What does Carol bike workout stand for?

September 26, 2022

Even in the event you hate cardio, you may love the Carol bike workout. Developed by scientists, it is an AI-powered smart stationary bike that guarantees to ship the advantages of a 45-minute run in lower than a minute. Its major exercise protocol consists of three weekly rides, every of which lasts lower than 9 minutes and requires simply 40 seconds of laborious effort. These decreased exertion high-intensity coaching (REHIT) exercises intention to set off your physique's "struggle or flight response," inflicting it to burn the sugar saved in your muscular tissues as gas. At $2,395, the Carol Bike prices about as a lot as a Peloton, nevertheless it's not attempting to duplicate a gaggle health expertise or entertain you. As an alternative, it is all about getting your exercise over and executed with as rapidly as doable. It is best for individuals who do not have the time or need to work out, or those that deal with a distinct exercise reminiscent of weight lifting or yoga, and need to rapidly get of their cardio.

HIIT vs. REHIT

You have possible heard of high-intensity interval coaching (HIIT), however there is a good probability you are unfamiliar with REHIT. As its identify suggests, this coaching approach is a modified type of HIIT that requires much less exertion. 

Like HIIT, REHIT exercises alternate quick bursts of intense train with restoration intervals. The distinction is that REHIT exercises contain fewer, shorter bursts, carried out at most depth. 

Your first six exercises on the Carol bike workout are introductory rides designed to assist familiarize you with the system and train the bike's AI how laborious to push you. Primarily based in your efficiency, its algorithms calculate the quantity of resistance required so that you can attain your most depth. Carol's AI then continues to observe your metrics, and tweak your resistance as wanted to problem you as your health degree improves. 

On the coronary heart of Carol's REHIT program are the corporate's Intense rides. They begin with a mild warmup, adopted by a 20-second dash, a restoration interval, one other 20-second dash, a cooldown, and also you're executed. Your entire exercise lasts simply 8 minutes, 40 seconds.  

Carol says these quick exercises ship the identical advantages as a 45-minute run, and that finishing simply three Intense rides per week for eight weeks has "been scientifically confirmed to ship double the well being and health features of normal train." These are some fairly huge claims, and this is the kicker: The corporate encourages you to not sweat throughout Intense exercises. 

Sound too good to be true? A peer-reviewed study by the American Council on Train (ACE) discovered that Carol's quick REHIT exercises had been "stronger" than 30-minute moderate-intensity steady coaching (MICT) periods. 

<img "="" src="https://carolbike.com/app/uploads/2021/10/IMG_0349-e1633693464953.jpg" alt="carol bike workout" width="827" height="1053" style="display:none"> Carol bike workout

Premium and Dear

The Carol Bike includes a smooth black metal body with pink and silver accents, a ten.1-inch contact display pill (a bit on the small measurement for this class) that does not tilt or rotate, and a snug "ergonomically sculptured" saddle.

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Measuring 42.5 by 22 inches (LW) and weighing 130 kilos, the bike is an effective measurement in the event you're quick on house, and is pretty simple to maneuver round. On the underside, it has 4 leveling ft and two transport wheels. It might accommodate riders starting from 4 ft, 11 inches to six ft, 7 inches and as much as 286.6 kilos. The bike's minimal design would not supply any built-in storage areas. 

It includes a rear aluminum flywheel with a cast-iron heart, a silent belt drive transmission system, and a frictionless magnetic Eddy present brake for resistance. For security, it includes a freewheel clutch so you may cease pedaling at any time and safely get off the bike, even when the flywheel remains to be turning. Its software program additionally provides security algorithms that may warn you in case your coronary heart charge is unusually excessive.

The bike has coronary heart charge displays on the handlebars, and sensors to measure your cadence (how briskly you are pedaling, measured in rotations per minute, or RPMs) and resistance degree. The pill options twin front-facing audio system, a 3.5mm jack so you may plug in wired headphones, and Bluetooth connectivity for wireless headphones and heart rate monitors (however no ANT+ help). 

Just like the Bowflex VeloCore, the Carol Bike options dual-sided pedals that can be utilized with or with out clip-in biking footwear. On one facet, it has an adjustable toe cage for safe footing whereas carrying common exercise sneakers. On the opposite facet, it options SPD brackets. The bike comes with a pair of appropriate cleats you may screw to the underside of your biking footwear. I simply connected them to the Pearl Izumis I used to check the SoulCycle At-Home Bike.

