Is Cycling a Good Exercise: A Fact or A Hype?



From a scientific point of view, nothing should be accepted without scrutiny. From this consideration, one may wonder is cycling a good exercise? Or, it is a hype of bicycle manufacturers to increase their sales. After all when fake is so common, who knows that cycling manufacturing companies may unite and create a commotion on the web that cycling offers dozens of health benefits including curing cancer. Their sole purpose is to increase their revenues. So let's find out is cycling really a good exercise?

What Do Researchers Say Regarding Cycling?

Since bicycles are centuries-old human-powered transportation, the pros and cons of cycling is a favorite research topic of researchers. They have identified that there are 11 convincing facts that prove that cycling is one of the best exercises and quite beneficial for health. Below is a brief discussion on those conclusive facts regarding cycling.

1. Less Overeating
The simple reason why people gain more weight is when they eat more but work less. It is found that people who do exercise like riding a folding electric bike every day as a form of workout are more concerned about overeating. For example, they think twice before gobbling two donuts together and often satisfy their appetite for a sweet snack with just one.

2. Burns Fat
According to sports physiologists, cycling pushes the body’s metabolic rate. The elevated metabolic rate causes burning fat and calories. They have found further that for 30 minutes of continuous cycle riding the body’s metabolic system continues to burn fat for another two or three hours.

3. Boost Digestion
According to the researchers of Bristol University, the effects of cycling extends further down your core. Physical activity like cycling boosts your digestion. The activity decreases the time food requires to move through the large intestine and the absorption of water back into the body leaving soft tools that are easier to expel from the body.
Other good effects of cycling are it accelerates your breathing and heart rate and stimulates the contraction of your intestinal muscles. The squeezing of your intestinal muscle will help you from the feeling of bloated and protect you from suffering from colon cancer.

4. Lung Exercise
Cycling is a useful lung exercise. One evidence of it is health experts found that you inhale 10 times more oxygen when you ride a bicycle in contrast to when you sit comfortably in front of TV. Cycling forces lung muscles to work harder which requires your body to inhale more oxygen from the air. In the recent COVID-19 pandemic, doctors are giving much emphasis on breathing exercises to strengthen lung. Biking can give you a good breathing exercise.

5. Lose Weight
The correlation is simple. Since cycling burns calories, the activity will also help you to shed extra body weight. Further, cycling is better than running for obese people. It is because when heavy people run, the extra body weight puts a heavy load on their feet making them tired quickly.

6. An Aerobic Workout
Cycling is a useful aerobic exercise that stimulates the brain to release a hormone called endorphins. Thanks to this hormone cyclists feel better the aerobic exercise is beneficial for the brain, blood vessels, and heart.

7. Builds Muscles
During the power phase of cycling that is when you press the pedal downward several muscles of your body come into action which includes gluteus muscles of buttocks, quadriceps of thighs, and soleus muscles of your calves. Cycling also requires the use of your other muscles like abdominal muscles to keep your body balance and keeping body upright, your arms, and shoulder muscles to hold the steers and handlebars. To sum up, cycling is a good workout for all of these muscles.
 
8. Builds Bone
According to a health expert, pushing pedals causes the pulling of the muscles and then the muscles react by pulling the bone. These subsequent actions of muscles and bone increase bone density which is quite important to prevent osteoporosis which is a bone-related disease.

9. Beats Illness
One unsubstantiated claim is if you eat an apple each day, you will be able to keep the physician at bay. However, what researchers found that low-impact exercises like cycling boost the body’s immune system. The immune system then acts as a barrier to keep the body free of disease.
One evidence of the claim that regular cycling keeps the body free of disease is a research finding of the University of North Carolina. The researchers of the university found that people who ride bicycles 5 days each week for 30 minutes take less sick days in comparison to people who are habituated with a sedentary lifestyle with no physical exercise.

10. Heals Heart
The researchers of another US university, the University of Purdue found that cycling reduces the risk of heart disease by 50 percent. British heart foundation also found a good outcome of cycling. It founds that cycling not more than 20 minutes each day significantly reduces the risk of heart disease.

11. Live Longer
Dr. Lynn Cherkas, a researcher of King college London, conducted extensive research on regular cycling and its impact on the body. He found that regular cycling greatly reduces the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even cancer. All of these diseases reduce people's life significantly shorter.

2 comments:

  1. i miss the old days cycling around the park alone . I guess cycling really a good sport since i dont really like to jog ^^"

    Whenever i read , 'helping in digestion' i was like yeah i need that so bad My problem with constipation slowly heal but still i need to aware it wont happen twice

    ReplyDelete
  2. aaaa i miss cycling around. good entry you got here sis!! it really contains a lot of benefits.

    ReplyDelete

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