Five Great Health Benefits of Bike Rides and More!

Have you ever considered the health benefits of bike riding? The Bay Area is a great place to ride.  Never mind the fact that bike riding is more beneficial than other forms of physical activity. Bike riding not only improves your cardiovascular health, it also lowers your risk of obesity, and reduces your risk of some major diseases. Plus, you could easily pedal a nice bike for pure exercise. The key to consider is that bike riding is a better alternative to all other types of physical activity.

It’s More Than Weight Loss

Bike riding has other benefits as well such as improving your coordination. After a short time riding a bike, you will feel stronger, more coordinated and better able to move around. Additionally, a great thing about bike riding is that it tones your muscles. Pharmacist Ben discuses the importance of muscle movement in over all health often.  Bike riding provides that healthy motion without the damaging effects of other exercise.  In addition to physical health benefits, bike riding also improves your mental health.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that bike riding improves mood and mental well-being. In a recent study, participants who regularly rode a mountain bike for at least two months had significantly better moods and were happier. Additionally, they did not have more depressive symptoms or had increased thoughts of stress. A similar study found that women who cycled indoors had increased levels of happiness. Of course, this was only done on a single day and not on a regular basis. Nevertheless, both of these studies clearly indicate that indoor cycling boosts your mood and mental health.

But You Might Lose Weight

Biking burns calories. In addition to helping you lose weight, bike riding burns calories and it even improves your cardio vascular system. Bike riding strengthens your legs, upper back and lower body muscles. Cycling is also a great workout for your lungs and has been shown to improve lung function. This is because the intense resistance in cycling causes the muscles of the lungs to contract and this improves their function.

You are able to get a full workout without any equipment other than the bike.  Yoga is about the only other exercise that can make that claim.  There is no equipment that you need to use when you ride your bike.  You could upgrade your bike to clip style pedals which does require bike shoes.  The CoolToys Doc also recommends a helmet. The intensity and duration of each workout can be modified. Many people like to ride on shorter rides and add short bursts of high-intensity exercise in between. Bike riding is so intense that you burn more calories per minute than running or jogging. It may not burn much body fat, but the excess calories burned are burned off as body fat.

Try It, You Might Like It.

Bike riding does have many health benefits. These benefits far outweigh the health benefits of using other cardiovascular exercises like running. Bike riding also helps reduce stress, lowers blood pressure and builds your body mass. If you are looking to get into shape and increase your physical endurance then you should definitely look into cycle riding.