Sports medicine and physical education use the exercise bike among other things to check how well the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are working.
 
You can establish whether your training has achieved the desired effect after several weeks as follows:
1. You manage a specific endurance performance with less cardiovascular performance than before
2. You can maintain a specific endurance performance over a longer period of time with the same cardiovascular performance
3. You recover quicker than before after a specific cardiovascular performance.

Maximum heart rate: this means reaching your individual maximum heart rate whilst training at full capacity. The maximum heart rate reached depends on your age.
This is the rule of thumb: Maximum heart rate per minute equals 220 pulses minus your age.
 
Example: 50 years old > 220 – 50 = 170 pulses a minute.

Another criteria for establishing the best training data is your weight. The target when working at full capacity is 3 watts/kg of body weight for men and 2.5 watts/kg of body weight for women. It must also be taken into account that this performance decreases from 30 years of age: approx. 1% per year with men and 0.8% per year with women

Exertion heart rate: The ideal exertion level is between 65 – 75% (cf. chart) of the individual cardiovascular performance. This value changes depending on age.

Length of training session and frequency per week:
The ideal exertion range is reached if 65 – 75% of the individual cardiovascular performance is achieved over a longer period of time.
 
Rule of thumb:
Either 10 minutes / training session with daily training
or approx. 30 minutes / training session with 2 – 3x / week
or approx. 60 minutes / training session with 1 – 2x / week
 
The watt performance should be chosen so that you can maintain the exertion on the muscles over a longer period of time.
 
Higher performances (watts) should be produced in combination with an increased step frequency. A too low step frequency of less than 60 RPM leads to markedly more static exertion on the muscles and consequently getting tired quicker.