Escape From City Madness - How Cycling Can Help?
In light of the current events, we all need a form of escapism. Something that will help us find peace of mind. Well, cycling can be a great solution for that. Not only is it good for your health, but it's also beneficial for the environment, and here is why.
Weight management
Cycling regularly can help you lose weight by targeting your lower body fat levels. This activity promotes healthy weight management. Additionally, it will help you increase your metabolism and build muscle. As a result, you will end up burning more calories even while you're resting.
Leg strength
Your lower body truly has many benefits from cycling. This activity will strengthen your leg muscles without putting too much pressure on them. Cycling will mainly target your glutes, hamstrings, calves, and quads.
You can help your legs grow even stronger by doing intense weightlifting exercises like leg presses, lunges, and squats. Try doing these exercises a few times a week and you'll see an amazing improvement.
It’s good for beginners
Riding a bike is such a simple activity. Anyone can do it. Plus, a stationary bike can always be a great alternative if you have difficulty riding a standard bicycle.
In case you are recovering from any kind of injury or illness or you're simply just starting your fitness journey, you can try cycling at your own pace and intensity. As you get better at it, you can start increasing the intensity or continue at your pace.
Core workout
This exercise will help you improve your core muscles too. That includes your abdominals and your back muscles too. Since you have to maintain a pretty uptight body position while keeping the bike in its right position too, you need to use a lot of core strength. Developing strong back muscles and abdominals will help support your spine better. It will also increase your stability and improve overall comfort while riding a bike.
Boosts mental health
Not only is cycling beneficial for your physical health, but it’s also great for your mental health. This simple yet effective exercise will ease the feeling of stress, anxiety, and depression. By placing your focus on the road ahead, you get to improve your concentration and awareness. This teaches you how to be present at the moment.
That’s why, whenever you feel stressed or overwhelmed, just hop on your bike and ride around even if it’s just for about 10 minutes. It will help your brain release endorphins which will help put you in a better mood. Once you start doing this regularly, you will feel more content and confident in your everyday life.
A positive start to your morning
Cycling can be a great way for you to start your morning. Once you start your day this way, you’ll notice your circulation getting better. You will also feel a sense of accomplishment.
One healthy decision after another and you’ll soon feel more inclined to lead a more positive, healthy life.
For instance, you can try going on fasted morning rides at a low intensity. These will especially help you burn fat, improve your endurance performance, and boost your metabolism and energy levels.
Prevents and manages medical conditions
Also, cycling can prevent many health concerns as well as manage any existing medical conditions. Riding your bike regularly, even if it’s at the lowest intensity is one of the best ways you can avoid a sedentary lifestyle.
Not only can it prevent cardiac issues like heart attack, stroke, and high blood pressure, but it can also prevent and manage type 2 Diabetes.
It can help people with cancer
Speaking of medical conditions, cycling can also be very beneficial if you have or are recovering from cancer. By keeping you fit and lean, cycling may even reduce your risk for specific types of cancer such as breast cancer. It may even reduce some of the major side effects of cancer treatment such as fatigue.
Lowered Risk of Parkinson’s Disease
In addition to that, some of the disease-fighting benefits of regular cycling also include warding off Parkinson’s disease. Even though some thorough research is yet to be done for women, it has been proven that cycling can prevent this disease in men.
It is suggested that you do about 20 hours of cycling per week to actually start seeing these benefits. That means you should ride your bike for about 3 hours at 10 or 20 mph every week. Plus, adding some exercises on top of that can also help.
Improves balance, posture, and coordination
While you're holding your body and keeping your bike upright, you are also working on your overall balance, posture, and coordination simultaneously. Your balance will only decline with age and inactivity. For that reason, cycling can be very important.
By improving your balance, you will be able to prevent many falls and fractures which can really make your recovery process unbearable.
More Brainpower
Any kind of physical activity can greatly influence your brainpower and help save you from Alzheimer’s as you grow older. One study even shows that children are even more positively influenced by regular cycling activities. Cycling can help improve their overall brainpower and control issues such as attention deficit disorder.
Faster Recovery
It has also been discovered that elderly people experiencing knee pains and osteoarthritis improved their conditions by cycling daily. They introduced this activity into their daily routines and soon experienced the amazing benefits of cycling. For this and many more reasons, staying active even as you grow older is especially crucial for your health.
Higher Self-Esteem
The fact that regular exercise can help you boost your self-esteem is not so much news. Feeling healthy and fit will improve your confidence and promote body positivity. Once you start regularly going on rides, you will feel more comfortable and confident in your own body. By achieving new goals and pushing your own limits, you will feel more empowered and happy.
A Longer Life
Based on one of the studies of Tour de France riders, cycling may even increase your longevity. On average, some of the former professional riders lived to 81 years compared to the general population that usually gets to live about 73 years. That is a 17% increase.
Another study shows that even casual bike commuters may have some benefits. For those who switch from cars to bikes for their daily outings, there is a chance of about 14 months of life gain. Even if you ride just between one and 60 minutes per week, you can cut the risk of early death by 23%.
Slowed Aging
Some of the studies also found out that high-intensity cycling and other high-intensity training can have numerous anti-aging benefits, even down to the cellular level. Namely, people who do high-intensity exercises have their mitochondria capacity increased immensely.
Mitochondria capacity decline can have several negative effects on your body, one of them being that it leads to physical decline too. That means that the better your mitochondria functions the better your overall health will be.
Less Stress
Any type of exercise can be extremely beneficial for stress reduction. However, it seems that cycling may be the best stress-reducing exercise you can go for.
A recent study shows that those who ride their bikes daily get to enjoy up to 21.6% fewer days of poor mental health compared to those who don't ride the bikes at all. For an even better effect, you can make a group of friends who are equally enthusiastic about cycling and enjoy some bike rides together.
Sleep Better
Decreased levels of fitness have a correlation with levels of insomnia in both women and men. So, the best way to get that good night’s sleep is to stay physically active. Cycling in particular is a great exercise for that since it also reduces anxiety and keeps your weight down. Both of these factors can help you reduce your insomnia levels.
Bikes Are Cheaper Than Cars
Cycling has a great economic benefit too. From this standpoint, commuting by bike is a lot more affordable than driving a car, especially if you have to move around the city a lot. Even after adding accessories to enable your bike for your daily needs, you still save a lot of money. You can check out any well-equipped bicycle shop and find a suitable bicycle for your daily needs.
It’s environmentally friendly
Cycling is also a more environmentally friendly option than driving a car all the time. It is a simple yet very effective replacement for transport options that often include being stuck in traffic all the time. They save you a lot of time, plus they’re great when you are going places that are too far to walk, but you still want to avoid going by car. In addition to that, if you opt for riding a bike, you don't have to struggle to look for parking spots in crowded areas.
It Cuts Noise Pollution
Bikes make so little noise compared to cars. They are practically silent. Y cycling daily, you can reduce noise pollution, thus creating a more pleasant environment. Not only that but reducing noise pollution will also have its health benefits since being exposed to loud noises can cause you some serious auditory damage.
It Saves on CO2
By going to work by car every day, even if it's a short distance away you can easily add up to more than 100 gallons of gas per year. This can contribute to the overall carbon dioxide emissions and global climate change. On the other hand, cycling to work requires fewer fuels, thus making your commuting style more eco-friendly.
Reduces Smog
Lastly, biking will reduce air pollution since they don’t emit carbon dioxide and other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and particulate soot like cars do.
​Conclusion
All things considered, there are many reasons why cycling is a much better form of transportation. Not only does it have many health benefits, but it is also more eco and budget-friendly than cars.