QUESTION: “Which is better, the treadmill or the bike?”

This is the most common question I get from people interested in Fitness.

My answer is always the same, “which one do you like better?” And almost without exception their response is “the one that is better for me, so which one should I do?”; typically I will say again, “which one do you like better?”… one day I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to see how many times someone would go round and round in this circle of questions and answers… seven times before they finally rephrased by commanding me to “just pick one!” So, I very slowly said, “the one you like better.” Finally, it made sense to them.

It could even be Swimming… or Running, or Cycling… or ALL three together… or… YOU won’t know till you try them.

If they like what they are doing, then they might actually do it. By definition what makes an activity exercise is that you enjoy what you are doing. Remove all onus of obligation or need, turn it into want, and it is considered exercise. This isn’t some Pollyanna, hyper-optimistic, Denise Austin inspired opinion; it comes from Dr. Ken Cooper who has built a database of fitness data (beginning in the early 1970s) comprising of many hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of entries, I do not believe there is another database anywhere in the world equal to it – I attended a talk with Dr. Cooper in 1995 where he expressed that the data shows (absolutely) that there is a specific component to an activity that defines it as either “work” or “exercise”, that component is enjoyment or pleasure…

SUMMARY

Well I am going off on a tangent here, so I will do an article discussing the difference between “Work” and “Exercise” very soon. Suffice it to say that it doesn’t matter which machine or exercise is considered scientifically more effective if you are not willing to do use or do it… and people are more likely to do or use something if they enjoy what they are doing (making it Exercise, not Work)… so if the treadmill is their more enjoyable activity, then that makes it the “better” exercise (for them), if the bike is their more enjoyable activity, then that makes it the “better” exercise (for them) because they will actually do it.

Exercise is only effective if you do it!