A Girl Gets Mother to Start Biking Again

Whether information technology'southward to boost your fettle, wellness or depository financial institution balance, or an environmental choice, taking up bicycle riding could exist ane of the best decisions you lot ever make.

Not convinced on the benefits of cycling? Here are 27 reasons to ride a bike, whether you lot want to meliorate your health, happiness, relationships or all three.

The health benefits of regular cycling

Co-ordinate to experts from Bristol University, the beneﬁts of cycling extend deep into your core.

"Physical activeness helps decrease the time it takes nutrient to move through the big intestine, limiting the amount of water absorbed dorsum into your torso and leaving you with softer stools, which are easier to pass," explains Harley Street gastroenterologist Dr Ana Raimundo.

In addition, aerobic exercise accelerates your breathing and heart charge per unit, which helps to stimulate the contraction of intestinal muscles. "Equally well as preventing you from feeling bloated, this helps protect you confronting bowel cancer," Dr Raimundo says.

Increase your encephalon power

Need your grey matter to sparkle? Then get pedalling. Researchers from the University of Illinois found that a 5 per cent improvement in cardio-respiratory ﬁtness from cycling led to an comeback of up to 15 per cent in mental tests.

That's considering cycling helps build new brain cells in the hippocampus – the region responsible for memory, which deteriorates from the age of thirty.

"It boosts blood ﬂow and oxygen to the brain, which ﬁres and regenerates receptors, explaining how exercise helps ward off Alzheimer's," says the study'southward writer, Professor Arthur Kramer.

Why cycling is practiced for your mental health

Is cycling good for you? Yes! Forget apples, riding'due south the fashion to keep the doctor at bay. "Moderate exercise makes immune cells more than active, so they're ready to ﬁght off infection," says Cath Collins, chief dietician at St George'due south Hospital in London.

In fact, according to research from the University of North Carolina, people who cycle for 30 minutes, ﬁve days a week take about half as many sick days as couch potatoes.

Male monarch's College London compared over 2,400 identical twins and found those who did the equivalent of just iii 45-minute rides a week were nine years 'biologically younger' even later on discounting other inﬂuences, such every bit torso mass index (BMI) and smoking.

"Those who exercise regularly are at significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, all types of cancer, loftier blood pressure and obesity," says Dr Lynn Cherkas, who conducted the research. "The body becomes much more efficient at defending itself and regenerating new cells."

Relieve the planet and explore past bike. Win-win.

Joseph Branston

Twenty bicycles can be parked in the same space as 1 car. It takes effectually 5 per cent of the materials and energy used to make a auto to build a bicycle, and a bike produces zilch pollution.

Bikes are efﬁcient, too. You travel around 3 times as fast as walking for the same amount of energy and, taking into account the 'fuel' you put in your 'engine', you practise the equivalent of ii,924 miles to the gallon.

Y'all take your weight ratio to thank: you're virtually six times heavier than your bike, just a car is 20 times heavier than you.

Cycling improves your sex activity life

Being more physically agile improves your vascular health, which has the knock-on result of boosting your sex activity bulldoze, co-ordinate to health experts in the US.

I written report from Cornell University also concluded that male person athletes accept the sexual prowess of men two to ﬁve years younger, with physically ﬁt females delaying the menopause by a similar corporeality of time.

Meanwhile, research carried out at Harvard Academy institute that men aged over 50 who cycle for at least three hours a week have a thirty per cent lower risk of impotence than those who exercise little practice.

It's official: cycling is good for your sexual practice life

A 'bun in the oven' could beneﬁt from your riding as much equally you lot. Co-ordinate to research from Michigan University in the The states, mums-to-be who regularly practice during pregnancy accept an easier, less complicated labour, recover faster and enjoy better overall mood throughout the nine months.

Your pride and joy besides has a 50 per cent lower chance of becoming obese and enjoys better in-utero neurodevelopment.

"There's no doubt that moderate exercise such as cycling during pregnancy helps condition the mother and protect the foetus," says Patrick O'Brien, a spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Cycling while significant: tips and communication

Studies from Purdue Academy in the United states have shown that regular cycling can cut your risk of centre disease by 50 per cent. And co-ordinate to the British Heart Foundation, around x,000 fatal heart attacks could exist avoided each year if people kept themselves ﬁtter.

Cycling just 20 miles a week reduces your risk of center affliction to less than half that of those who take no exercise, it says.

Alarm: cycling may induce happiness.

Etienne Schoeman

No, nosotros don't mean your Lycra-clad buttocks will entice your superiors into a passionate ofﬁce romance, but they'll capeesh what cycling does for your usefulness to the company.

A written report of 200 people carried out by the Academy of Bristol establish that employees who exercised before work or at lunchtime improved their time and workload management, and information technology additional their motivation and their ability to deal with stress.

