Fitness and health need you to be physically active. When you are regularly active, it protects you from diseases like obesity, cancer, heart disease, depression, and other serious illnesses. Physical activity can add years to your life.
One of the easy ways to stay engaged while you get fit is biking every day. Biking works your whole body out. A bonus for biking outside is that interacting with your environment keeps you from getting bored during exercise.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at why you should choose biking for exercise and the health benefits of cycling 15 minutes a day.
Why Choose Biking?
If you’re already exercising, cycling is an excellent way to give your body a break or reduce the risk of injury. Another advantage is that cycling can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of age. From older adults to younger children, anyone can benefit from it.
Maybe you have a tight schedule, and you’re finding it difficult to squeeze exercise in. Riding to the shops or work is a time-efficient way to combine your transport and your fitness routine. This means that cycling is also for busy professionals.
You wouldn’t be alone either – around 1 billion people ride bicycles to work, school, or recreation every day. You could also take a bike tour around different cities. These unique tours help you get a different view of cities unlike bus tours.
People who find high-intensity cardio intimidating would also be well-suited to cycling. From personal experience riding my bike, you can control the intensity of your exercise. If you’re looking for an easy beginner mode, you can control how fast you go.
If you’re looking to make it more intense, going faster or finding a slope is the best way to customize your workout.
Health Benefits
Cycling is not only healthy, but it’s also low impact. Low impact workouts are gentler on the body. They are a great way to ease into a regular fitness plan.
Obesity
Weight control is one of the significant health issues we’re facing today. In America, there is an epidemic of obesity and related diseases.
Not only is it present, but it is also growing. In 1990, less than 15 percent of the population was obese. In 2010 a majority of the states had obesity rates of more than 25 percent. By 2016, 39.8 percent of Americans had obesity.
Cycling is a good way to control your weight. Whether you mean to maintain it, or reduce it, you can achieve this with biking. It works by raising your metabolic rate, meaning that you end up burning through your available energy and using your fat stores.
It also helps build muscle. If you combine cycling with a healthy diet, you will be able to lose weight. Because you can control the intensity of your cycling, you can change it to suit your diet and weight loss goals.
Research suggests burning 2000 calories a week. Every hour of steady cycling will burn 300 calories. This means that starting with cycling for 30 minutes a day should help you work toward that goal.
Biking for life is an easy way to ensure that you hit and pass your weight loss and management goals.
Cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease is a general term which includes high blood pressure, heart attacks, and stroke. Cycling regularly battles these conditions by stimulating your heart. Regularly stimulating your heart improves your circulation and lung function.
The result is that you reduce your risk of heart failure and circulation issues by strengthening your heart. Regular cycling also lowers your resting pulse and reduces the amount of fat in your blood. This aligns with weight management and lowering blood cholesterol.
Another nice thing to note is that cyclers are exposed to 3 times less air pollution than car commuters. This makes your lungs healthier than the average person.
Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is an ever-growing epidemic in the United States. A lack of physical activity is strongly associated with developing this diabetes. Engaging in healthy exercise regularly is proven to combat the disease.
Cycling, specifically, was found to lower the risk of developing diabetes for people that cycle 30 minutes a day. This group had a 40 percent lower chance of developing the disease.
Cancer
Research shows that there is a relationship between cancer and exercise. The relationship is especially close to breast cancer and colon cancer. Increased exercise, including cycling, reduces your risk for cancer.
Cancer institutions such as the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center confirm that cycling is a recommended activity for lowering your chances of developing cancer.
Mental Health
Managing a lot of mental health conditions has been positively associated with regular exercise. Cycling, particularly, has been shown to improve mental health.
Studies have shown that cycling can improve the health of your brain by increasing blood flow to it. This provides it with more oxygen and allows your cardiovascular system to grow deeper into it. More blood flow and more blood vessels in the brain increase its performance and health.
This way, biking regularly increases cell production in the brain and betters neurotransmitter activity. Mild to moderate mental illnesses can be positively affected by these changes, since they’re usually characterized by neurotransmitter imbalances.
Arthritis
Cycling improves the balance, strength, and coordination of the cyclist without being harsh on joints. This means that you can use it to alleviate joint stiffness from arthritis. It also means that if you have arthritis, cycling gives you a way to work out without aggravating your joint problems.
Overall, it provides an excellent exercise opportunity for people with osteoarthritis.
Stress
Stress is a major factor in many lifestyle diseases today. It also negatively affects your quality of life. Chronic stress has significant health impacts, including increased risk for cancer, heart disease, gastritis, and stroke.
Cycling helps reduce this by ensuring the regular release of endorphins. Endorphins are naturally released whenever you exercise. They are hormones that help you feel better and reduce stress levels.
Doing cycling outside is recommended for even better results because serotonin is released along with endorphins.
Biking Every Day
If you’re looking for a way to be fit on a budget, cycling is for you. It’s cheap because there are usually no additional costs after buying the bike and protective gear. Servicing and maintenance of the bike are minimal.
If you care about the environment, biking every day is an even better option for you. It’s safe for the environment, and you can use it for transport to lower your carbon footprint.
Check our website for more tips on how to stay healthy and active.
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