Welcome to the first episode of the Get Fit Guide, featuring your quick and dirty tips for shaping up and slimming down.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and each week I'm going to be telling you the best ways to get fit.

Whether your goal is to burn fat, have more

energy, be stronger, or maybe just not get sand kicked in your face at the beach. In today's

episode, you're going to find out which cardio machine at the gym will burn the most calories the fastest.

And you're also going to learn how to properly use each machine to burn as

many calories as possible. So which exercise machine will give you the most bang for your buck

when it comes to burning the most calories? Let's start with the most popular machine, the one that

shows up at the poshest, most exclusive health club, all the way down to the hole in the wall hotel,

the bicycle. Now, since the peddling motion of the bicycle incorporates the big and powerful

muscles of the leg, bicycling is a great choice for calorie burning. Depending on your

intensity, bicycling can burn 500 to 1,000 calories per hour, which ranks it among the highest calorie

burners as long as you use it correctly.

The problem is that many people don't choose a resistance that's high enough to really

stimulate those big calorie burning leg muscles, and instead they let the natural movement

of a bike's pedals do the work for them. To avoid this

problem and get maximum benefit from a bike, you should choose a resistance that makes you

breathe hard in order to achieve 90 RPM, or revolutions per minute. And most indoor

stationary bicycles show this number on the computer display. Now, what about upright versus recumbent bicycles, which are the type that you sit in?

Though the back rest on a recumbent bicycle can relieve stress on your lower back, your neck,

your elbow, and your wrist, this type of bicycle should really only be used if you have

pain in these joints when you're seated on an upright bicycle.

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