Intermediate

Air Bike

Often called the assault or fan bike, this machine fights back harder the faster you push, so there is no cruising through a hard interval. Because the arms and legs both drive the fan, it recruits far more muscle than a standard bike and spikes your heart rate almost instantly. It is a favorite for short, savage intervals and metabolic finishers.

Equipment
Machine
Body part
Quads, Shoulder
Type
Cardio
Muscles worked
Target
Rectus Femoris, Vastus Lateralis, Gluteus Maximus, Deltoid Anterior
Secondary
Biceps Femoris, Semitendinosus, Latissimus Dorsi, Deltoid Posterior, Triceps Brachii Long Head, Gastrocnemius Medial Head, Gastrocnemius Lateral Head
Tertiary
Pectoralis Major Sternocostal, Upper Rectus Abdominals

How to do it

  1. 1

    Set the seat so your knee is slightly bent at full pedal extension.

  2. 2

    Grab the handles, brace your trunk, and begin pushing and pulling the arms with the legs.

  3. 3

    Coordinate the push of one arm with the drive of the opposite leg, pulling with the same-side arm as that leg drives down.

  4. 4

    For intervals, attack the assigned effort hard, then back off to an easy spin to recover.

  5. 5

    Keep your core tight so the torso stays stable while the limbs work.

  6. 6

    Cool down with light spinning until your breathing normalizes.

Tips

  • Pace the first few seconds; the fan builds resistance fast and blowing up early wrecks the interval.
  • Drive with the legs as the primary engine and let the arms add to the output, not replace it.
  • Sit back into the seat rather than perching forward to keep power in the legs and glutes.

Variations

Common mistakes

  • The torso rocks back and forth with every stroke instead of staying still, bleeding effort into swaying instead of into the fan.
  • The arm and leg coordination falls out of sync under fatigue, so the stroke turns choppy and less of each push reaches the fan.
  • Gripping the handles with locked, bent wrists instead of a relaxed hold sends unnecessary strain into the forearms during a session that is supposed to hit the legs and lungs.
  • Grinding at the same hard effort through the rest interval instead of backing off to an easy spin defeats the point of the interval and leaves the next push weaker.

Frequently asked

How long should you do air bike intervals when you are new to the exercise?
Start with 6 rounds of 20 seconds hard and 40 seconds easy, for about 6 minutes of total work, once or twice a week. Add a round or extend the hard portion slightly before you shorten the recovery, since under-recovering just trains you to pace poorly.
What can you do instead of the air bike without one?
A regular stationary bike or rowing machine, pushed at a similar hard-easy interval structure, trains a comparable conditioning stimulus. Burpees or mountain climbers done in the same work-to-rest pattern work if no machine is available at all.
What is the air bike good for?
It is one of the fastest ways to spike heart rate and build work capacity, since both arms and legs drive the fan and resistance scales with effort automatically. It is a poor choice for someone brand new to structured cardio, since the machine punishes poor pacing hard enough to end a session in the first minute.

Related exercises

Other movements among FitRay's 2,000+ exercises that load the same target muscle — same equipment and level first.

All Quads exercises