Chapter five of Bike Easy explains the health benefits of cycling and will help you look after yourself while out on your bike. Cycling is brilliant exercise. But like all physical activity, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.
Human beings are naturally active creatures. Evolution has equipped us with powerful limbs capable of taking us great distances. Prehistoric mankind ranged over vast areas, as do the nomadic tribes that survive to this day. After discovering agriculture and taking up a more settled way of life, we began using animals to do some of the work and we developed machines such as water wheels and windmills. For the most part though, it was muscle power that made things happen.
Contrast that with our twenty-first century Western lifestyle. The vast majority of people work in sedentary occupations and travel by car or public transport. There’s a labour-saving device at hand for just about everything from washing dishes to changing TV channels.
No wonder the biggest public health issues today revolve around weight gain and obesity and the associated diseases. It’s truly alarming. 170,000 people die from coronary heart disease every year and many more are left permanently disabled. Conditions such as type two diabetes (previously known as ‘adult onset diabetes’) have also increased dramatically in recent years with cases now being diagnosed in teenagers and even amongst young children. Being overweight and living an inactive lifestyle play a central role in the development of both diabetes and heart disease. They also increase the risk of suffering a stroke, hypertension, osteoarthritis, breast cancer and colon cancer
If we’re to stay healthy we need to exercise. Anything is better than nothing, but if you had to choose the ideal activity – it’s cycling. True, riding a bike doesn’t exercise your arms or your upper body that much, but it benefits just about every other part of you. Cycling works most of the major muscles and it increases lung capacity. This, in turn, improves the functioning of the heart and blood vessels, decreasing your risk of heart disease. Cycling boosts your body’s blood chemistry, stimulating production of HDL cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein) the so-called “good cholesterol” which prevents fatty deposits clogging up your blood vessels. Cycling will reduce the likelihood of your developing diabetes, it will help stabilise or lower your blood pressure and it can even protect against several sorts of cancer.
If you own a bike you don’t need to join a club or haul yourself along to a gym or a fitness centre for your fix of exercise. Nor do you need any specialised equipment apart from the bike itself. You don’t need to take time out for cycling, simply convert some of your routine car or public transport trips to pedal power and there’s your exercise for the day. Regular cyclists are reckoned to have a fitness level equivalent to being 10 years younger! Ride a bike and you’ll feel better, look better and live longer. More>>>
