only one, as cycling in all its forms, has become quite popular in the last few years. This is for good reason. It’s one of the best cardiovascular and weight loss training methods in existence. In this article I will cover the best Peloton program for weight loss, combining it with my most popular functional fitness programs. Keep reading if you want to see how to supercharge your conditioning, maintain muscle mass, and drop some serious weight.
As a functional fitness coach of many years, I commonly run into the same issues with athletes I coach. Very often they come into the gym, and experience some great results in the first few months of hard, well thought out training. They’re able to lose weight and build muscle / strength. These beginner gains last for a few months, to about a year.
At this point athletes often find that they don’t know how to continue with their weight loss progress. After all they’re coming to the gym 4-5 times per week, lifting heavy, and getting their asses kicked in the WOD. And yet, they still aren’t happy with their physique.
I also find that athletes at this stage of development start to plateau in their overall performance. They’re still sucking wind during workouts, and their benchmark WODs aren’t improving. Luckily there is a simple solution to both of these problems. They need more conditioning!
Cardio for Weight Loss and Performance
Most functional fitness athletes have very little understanding of the importance of their aerobic capacity. Even during the hardest WOD, or longest bodybuilding workout, your aerobic energy system is providing the vast majority of your energy.
If you read this study you’ll see that even for the 400m sprint, the aerobic energy system provides 41% of the total energy. In the 800m run it provides 60-70%. This means that even for events as short as a minute, your aerobic energy system provides the bulk of energy.
Similarly, if you want to be a high performing athlete, you need to have the right body composition for your goals. The best way to achieve this is with a combination of strength training for muscle mass, and conditioning for aerobic capacity. This isn’t just my opinion either. There are mountains of research showing the benefits of this style of training for almost all athletes.
Before we get to the details of using a Peloton Bike to improve your conditioning, and weight loss, let’s quickly review a few key pieces of research so you can see just how useful this style of training is.
Concurrent Training Research (Strength and Cardio)
In research parlance, combining cardio and lifting is called concurrent training. This has been a hot topic of research over the last few years for good reason. The most recent research shows that you can actually gain more muscle mass, by lifting weights and engaging in cardiovascular training.
More importantly, research also shows that combining these two types of training actually increase the amount of fat you can lose, compared to either single type of training. Take a look at this research excerpt which examined cardiovascular health and fat loss for obese adults. As it turns out, regular exercise works wonders!
A 12-week training program comprising of resistance or combination exercise, at moderate-intensity for 30 min, five days/week resulted in improvements in the cardiovascular risk profile in overweight and obese participants compared to no exercise. From our observations, combination exercise gave greater benefits for weight loss, fat loss and cardio-respiratory fitness than aerobic and resistance training modalities. Therefore, combination exercise training should be recommended for overweight and obese adults in National Physical Activity Guidelines.
The effect of 12 weeks of aerobic, resistance or combination exercise training on cardiovascular risk factors in the overweight and obese in a randomized trial
Now I know that some of you are smart research minded folks, and will realize that most people reading this article are already fairly fit, and this style of training may not be as beneficial for intermediate and advanced athletes. That’s a fair critique, but I would point your attention to this next piece of research.
These researchers combed the internet for all research relating to concurrent style training. They included over 100 reference studies in their research review, and they came away with some striking results. Here are the key points from their review.
Key Benefits of Resistance Training and Cardiovascular Training
- Aerobic exercise training alone can induce hypertrophy
- Concurrent exercise training may augment the hypertrophic response to resistance exercise training in some circumstances
- Maximum muscle mass is best achieved when separating cardio and lifting by 6–24 h
- Volume, Caloric Intake, and recovery must be considered closely for concurrent training
- High intensity interval training can increase muscle and fitness
- Cycling should be favored over running
I really enjoyed reading that research review, and there were ton’s of nuggets of information, but these key takeaways are the most important bits. We can see that combining cycling and strength workouts is a great way to build more muscle than lifting alone. Moreover, this style of concurrent training helps us lose more body fat.
