If you want to take your workouts out of the gym for a change, then riding your bike may just be the perfect option for you. Bicycling has plenty of health benefits, both physical and mental. It provides you a good leg workout, it's easy on your joints, and helps oxygenate your brain. Not to mention the awesome feeling of freedom you get when you ride your bike in nature. So, whether you want to boost your fitness, get healthier, or improve your balance, riding your bike may be one of the healthiest decisions you ever made. Plus, it's a great choice for the environment if you want to take it to next level and run your errands with your bike.
Riding your bike is a good way to keep up with your regular physical activity to protect you from diseases like heart disease, cancer, obesity, mental illness, diabetes, and arthritis. It's one of the best ways to help you reduce the risk for health problems that are associated with a sedentary lifestyle. Cycling is a low-impact form of exercise that people of all ages and skill levels can enjoy for sport and recreational purposes. Plus, it's cheap and good for the environment.
RIDE YOUR BIKE FOR HEALTH AND FITNESS
Cycling is a great way to raise your metabolic rate and reduce your weight. It also helps you build muscle and burn fat at the same time. This comfortable form of exercise enables you to control the time and intensity of your workout to perfectly suit your fitness level. Additionally, cycling stimulates and improves your heart, lungs, and circulation, to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. It strengthens your heart muscles while reducing blood fat levels and lowering your resting pulse. Your strength, balance, and coordination will also benefit from cycling.
This will prevent you from falling and fracturing your bones. It's a great form of exercise if you have osteoarthritis because this low-impact exercise places very little stress on your joints. Furthermore, if you make it a healthy habit and you start riding your bike regularly, you will be less likely to experience depression, stress, and anxiety.
Consider riding your bike every other day if not every day, especially if you don't engage in other forms of exercise. Just one hour of cycling helps you burn up to 300 calories. Cycling is perfect for anyone who wants to work out outdoors, be more active, attain mental clarity or simply have some fun with health benefits.
- Low impact: Unlike most forms of exercise, cycling is low impact and this causes fewer muscle strains you can work out with a reduced risk for injuries.
- Muscle development: You work all of your major muscle groups thanks to the pedaling your do when you cycle. Additionally, it helps increase your strength, stamina, and aerobic fitness.
- Easy: The best part of cycling is that it doesn't require high levels of physical skills. You only need to know how to ride your bike!
- Intensity: You can cycle at any intensity you desire. If you are recovering from an injury, you can cycle at very low intensity, and you can build it up to transform cycling into an intense workout. Likewise, you can pedal steadily to make it a relaxing form of light exercise.
- Time-efficient: If you make the environmental choice to use your bike as a form of transportation, then the time you spend getting to your destination is spent by doing healthy exercise and enhancing your cognitive functions.
Cycling is an aerobic activity. That means that your blood vessels, heart, and lungs get a great health boost as you ride your bike. Your breathing and perspiration will be improved, and you will experience increased body temperature, which will help you increase your fitness level. Other health benefits of regular cycling include:
- improved cardiovascular health
- enhanced muscle strength and flexibility
- improved joint mobility
- improved posture and coordination
- increased bone strength
- decreased stress levels
- disease prevention
- reduced anxiety
PEDAL FOR ENHANCED WELL-BEING
Once you start to experience the positive impact that cycling has on your health and fitness, you will see this transfer into your daily life. You will enhance your overall well-being and experience more than just a few health benefits. Your quality of life will be improved and you will start to discover how cycling can do even more for you than you thought.
1. Get there faster
More and more people make the environmental choice to ride their bikes to run errands and go to work. And it actually gets you to your destination faster than you think! Especially during rush hour when the traffic is extremely bad, you will get to your destination by bike in half the time you would by car. And this is because you don't need that much space to ride your bike to go places and can take routes that are not allowed by car.
2. Enable brain power
Get pedaling to increase your brain power! Cycling helps you build new brain cells in the region of the brain responsible for memory, the hippocampus. This starts to deteriorate around the age of 30, so hurry up and get on your bike! Cycling boosts your blood flow and oxygen to the brain, which helps receptors to regenerate and thus warding off diseases such as Alzheimer's.
3. Increase your lifespan
Studies have found that those people who rode their bikes 3 times a week for just 45 minutes per ride were "biologically younger" than others who didn't partake into cycling. And this makes sense because cycling helps the body become more efficient at repairing and defending itself by regenerating new cells.
4. Save the planet
Save the planet and save money too! Not only will you save money on gas and car maintenance, but you will also produce 0 pollution. Plus, you'll travel faster than walking, faster than driving, and the only fuel you need is water to keep you hydrated. You'll also be exposed to less pollution since cyclists and pedestrians inhale significantly less pollution than passengers in cars, cabs, and buses.
5. Have fun
You can pedal away from the city and go in nature to enjoy your exercise and recreational activity. Cycling is also an activity that you can do together with your family. Children and the elderly can pedal too, so it's a great social activity that everyone can participate in and enjoy the health benefits this form of exercise provides. Plus, there are many of cycling events and fundraising events you can participate in. All you need is your bike and desire to ride for charity or just to engage with the other bike riders in your community.
CONCLUSION
It's the perfect season to go outside and ride your bike. The weather is far from extreme, the air is cool and perfect for a quick ride in nature to oxygenate your brain and improve your fitness level. Make sure you wear proper equipment like a good helmet and calf sleeves to keep your lower leg muscles warm. Don't forget to make sure that you have active lights on your bike in case it gets dark, and take a water bottle with you to keep you hydrated.
You know what they say, once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget it. It's an activity you will be able to do for the rest of your life to stay fit and healthy. You will be able to ride your bike well into your golden years, which is something weightlifters do when they say goodbye to the weight room. So, get on your bike and go explore the areas where you live, get away from the traffic and pollution, and enjoy the outdoors like a kid who cannot wait to get on their bike!
