The 16 benefits of cycling
Cycling is a great form of exercise that has many benefits for both physical and mental health.Here are some of the benefits of cycling:
1.Improved cardiovascular health: Cycling is a great aerobic exercise that can help improve your heart health, by increasing your heart rate and circulation. This can help lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.
2.Increased muscle strength and flexibility: Cycling can help build leg muscles, and improve flexibility in your hip and knee joints. It's also a low-impact exercise, so it's easier on your joints compared to other forms of exercise.
3.Weight management: Cycling can help you burn calories and lose weight. Cycling regularly can help you maintain a healthy weight and reduce the risk of obesity.
4.Reduced stress and improved mental health: Cycling is a great way to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve your overall mood. It can also help improve your self-esteem and confidence.
5.Improved respiratory function: Cycling can help improve lung function and increase lung capacity, which can improve overall respiratory health.
6.Eco-friendly transportation: Cycling is an eco-friendly mode of transportation that can help reduce your carbon footprint and contribute to a cleaner environment.
7.Cost-effective: Cycling is a low-cost activity that doesn't require expensive gym memberships or equipment. All you need is a bike and a helmet to get started.
8.Develop your social circle:Cycling is an incredibly social sport. Grassroots cycling revolves around cycling club culture, which in turn revolves around Saturday or Sunday club culture: hours of riding at a moderate intensity, able to chat easily with each other, perhaps interrupted only by a cafe break (or the occasional puncture).
9.Strengthen your immune system:David Nieman, PhD, of Appalachian State University, and colleagues studied 1,000 adults under the age of 85. They found that exercise had a significant benefit on the health of the upper respiratory system, resulting in fewer cases of the common cold.
10.Improved control and special awareness:Riding a bike doesn't just raise your heart rate and leave you breathless, unless you're doing it on Zwift. Riding also includes technical elements: climbing, descending and turning all teach you to use your weight to get the bike where you want it to go.
11.Improve your navigation skills on a bike:In the world of car coordinate navigation and Google Maps, sometimes there aren't as many exciting points to improve your natural sense of direction.
12.Cycling can save time:Get on your bike, cut through the congestion, lock it up and arrive.
13.Reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer:Cycling raises your heart rate, fills your body with blood, burns your calories and reduces your chances of being overweight
14.Improve your brain power:Exercise has been linked to brain health, as well as reduced cognitive changes that may make us vulnerable to dementia later in life.
A 2013 study found that during exercise, cyclists had a 28% increase in blood flow to the brain and a 70% increase in blood flow to specific areas. Not only that, but blood flow continued to increase by 40 percent in certain areas even after exercise.
15.Improve the quality of sleep:The argument that tiring yourself out on the bike will make you sleep better may not fully convince you, but that has now been proven. Researchers at the University of Georgia studied men and women between the ages of 20 and 85 over a 35-year period and found that a 2-percent drop in health for men and a 4-percent drop in health for women led to sleep problems.
16.Sexiness:Can cycling improve your sex life? Well, it builds some pretty important muscle groups. Dr. Matthew Forsyth, an avid cyclist and urologist from Portland, Oregon, comments, "All these muscles that 'work on the bike' are used during intercourse. The better developed these muscles are, the longer the intercourse and the more athletic they are."