At this point it’s clear that high-intensity interval training (HIIT workouts), featuring cycling, is going to be our best bet to build muscle and lose fat. Wouldn’t you know it, that is just what a Peloton Bike provides! In this next section we’ll discuss the basics of Peloton training, including how to set it up, and the best peloton workouts to combine with lifting.
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Peloton for Weight Loss Basics
Pelton training is a great workout but there are a few things we need to review. There are two different categories of products that Peloton offers. The first is their hardware, like the Peloton Bike (Amazon Affiliate Link), the Peloton Rower, and the Peloton Treadmill.
Recently they’ve started to try to move into the strength training world, but from what I’ve seen, this isn’t something most readers of the website would be interested in. It’s more appropriate for those that have no experience with lifting heavy weights. For the purposes of this article we’ll stick with the spin bike for hardware purposes.
The Peloton Bike isn’t cheap. As of this writing it comes in right around $1250, which is in line with other exercise bikes of this type. Here are the basic specs of below.
Peloton also offers a monthly subscription based app, which is where the real value comes in. They offer hundreds of classes and well structured programs for various types of training. They’ve structured these programs very well, to maximize participation, and results.
You have a lot of options. You can follow previously recorded classes (called on-demand classes) or live classes. I recommend checking out this video which covers the basics of setting up the bike, and navigating the Peloton App.
The great thing about using Peloton training to increase your fitness and weight loss, is that you can do it from your house, which is a real time saver. This is incredibly important because we need some separation from our regular gym session to maximize the benefits.
There are hundreds of different classes you can take. I recommend checking out this article, where the author reviews the best Peloton classes he’s taken after three years of Peloton training.
In the next section we’ll talk about how to integrate your Peloton training with your full body lifting, and functional fitness training, to kick start your progress.
Combining Peloton and Functional Fitness Training
If you’ve read any of my other fitness programs, then you know I have a broad assortment programs for athletes with different goals. I’ve got functional fitness full-body workouts for CrossFitters, and tactical athletes, as well as more conventional strength training workouts, and bodybuilding programs.
In this section I’m going to cover a few different programs that you could use to combine with your Peloton training so you can find your best pelton program for weight loss.
Your Functional Fitness Program for Weight Loss
This is one area where you have a lot of options. Most weight loss research shows that a combination of bodybuilding style lifting, and high intensity interval training is best for fat loss. It’s also great for your conditioning as well!
Before we get into the specifics of the program you should follow I will offer a few pieces of general advice. As the research recommends, you need to separate your Pelton bike training by at least 6 hours from your gym workout. If you’re going to do two sessions in one day, I recommend doing the Pelton work on upper body specific days.
It’s possible to do lower body work and Pelton training, but it can have an impact on your strength. Now let’s get to the programs!
Beginner Athletes (3-6 Months Experience)
It’s important to find a program that’s appropriate given your experience in the gym. Most beginners should aim for three days per week in the gym, with 2 added days of Pelton training at home. If you’re a beginner athlete, then I recommend checking out this functional fitness program for beginners. Make sure to follow the link as it explains this program in much more detail than I can here. You can see a sample week below.
This program is recommended for athletes that have safe technique with most lifts, and have done conventional lifting in the past. If you’re brand new to weight training, then I highly recommend finding a good coach, or joining a gym that offers group classes. It will be safer, and save you a lot of time.
This program is a three day split, with four rest days. Don’t think it’s easy, as it will really hammer your metabolic rate, and you will be sore!
For beginner athletes, I recommend gradually ramping up your workout program. In the first week I would just do the three workouts, programmed above. In the second week, you could add in something like a power zone endurance ride, in addition to the three functional fitness workouts.
In the third week you will do all three planned workouts, adding in an additional HIIT style workout with the power zone ride, on the Pelton Bike. I would continue with three gym workouts, one endurance ride, and one hit ride for the remainder of the 5 week beginner program.