Like Peloton, Carol provides a number of totally different packages beginning with the Necessities bundle ($2,395), which incorporates simply the bike and a one-year guarantee. For $200 extra, the Customary bundle ($2,595) additionally features a chest strap coronary heart charge monitor, a pill holder, and upgrades your guarantee to 2 years. The Premium bundle ($2,795) is the most costly and comes with all the beforehand talked about equipment, plus a ground mat, a water bottle holder you may connect to the bike body, and a three-year guarantee. The equipment are additionally accessible to buy on their very own. 

These costs make the Carol some of the costly good train bikes available on the market, surpassed solely by the $2,495 Peloton Bike+ and the $2,500 SoulCycle At-House Bike. 

US-based clients have the choice to finance the Carol over 12, 18, or 36 months through the third-party lender Affirm. Carol provides a 100-day home trial return policy, so in the event you're not glad with the bike, you may ship it again freed from cost, and the corporate will subject you a full refund. The corporate provides 24/7 buyer help through telephone, chat, or e-mail. 

For this evaluation, Carol despatched me the bike plus a chest strap coronary heart charge monitor ($59 when purchased separately). I like to recommend getting a coronary heart charge monitor, as with out one, the bike will cease recording your coronary heart charge each time you're taking your arms off the handlebars. The corporate's Bluetooth chest belt is a superb choice; it is easy to make use of and routinely connects to the bike. It is also appropriate with many smartwatches and health apps, together with the Garmin Venu 2 that I have been carrying recently.  

As is customary for smart home gym equipment, it's a must to pay additional for a subscription, however Carol's is inexpensive than most at $144 a yr (which works out to $12 a month) after a three-month free trial. Most rivals cost anyplace from $29 to $39 per 30 days for a category membership, which generally contains exercises on and off the machine, efficiency monitoring options, and the power to arrange a number of consumer profiles per family. 

Carol would not supply trainer-led lessons or exercises off the machine. Its subscription offers you entry to the corporate's customized, AI-guided exercises and allows you to create as much as eight particular person profiles so everybody's stats are stored separate. The bike's AI routinely adjusts the resistance throughout each journey based mostly in your capability, so it is necessary that everybody who needs to make use of the Carol units up their very own account. And not using a subscription, you may nonetheless use the Carol as an everyday stationary bike, however you lose the AI options.

For extra selection, you may set up the Peloton Digital app ($12.99 a month after a 30-day free trial) immediately on the Carol's pill. When streaming Peloton lessons on the Carol, you may see metrics together with your RPM, output, and coronary heart charge on the left facet of the display, and be capable of manually regulate your resistance from 0 to 100 with a slider on the appropriate. 

You may't use Apple Fitness+ ($9.99 per 30 days) on the Carol pill, however you may put the bike in Free Mode and observe together with Apple's biking exercises on a separate gadget. If you wish to go that route, you may want a telephone or pill holder in your bike; Carol sells one for $99. 

Carol costs $150 additional for skilled meeting. If you happen to select this selection at checkout, a technician will arrange the bike, join it to your Wi-Fi, and haul away all of the packaging. If you happen to resolve to assemble it your self, you may need to enlist somebody to assist, as a few of the items are heavy. Carol says that self-assembly ought to take two folks about 45 minutes. All of the required instruments include the bike.

My take a look at unit arrived absolutely assembled (the perks of being an expert product reviewer), so I merely needed to join it to Wi-Fi, create an account, and I used to be able to go. 

The Carol Bike is comfy and durable. I've it in a room with wall-to-wall carpet, and have by no means felt any rocking, even once I'm sprinting on it as quick as doable. My take a look at unit has by no means skilled any {hardware} or software program points. 

Working Out With the Carol Bike

On the backside of the Carol interface, there are tabs for Choose a Journey, Dashboard, Rides, Developments, and Weekly Leaderboard. 

Within the Choose a Journey tab, Carol bike workout provides a number of totally different exercise choices, together with Intense (20-second sprints), Energizer (10-second sprints), Fats Burn (10 minutes, 30 sprints), Fats Burn (20 minutes, 60 sprints), Free Journey (steady energy), and Endurance (steady ramp up). 

As a baseline, the corporate recommends doing two to a few Intense rides per week. Then, relying in your objectives, you may optionally combine within the different exercises. If you happen to're trying to shed extra pounds, for example, you may do two to a few Fats Burn rides along with your two to a few Intense rides every week. 

Carol has a piece on its website detailing its goal-based programs, however might do a greater job of incorporating this steering into the bike app interface. Peloton, for example, simply overhauled its Programs section to supply extra regimented coaching plans with really useful schedules, a progress report on the finish of every week, and badges in your achievements. 

