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Looking to up your fitness game or simply want to include a fun workout that helps your mind, body, and soul? Then, cycling might be your best bet. Cycling is one of the convenient exercises that fitness fanatics rely upon to improve general fitness. It helps strengthen the heart muscles by improving oxygen uptake and manages blood pressure by improving circulation, making the heart work more efficiently. Being an aerobic exercise, cycling helps improve cardiac health, too.
Talking about cycling benefits and how it can support longevity, mobility and mental health, Aman Puri, Certified Nutritionist and Founder, Steadfast Nutrition, said, “Cycling daily helps in improving longevity by enhancing cardiovascular, respiratory, skeletal, and muscular health and also by promoting better fitness levels.”
How Does Regular Cycling Impact Physical Longevity?
Cycling helps in increasing lung volume capacity, which helps in improving respiratory health. Meaning, regular cycling can also lead to better oxygen flow in the body and help breathing easier.
According to Puri, here’s how cycling daily helps the body:
Cycling helps improve mobility and stability by engaging muscles of the core and legs involved in rapid joint movement.
Cycling daily reduces muscle and joint stiffness, supporting joint health
Aerobic exercise increases calorie burning by improving the body’s metabolic rate.
It also promotes the utilisation of stored fat for energy, leading to healthy weight management.
“Cycling helps in improving longevity and provides the body with multiple benefits,” added Puri.
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Is Cycling Good for Joint Pain?
Muscle pain and joint stiffness are common issues that aggravate with ageing and are especially prevalent among the elderly. Cycling, which is considered a low-impact exercise, promotes knee, ankle, hip, leg and joint health and maintains overall body coordination, due tyo its continuous pedalling motion.
“The rapid knee movement during cycling helps in enhancing the stimulation of the synovial fluid, a lubricant present in the joints and knees. This reduces the friction between joints, lowering inflammation and pain while maintaining smooth joint movements,” said Puri.
He added, “Further, the pedalling motion involves strengthening of the hamstring, glute, calf, and quadriceps muscles by improving their contraction and relaxation. This also helps in stabilising the movement of the ankle, knees and hips, making it a good exercise for people with joint pain.”
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How Does Cycling Help Mental Health?
In today’s fast-paced life, people need to include activities like cycling to improve overall mental health. Cycling helps individuals overcome the condition of rumination, a state of overthinking about unfavourable situations or thinking negatively, a common reason for anxiety and stress.
Talking about how mental health ailments like stress and anxiety, which are prevalent in modern times, can be managed by cycling and listing a few pointers. These are as follows.
- Cycling helps in reducing cortisol levels (stress hormone).
- Improves the levels of serotonin and endorphin (feel-good hormones), alleviating the symptoms of stress-related conditions and promoting better cognitive health.
- Cycling improves self-confidence by providing a means of mobility and self-reliance.
- Regular bicycling lowers distress as repetitive movements of pedalling increase the attention focus span on the activity and help in diverting the mind from repetitive negative thinking. Cycling, being an aerobic activity, improves blood circulation and oxygen supply to neurons (brain cells), lowering the risk of developing neurological disorders.
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Does Cycling Improve Cognitive Health?![benefits of cycling]()
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According to Puri, “Riding a bicycle for a prolonged period may help in improving brain health and neuroplasticity due to improved blood circulation throughout the body and brain.”
Cycling involves not only physical fitness but integration of motor and cognitive functioning. Sufficient oxygen supply may also stimulate the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) that aids in the synthesis of new, healthy brain cells (neurons) and benefits neuroplasticity.
He added, “Cycling-improved neuroplasticity can benefit the elderly, especially in maintaining equilibrium and cognition, by enhancing brain and motor functioning.”
As per a study published in the JAMA Open Network, “Cycling may also help in reducing the risk of conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia, as this exercise enhances brain function and improves cognitive functions like memory and attention.”
ALSO READ: Indoor Vs Outdoor Cycling| Which Is Better?
Conclusion: Cycling is an All-Rounder
Cycling is a low-impact activity that possesses multiple benefits, like improving mental, respiratory, heart, joint, and muscular health. However, these benefits cannot be achieved in a day or two. Beginners should cycle for at least 4-5 times a week for 30 minutes with moderate intensity. Older individuals can do cycling for the same duration and time, but with a light to moderate intensity.
Puri concluded, “However, the elderly should be careful about their cycling intensity as overdoing it may increase the risk of muscle and joint injuries. People can increase their pace of cycling gradually as per their body’s physical capacity.”