If you can get through this amount of work, then you’re probably more of an intermediate. In the next section I’ll review my recommendations for intermediate athletes.
Intermediate Athletes (6-24 Months Experience )
Most athletes fall into this category. This is good news as I’ve got a ton of programs for intermediate athletes. For these athletes, I recommend my 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program. It’s by far my most popular program, and I’ve got a great premium version that provides even more value in the form of coaches notes, technique cues, and percentages to aim for. Check the premium version out below.
If you want to see more information about this programming follow this link. It will take you to the article describing the program in detail and you can see several weeks of the program. This will allow you to try it out to see if you like it. Here is an example week of the program below.
You can see this functional bodybuilding program has you in the gym 4 days per week. Just like the beginners, I recommend doing one week of this program with no additional Peloton work. I would then add in an endurance ride in the second week.
After the second week, you can add add in an additional HIIT workout. Because you’ve got a little more training experience, you should be able to tolerate this program and 2 Peloton workouts per week. If it’s a little much you can add in an extra rest day here and there. Just make sure to follow the program in order.
In the next section we’ll talk about the advanced athletes, which require a very difficult program to show progress. If you’re not sure if you’re advanced or not, then do the intermediate program. It works well, as I’ve been following it with my outdoor cycling, with great results.
Advanced Athletes (2 Years +)
I’m going to apologize right off the bat. This program is very hard, and has quite a lot of volume. I recommend my 12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding program. This program comes in a free version, and premium version with all the coaches notes, percentages, and specific warm ups. Check the premium version out below.
This program is very flexible and can be done in two ways. For those lifters that want a pure bodybuilding program, it can be done without the WOD. For advanced functional fitness athletes, you can add the programmed WOD in.
If you’re doing the WOD and lifting, I highly recommend that you split your work between two sessions per day. As you’ll see below, there is quite a lot of lifting, and you won’t have much energy left to finish a WOD in the same session. Make sure to follow the link above so you can see the WODs more info on the program.
This program is written as five days per week. I recommend adding in 2-3 Pelton sessions on top of that. It’s best to keep one longer endurance session, and two HIIT sessions. For this sample week I would add in my Peloton work on session 3 and session 5.
Because you’ll be more fatigued at the end of the week, I recommend putting the longer, easier sessions then. Do that HIIT workout in the middle of the week when you’re still relatively fresh. Next we’ll cover some great nutrition resources to help you put together your best Peloton program for weight loss.
Nutrition Planning for Weight Loss
This is where most athletes mess up when trying to lose weight. Calorie intake and calorie burn are key components of losing weight. You should ask yourself why you bother recording the weights you lift, or the times for your WODs, and yet you spend no time planning and recording your food intake. Putting together a nutrition plan for fat loss isn’t complicated, in fact you can read all about it here.
The Functional Fitness Nutrition Calculator
The first step for determining your nutrition plan, is to put your information into the nutrition calculator. Check out the read me tab, and then navigate through the various tabs, until you get to the fat loss nutrition tab. Once you input all of your information into red sections it will calculate your energy requirements.
I want to emphasize that this is a best guess, that will be broadly applicable to most athletes. If you find yourself doing well with a little less or more of a certain macronutrient then that’s fine. Your macro split is a starting point that should be pretty accurate. You will need to experiment slightly for best results.
In the fat loss tab, it will auto calculate the 500 calorie deficit for men, and 300 calorie deficit for women. It will also give you recommendations for training days and non training days. You want to start out with as small of a deficit as possible, and only increase if your weight loss stalls. Do not go maverick on me, and start off with a 1,000 cal deficit. This is a recipe for failure.
I recommend tracking your daily weigh-ins in MyFitnessPal, and your weekly body composition checks in the spreadsheet. The app is just a little easier, and the spreadsheet is good at showing you overall progress.