The study also reported that workers who exercised felt their interpersonal performance was better, they took fewer breaks and establish information technology easier to ﬁnish piece of work on fourth dimension. Sadly, the written report didn't ﬁnd a directly link between cycling and getting a promotion.

What's the best bike for commuting?

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Cycle away from the large C

In that location's plenty of testify that any exercise is useful in warding off cancer, but some studies have shown that cycling is speciﬁcally good for keeping your cells in working order.

One long-term written report carried out by Finnish researchers constitute that men who exercised at a moderate level for at to the lowest degree 30 minutes a solar day were half equally probable to develop cancer every bit those who didn't.

And what was ane of the moderate forms of exercise they cited? Cycling to work. Other studies have establish that women who cycle frequently reduce their take chances of breast cancer by 34 per cent.

Lose weight by riding your wheel

Loads of people who want to shift some heft retrieve that heading out for a jog is the best mode to start slimming downwardly. But while running does burn a ton of fat, information technology's not kind to you if you're a little larger than you lot'd like to be.

Retrieve about information technology: two to three times your torso weight goes crashing through your body when your human foot strikes the ground. If you weigh 16 stone that's a lot of forcefulness!

Instead, kickoff out on a bike. Almost of your weight is taken by the saddle, so your skeleton doesn't take a battering. Running tin look…

How to lose weight cycling

If you're cycling to lose weight then you could be in line for a cash windfall… Well, sort of. Researcher Jay Zagorsky, from Ohio State University, analysed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – which saw 7,300 people regularly interviewed between 1985 and 2000 – to see how their obesity and wealth changed over that catamenia.

Zagorsky concluded that a i unit increment in body mass index (BMI) score corresponded to an £800 or 8 per cent reduction in wealth. So, shed a few BMI points on the bike and start earning. (Results may vary.)

The all-time inexpensive road bikes: bargain bikes for less than £600

Cyclists breathe in fewer fumes on the street than drivers.

Daniel Banham

You'd think a city cyclist would suck upwardly much more pollution than the drivers and passengers in the vehicles chucking out the noxious gases. Not and then, according to a study carried out by Imperial College London.

Researchers plant that passengers in buses, taxis and cars inhaled essentially more pollution than cyclists and pedestrians.

On average, taxi passengers were exposed to more than 100,000 ultraﬁne particles – which can settle in the lungs and damage cells – per cubic centimetre. Bus passengers sucked upwards just nether 100,000 and people in cars inhaled most 40,000.

Cyclists, meanwhile, were exposed to just 8,000 ultraﬁne particles per cubic centimetre. Information technology's idea that cyclists breathe in fewer fumes because we ride at the border of the road and, dissimilar drivers, aren't directly in the line of exhaust fume.

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Bike riding means guilt-free snacks

Upping your salt intake is seldom your doctor's advice, but in the few days leading up to a big ride or sportive that's exactly what y'all should practise. This gives y'all the perfect excuse to munch on crisps and other salty foods yous might normally avoid.

The sodium in them helps protect your body against hyponatraemia, a condition caused by drinking too much h2o without enough sodium that can lead to disorientation, illness and worse.

The best recipes and nutrition tips for cyclists

Relish healthy family fourth dimension

Cycling is an activeness the whole family can practice together. The smallest tyke can clamber into a cycle seat or tow-along buggy, and considering it's kind on your joints, there's nothing to stop grandparents joining in too.

Moreover, your riding habit could exist sowing the seeds for the next Bradley Wiggins or Marianne Vos. Studies take establish that, unsurprisingly, kids are inﬂuenced past their parents' do choices.

Put simply, if your kids meet you riding regularly, they think it's normal and volition desire to follow your case. Don't be surprised, though, if they become embarrassed past your tendency to mismatch fluorescent Lycra when they get teenagers.

Get the whole family unit involved.

Tom Marvin / Firsthand Media

Beginner's guide to cycling with kids

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Get better at any sport

Whether y'all desire to keep in prime number shape or only improve your weekly tennis game, a stint in the saddle is the mode to begin.

A recent medical report from Norway carried the title Aerobic Endurance Training Improves Soccer Performance, which makes it pretty clear that the knock-on beneﬁts to other sports and activities are immense.

Make creative breakthroughs

Writers, musicians, artists, tiptop executives and all kinds of other professionals use practise to solve mental blocks and make decisions – including Jeremy Paxman, Sir Alan Saccharide and Spandau Ballet.

A study constitute that just 25 minutes of aerobic exercise boosts at least 1 measure of artistic thinking. Credit goes to the ﬂow of oxygen to your grey matter when information technology matters most, sparking your neurons and giving yous breathing space abroad from the muddle and pressures of 'real life'.

