Cycling is a healthy hobby you should definitely try if you want to become healthier. It promotes muscle growth, burns fat, and keeps your body at its peak. It also encourages you to head outside—feeling the sun on your skin and the air whip across your face is super refreshing!
Below, we highlight the many ways cycling is beneficial for our bodies. We hope you consider adding it to your exercise routine after reading our article!
1. Cycling Gets the Heart Pounding
Cardio, or aerobic exercise, is a critical part of a healthy body. The US Department of Health and Human Services Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans highly recommend people get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of high-intensity exercise per week.
Cycling is an easy exercise for this task. That’s because cycling takes you places—you can easily cycle to work or school or wherever else you need to go instead of driving or taking public transportation. If you work from home, you can also use an exercise bike instead.
And the great thing about cycling is that it’s hard-hitting while being easy on the joints. So, if you’ve got hip, knee, or ankle weaknesses, cycling might be the thing for you.
2. Cycling Builds Your Core
Cycling isn’t just good aerobic exercise. It’s also a great anaerobic exercise! They work the core muscles because you have to balance yourself on two wheels. Striking that balance is hard, you know—why do you think so many people struggle to ride bikes from the get-go?
You build your core faster when you ride on uneven or rough terrain too. Your muscles need to work extra hard to keep yourself from falling off, turning this way and that. You’d be surprised at just how much work your back, abdominals, and hip muscles get by keeping your butt firmly on the seat.
This core workout improves your well-being overall. It improves your posture, leaves you energized, and minimizes chronic pain.
3. Cycling Strengthens Bones
If you want your bones to feel strong for as long as possible, you should do high-impact exercises like running and jumping. The ground impact you experience improves your bone density and prevents problems as you age like osteoporosis and broken bones.
Now, cycling isn’t as high-impact as the aforementioned exercise, but it’s still pretty darned good. Because cycling works many bones and muscles in the body, the combination can still create ground impact that’s beneficial for bone strength. Mountain biking, in particular, is great at it.
4. Cycling Improves Your Sleep
Exercising in general helps you sleep better at night by wearing out the muscles and also balancing the hormones. But according to research, cycling especially dominates among the other exercises. Scientists aren’t exactly sure why. However, they do say that cycling is good at raising body temperatures, making the body regulate things better.
This carries over to nighttime when you’re asleep. You’ll fall asleep a lot quicker and deeper as a result.
5. Cycling is Great for Your Cardiovascular Health
We’ve already talked about cycling as an aerobic exercise. Because of this, your heart, lungs, and muscles get a wicked boost. Your heart muscles get stronger and more efficient at pumping blood. Your lungs expand and become more capable of holding oxygen. Lastly, your muscles get better at utilizing oxygen to their fullest!
Maintaining your cardiovascular health is essential for maintaining the health of organ systems in the body. It has numerous health benefits for your reproductive system, digestive system, and endocrine system, among many others. It also lowers the risk of terrible diseases like cancer, high blood pressure, and stroke.
6. Cycling Boosts Your Mental Health
Besides helping you sleep better at night, cycling also stimulates the brain and improves your mental health. You’re much happier and more satisfied when you exercise regularly. Cycling is one of the very many exercises that are capable of giving you a brain boost.
There are a lot of reasons why cycling makes you happy. First, it gives you a sense of accomplishment—when you first hit ten miles or go down a hill without falling once, you feel exhilaration. You’re proud of yourself and excited to explore your capabilities more.
Another reason it makes you happy is the serotonin and dopamine it releases. These are the happy hormones that combat stressors in your life. They make you feel up for the challenge instead of resigned.
Lastly, the results you get from cycling also make you happy. Whether you want to build muscle or lose weight, cycling will have you seeing results in no time. Seeing your body transform is very uplifting!