After selecting your exercise on the Carol bike workout, you might have the choice to pick one among six music choices in your session: Tiger, Triumph (my private favourite), Mellow, Escape, Electro, or Lounge. Whenever you're prepared, press Begin to start. 

On the left facet of the Intense exercise display is a Energy meter that goes from blue to pink. Throughout the warmup, restoration, and cooldown, you are supposed to maintain your energy inside the blue zone (20 watts or much less). In the midst of the exercise display, it exhibits your RPMs. On the appropriate, it exhibits your coronary heart charge. Beneath that, it exhibits scores in your greatest and final Peak Energy and Octane Rating, your goal and precise variety of rides accomplished per week, your goal coronary heart charge vary, and your Max Coronary heart Fee throughout the earlier session. A timeline on the backside of the display enables you to see the place you might be within the exercise. 

A timer on the high of the display counts right down to the subsequent phase of the exercise. When it is time to dash, the display will flip pink, which is your cue to choose up the tempo and begin pedaling as quick as doable. Three seconds after the display turns pink, you may really feel the resistance improve. 

The entire level of the exercise is to provide it your all throughout that 20-second dash. If you happen to chosen one among Carol's music choices, the beat will choose up simply as a dash is about to start (the music is just synced with the sprints throughout Intense exercises), encouraging you to pedal sooner. 

One of many good issues in regards to the Carol is that it offers you real-time suggestions about your efficiency. After your first dash, a graph seems with a blue line representing your energy all through the 20-second effort. The graph highlights your Peak Energy rating, supplying you with a purpose to beat on the second dash. After your second dash, it would add a pink line to the graph exhibiting your efficiency for that effort, so you may simply see in the event you did higher or worse. I sometimes get the next Peak Energy rating on my second dash than my first.

To present you one thing to deal with throughout the warmup, restoration, and cooldown intervals, Carol provides a breath pacer on the high of the display, guiding you to inhale for 4 seconds, then exhale for six seconds to stability your nervous system. 

Monitoring Your Progress

Carol just lately revamped the bike interface, including Dashboard, Rides, and Developments tabs, that are full of knowledge and graphs that will help you monitor your progress and evaluate your health along with your friends. Beforehand, this data was solely accessible in Carol's on-line dashboard and cellular apps, so including it proper to the bike interface makes it much more accessible.

As a part of that launch, the corporate additionally added a number of new user-requested metrics, together with your Practical Threshold Energy (the common Watt energy you may maintain for one hour), Most Cardio Energy (the utmost Watt energy you may maintain for a brief interval), and Most Anaerobic Energy (your common energy throughout the sprints in an Intense exercise), so you may monitor them over time. 

Within the Dashboard tab, it exhibits your Octane Rating (Carol's key metric in your cardiovascular health), Energy Together with EPOC (Extra Put up-Train Oxygen Consumption, or "after burn"), Peak Energy (measured in Watts), and Power Output (measured in Watt Seconds) in your final Intense journey, in addition to a month-to-month calendar exhibiting if you labored out. Right here, the app additionally retains monitor of your whole variety of rides for every sort of exercise. 

You may faucet a small data icon subsequent to every metric for more information about it. Your Octane Rating, for example, "displays what number of heartbeats are required to generate the Power Output in an Intense journey," with the upper the quantity the higher. My baseline is nineteen.3, however throughout my final Intense journey, I achieved an Octane Rating of twenty-two.2. "That's 15% above your baseline...and a couple of% under your private greatest of twenty-two.6," the bike says. "Your efficiency put you into the highest 53% of your peer group of 35 to 45 yr previous females." 

Energy Together with EPOC represents the quantity of vitality your physique burned throughout and after your exercise. Carol calculates it based mostly in your energy measurements on the bike. "These are 'energetic energy' solely...and don't embody your baseline caloric expenditure," the bike says, warning that its calorie burn estimates could also be totally different than those out of your smartwatch. "Smartwatches estimate your caloric expenditure through your coronary heart charge alone, and don't embody EPOC," so these totals will possible be decrease. 

The Rides tab has a listing of all of the exercises you might have executed in every class. A chart on the high enables you to rapidly evaluate your metrics for every session (Octane Rating, Energy, Peak Energy, Power, and Max Coronary heart Fee) and exhibits whether or not the software program consequently elevated, decreased, or stored your resistance the identical. It's also possible to click on on every entry to view all your metric graphs for that session. 

In Developments, you may view graphs of your Octane Rating, Peak Coronary heart Fee, Burn (Energy together with EPOC), Peak Energy, and Power Output over time. 