Many cyclists turn their wellness, ﬁtness and determination into fundraising efforts for the less fortunate. The London to Brighton wheel ride has raised over £xl million for the British Heart Foundation since the 2 became involved in 1980, with countless other rides contributing to the coffers of worthy causes.

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Y'all can get fit without trying besides difficult

Regular, everyday cycling has huge beneﬁts that tin can justify you binning your wallet-crippling gym membership.

Co-ordinate to the National Forum for Coronary Eye Affliction Foundation in the US, regular cyclists savor a ﬁtness level equal to that of a person who's ten years younger.

No prizes for guessing that the lungs piece of work considerably harder than usual when you lot ride. Generally, an adult cycling uses 10 times the oxygen they'd need to sit in front of the TV for the aforementioned menstruum.

Even better, regular cycling will help strengthen your cardiovascular arrangement over fourth dimension, enabling your eye and lungs to work more efﬁciently and getting more than oxygen where it'due south needed quicker. This ways yous can do more exercise for less effort. How good does that sound?

Sports physiologists have constitute that the body'due south metabolic rate – the efficiency with which it burns calories and fatty – is not only raised during a ride, only for several hours afterwards.

"Fifty-fifty after cycling for 30 minutes, you lot could be burning a higher corporeality of full calories for a few hours after you stop," says sports physiologist Mark Simpson of Loughborough University.

And equally you lot get ﬁtter, the beneﬁts are more profound. One contempo report showed that cyclists who incorporated fast intervals into their ride burned three-and-a-half times more body fat than those who cycled constantly merely at a slower stride.

How to lose belly fat by cycling

Addicted to cycling? We know nosotros are!

Mick Kirkman / Firsthand Media

You're developing a positive addiction

Supercede a harmful dependency – such as cigarettes, alcohol or eating besides much chocolate – with a positive one, says William Glasser, writer of Positive Addiction.

The event? You're a happier, healthier person getting the kind of ﬁx that boosts the good things in life.

In one case a matter of myth, the infamous 'runner'southward high' has been proven beyond incertitude past German scientists. Yet, despite the name, this high is applicative to all endurance athletes.

University of Bonn neurologists visualised endorphins in the brains of 10 volunteers before and after a two-hour cardio session using a technique called positive emission tomography (PET).

Comparing the pre- and post-run scans, they found evidence of more than opiate binding of the happy hormone in the frontal and limbic regions of the encephalon – areas known to be involved in emotional processing and dealing with stress.

"In that location's a direct link between feelings of wellbeing and exercise, and for the ﬁrst time this report proves the physiological mechanism backside that," explains study co-ordinator Professor Henning Boecker.

Why cycling makes you happy

Make friends and stay healthy

The social side of riding could exist doing you as much good as the bodily exercise and wellness benefits. University of California researchers found socialising releases the hormone oxytocin, which buffers the 'ﬁght or ﬂight' response.

Some other 9-year study from Harvard Medical Schoolhouse found those with the most friends cut the risk of an early death past more than 60 per cent, reducing blood force per unit area and strengthening their immune organisation.

The results were so significant that the researchers concluded not having close friends or conﬁdants is as detrimental to your wellness as smoking or conveying extra weight. Add in the ﬁtness chemical element of cycling likewise and you're onto a winner.

Even if you're miserable when you saddle upward, cranking through the miles volition lift your spirits.

"Any balmy-to-moderate practice releases natural feel-adept endorphins that aid counter stress and make you happy," explains Andrew McCulloch, main executive of the Mental Health Foundation.

That'due south probably why four times more than GPs prescribe practise therapy as their most common treatment for depression compared to three years agone.

"Simply three 30-minute sessions a week can be plenty to give people the lift they need," says McCulloch.

Cycling makes you lot happy – science says so!

Jonathon Nackstrand

Feeling tired? Go for a ride

Sounds counter-intuitive merely if y'all feel besides tired for a ride, the best thing you can do is go for ride.

Physical activity for even a few minutes is a surprisingly effective wake-up call. A review of 12 studies on the link between exercise and fatigue carried out between 1945 and 2005 constitute that exercise direct lowers fatigue levels.

Spend quality time with your partner

It doesn't thing if your paces aren't perfectly matched, just slow downwards and enjoy each other's visitor. Many couples brand one or two riding 'dates' every week.

And information technology makes sense: exercise helps release experience-good hormones, so after a ride you'll have a warm feeling towards each other even if he leaves the toilet seat up and her hair is blocking the plughole again.

So, you lot desire a bike now, right?

We've got you covered. Check out our buyer's guide to what kind of cycle you should buy, or, if you already have an thought of what y'all want, head over to our best products hub.

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Source: https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/fitness-and-training/30-great-benefits-of-cycling/