Defensive cycling is all about staying safe while you are on the road, enabling you to enjoy the benefits of cycling. And the benefits are enormous. Here’s some of the health benefits associated with getting on your bike. You will feel and look better.
This is a fact. As you pump away the miles on the road, your heart is beating faster and getting stronger, blood is pumping around your system sending oxygen to places it hasn’t visited for years. Your breathing will improve as your lung capacity increases. Regular cycling reduces the risk of serious conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure to name a few.
A recent calculation suggests that cyclist who just ride a regular short distance can reduce their risk of heart disease by 22%. Helps to keep your weight under control. There’s no doubt that cycling is a great way to help control your weight. While you’re peddling away, enjoying the fresh air and sights that you never noticed while sat in your car, you are burning energy and fat.
A short bike ride to work of around 15 minutes will burn off the equivalent of 11lbs of fat in a year. I’m talking about a short ride to work here. You then add to this more leisure and training cycling over the week and think about how this will transform your body. The government’s health advisors recommend that we all do 30 minutes of exercise five times a week. Just by cycling to work, you will achieve this. I’ve been cycling for over thirty years and considered my daily cycle to and from work as just a commute
. I was happy to hear I’m actually exercising and surpassing government health advice. Cycling makes you happy. What! It’s true that cycling can improve your mood. You can pump away all your frustrations and pent up anger on the road rather than keeping them festering inside. We all have bad days at work.
There’s been plenty of times that I’ve left work feeling fed-up but by the time I’ve arrived home, my mood has changed completely. I’ve left all my frustrations on the road behind me. Regular cycling will help maintain your strength and co-ordination. This is a major benefit, as we get older.
Staying fit will help to keep your co-ordination finely tuned, reducing your risk of falling and injuring yourself if you do fall. A study by the department of transport concluded that even a little cycling improves fitness significantly. The study found that aerobic fitness was boosted by 11% after just 6 weeks of moderate cycling. That’s cycling a short distance four times a week, increase the distance and the fitness level increases.
For example cycle to and from work, five time a week at a distance of 4 miles each way and the fitness benefits increase to 17%. And here’s another amazing statistic from the same study. People who haven’t exercised for years and start cycling move from the third of the population who are least fit to the fittest half of the population within months! Improve your leg strength. This is more important than you realise. Strong legs are the basis of all our mobility.
Try getting out of a chair when you have a bad leg. Keeping your legs strong will increase your mobility and reduce the risk of falls. What about traffic fumes? I hear you say. Well unbelievably, and studies prove this. Pedestrians and cyclists absorb less traffic fumes than motorists do.
Think about it and the logic begins to unravel. When I take my wife to work sometimes. I have to sit in traffic under a tunnel for about 10 to 15 minutes. While I’m sitting there absorbing all those fumes I think to myself, if I was on my bike, I could by-pass the tunnel and avoid all the fumes. Anyone can cycle. It’s an exercise that you can tailor to your fitness level. If you are fit and have exercised for years, you can get on a bike and go for a training run for 30 miles hard cycling.
Find a nice quiet road and just go for it. I do this regularly and love it. Just the road and me. I cycle on routes that take me on back roads avoiding traffic. If you’re just starting to get yourself fit after years of inactivity then you can do some gentle rides until your fitness level builds up. What makes cycling so attractive is that it’s so easy to start and fit into our lifestyle.
Many people don’t like the gym; don’t want the hassle of going through a boring routine, waiting to get onto exercise machines and everything else the gym involves. Cycling is by far the fastest and most enjoyable way to fitness.
I know I’m biased but I believe it’s true and the evidence backs me up. There are no age barriers to cycling but people who have not done any exercise for years or suffer from health problems should always check with their doctor before embarking on any training program.
Tags: benefits of cycling, disease diabetes, government health, health advice, high blood pressure, lung capacity, no doubt, pent up anger, risk of heart disease, training cycling