Within the Weekly Leaderboard tab, it exhibits the way you stack up towards others for the assorted metrics Carol tracks. The leaderboard is fairly fundamental: It exhibits that I rank as quantity 390 on the worldwide Octane Rating leaderboard, nevertheless it would not inform me out of what number of. 

My Expertise With the Carol Bike

On the time of this writing, I've been following Carol's Intense protocol for about eight weeks, throughout which I've logged 21 rides, and might verify that I barely sweat throughout these exercises. 

Whereas testing the Carol bike workout, I've develop into very accustomed to the Peak Energy metric, and try to hit a rating of at the very least 500, which is fairly difficult for me. When utilizing the bike with common athletic sneakers, my all-time greatest Peak Energy rating was 516, which put me within the high 41% of my peer group. After attempting it with biking footwear, I used to be stoked to get a rating of 534, which put me within the high 35% of my peer group. 

It is enjoyable attempting to beat your Peak Energy rating. If you'd like a bonus, use biking footwear, which show you how to journey sooner and extra effectively, making it simpler to drag, not simply push, on the pedals. 

Within the Rides tab, it exhibits that I did not attain a Peak Energy rating above 500 till my thirteenth journey. I sometimes rating within the excessive 400s on my first dash of an Intense journey, and infrequently exceed 500 on my second effort. The graphs present that I sometimes peak about 4 seconds right into a dash earlier than my energy steadily declines. 

Since Carol bike workout continuously adjusts your resistance degree based mostly in your efficiency, the sprints do not get simpler over time; they're all the time laborious. Throughout these 20 seconds, I shut my eyes and pedal as laborious as doable, ready for the beat of the music to decelerate indicating the dash is completed. 

As a health fanatic, I discover it a bit tough to drop the "extra is extra" mindset, however I can not deny the advantages of sprints on the Carol. In these 20 seconds, my coronary heart charge sometimes shoots as much as round 165bpm, and has gone as excessive as 180bpm. 

Carol cofounder and chief product officer Ulrich Dempfle says to observe your progress based mostly in your Octane Rating. This metric is just like VO2 Max, or the utmost quantity of oxygen you may make the most of throughout intense train, an indicator of cardiovascular health. He says that in the event you see a ten% enchancment in your Octane Rating, for example, additionally, you will see an enchancment in your VO2 Max. In my Dashboard, it says my Octane Rating has elevated 29% since utilizing the bike. 

Total, Carol's AI-guided exercises really feel very futuristic, and I like that it provides a distinct expertise than many of the competitors. Alternatively, doing the identical exercise day after day can get a bit monotonous and boring. 

To spice it up, I've additionally tried the Fats Burn and Free Journey exercises. Fats Burn exercises alternate 8-second sprints with 12-second restoration intervals, and will certainly make you sweat. Throughout Free Rides, you manually management your resistance with buttons and a slider on the display. 

In the end, I favor the Peloton Bike+ and SoulCycle At-House Bike, which convey the expertise of a gaggle health class to the consolation of my dwelling, even when their exercises are longer. These bikes supply much more selection, together with exercises on and off the machine together with a lot of instructors and sophistication kinds, so that you're much less prone to get bored. 

Carol bike workout Smarter, Not Tougher

The Carol Bike workout is all about effectivity, as its REHIT exercises promise to ship the well being advantages of different train modalities in a fraction of the time. Its AI assesses your skills, then personalizes your resistance throughout quick sprints designed to rapidly deplete the glycogen saved in your thigh muscular tissues. You're employed out at your most depth, however just for 40 seconds, and you'll monitor your progress over time and see the way you stack up towards your friends. The bike itself is properly constructed and provides you the choice to put on biking footwear or common athletic sneakers, and provides a number of built-in security options. It is a strong choice for individuals who are quick on time and desire a fast option to squeeze of their cardio with out getting sweaty.

That stated, at $2,395 (plus $144 per yr for a subscription), it is one of many priciest good stationary bikes on the market, and it lacks most of the options you may discover on competing machines, reminiscent of trainer-led lessons, widespread music, and exercises off the bike. The Peloton Bike+ and SoulCycle At-House Bike supply extra selection, together with energy coaching and yoga exercises to complement biking periods, although their month-to-month membership charges are costlier. On the {hardware} facet, the Carol has a a lot smaller display than rivals in its worth vary, and no built-in storage, even for a water bottle. 

If you happen to like the concept of the Carol Bike workout, in the meantime, it is also price trying out the Bowflex VeloCore ($1,699, plus $19.99 per 30 days for a membership). It too provides AI-powered exercises that adapt to you as your health degree improves, together with trainer-led lessons, a bigger display, Netflix integration, and a novel leaning function that works your core and arms.