Food Choices
When we are talking about weight loss, food choice does matter. However, it matters less than many people think. The caloric deficit is the primary nutritional goal we are trying to create. We need to consider how to do this while making sure we are eating healthy, nutritious food. After all, we could just eat meal replacement bars, but that wouldn’t be very healthy, nor would it be appealing. Check out this list of healthy foods I’ve created. It’s broken down by macronutrient.
Obviously, this isn’t a complete list of everything you can eat. I compiled this list to give you a good idea of the types of foods that are the most nutritious in each category. It’s ok to eat food not on the list, but if you find a large portion of your food is processed (meaning something was done to make it) then you should aim to include more foods from the list. As you will see, there are some amazing dishes you can create with this food list.
One of the easiest methods of staving off hunger pangs is to eat more whole foods, that are less calorically dense. For example you could eat a whole potato, or one slice of potato bread. Potato bread is processed with other ingredients, and has a fair amount of calories per slice. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather eat a whole potato than one slice of bread.
If you do want to eat bread, then try to find lower calorie bread. Most stores sell it, and it makes toast just as well as high calorie bread. The point is that you need to read food labels and pay attention to what MyFitnessPal is telling you to make sure you are staying on plan.
Finding High Quality Meals
I personally struggle with this piece of dieting the most. I’m not a particularly good cook, and my meals have been known to be less than savory. The good news is that there are several websites, that I will link to below, that can help you prepare healthy high protein meals.
Some of these meals are going to require a fair amount of prep time; however, many of them are very easy to cook and can be saved as left overs. Some athletes prefer to do all of their cooking once or twice a week, and others like to cook almost every night. You’ll have to do a little trial and error to make sure that you have nutritious meals available.
This doesn’t mean that you always have to cook meals like this. You can have something simple like a Quest bar, protein shake, or hard boiled eggs, and some fruit. It doesn’t really matter what you eat as long you are eating mainly unprocessed foods, and hitting your energy requirements.
Using MyFitnessPal
This is one of the best tools you can use to achieve your weight loss goals and fitness goals. I’ve written a whole article on how to use MyFitnessPal, so make sure you read it. I find it easiest to figure out a meal I want to eat and then I put the serving sizes in, determining how much food I’m allowed to eat for the meal. You can also scan barcodes on items, and it will often be able to find exactly what you are eating.
I will also input the type of exercise I did and use the info from the activity calculator to track my energy expenditure more accurately. You can use data from a smart watch if you wear one of those as well. The main point of this tool is to make sure that you are eating the amount you should be.
Now that we’ve covered the nutrition plan, let’s move into the fitness portion of the program. If you want to learn even more info about functional fitness, then check out this ebook. This has been a long article, so let’s review some key points for your weight loss journey.
Final Thoughts
The best piece of advice I can give you is don’t sweat the details. You’ll find that being consistent is the most important thing you can do for weight loss. You need to eat a sensible diet with the majority of your food coming from whole foods.
You’ll also need to pay attention to your recovery, as you it’s much harder to train in a caloric deficit. Peloton does a great job of helping you with this difficulty as you have an instructor right in front of you telling you when to push, and exactly what you should be doing.
Don’t underestimate this social benefit. Most athletes find they can stick to programs much better when other people are working along side them. If you have any questions or comments, put them in the comments section below and I’ll get you an answer.
The opinions and information expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not affiliated with any corporation, group, public or private entity. This web site is not endorsed by, directly affiliated with, maintained, authorized, or sponsored by Crossfit Inc. All product and company names are the registered trademarks of their original owners. The use of any trade name or trademark is for identification and reference purposes only and does not imply any association with the trademark holder of their product brand.
Hello Jake : First, it sounds amazing that you went from being a cyclist to a fitness training expert. Being an athlete, your post demonstrates how deeply and completely you understand fitness. It would be helpful to know what functional bodybuilding programme an athlete initially follows. Proper nutrition, exercise, daily routine, and sleep are all important for fitness. Thank you for this informative and inspiring article.