Cycling isn’t just for having a round or for fun. It’s a great way to get healthier and happier. No matter if you’re a beginner to cycling or a regular rider for years, it’s good for your health and keeps you moving.
In this comprehensive article, we will go through how to start with Cycling. Exploring more terms like Cycling Health Benefits, Cycling relation with weight loss, diet tips for Cycling, etc. Let’s come along with us and start with a Beginner Cycling guide.
Contents
What is Cycling?
Cycling, or riding a bike, is something you can do for fun, exercise, sport, or to get around. It’s an easy workout that’s good for your heart and uses lots of muscles. Whether you’re biking alone or with a group, it’s a fun way to stay fit and see new places.
Cycling makes you stronger, especially your leg muscles like the quads. But mostly, it’s a workout that gets your heart pumping, says a certified cycling coach from USA Cycling.
This means you’re making your heart and lungs better. Because aerobic exercise helps your body use oxygen better and pump blood more efficiently.
What are the Cycling Health Benefits?
Cycling isn’t just about pedaling from one place to another; it’s a transformative journey that can profoundly impact your health and well-being. Cycling offers a treasure trove of health benefits that extend far beyond the physical act of riding.
1. Cardiovascular Health: Cycling is a great workout for your heart. It gets your blood flowing better. If you cycle regularly, it can help lower your chances of getting heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure. A study published in August 2019 in Medicine found that indoor cycling can help improve how much air you can breathe in, blood pressure, blood fats, and body shape. A Danish study conducted over 14 years with 30,000 people aged 20 to 93 years found that regular cycling protected people from heart disease.
2. Weight Management: Riding a bike is a great way to burn off extra calories and lose weight. It also speeds up your metabolism, which can help you keep your weight healthy. Research suggests you should be burning at least 8,400 kilojoules (about 2,000 calories) a week through exercise. Steady cycling burns about 1,200 kilojoules (about 300 calories) per hour.
3. Muscle Strength and Tone: Riding a bike mainly works out your leg muscles, like your quads, hamstrings, and calves. It also uses your core muscles to keep you balanced, which can make you stronger and more toned.
4. Joint Mobility: Riding a bike is an easy exercise that’s easy on your joints, so anyone of any age or fitness level can do it. It helps your joints move better and can lower your chances of getting arthritis and osteoporosis.
5. Mental Well-being: Riding a bike outside lets you enjoy fresh air, sunshine, and the beauty of nature, which can make you feel happier and healthier. It can help lower your stress, worry, and sadness, and make you feel better overall.
6. Sleep Quality: A review of 15 studies that were published in Sleep Medicine Reviews in December 2021 looked at how different exercises affect how well you sleep. It found that people who ride bikes seemed to get the most benefits.
7. Brain Health and Mood: A research in February 2019 found that older people got better at thinking and felt happier after cycling three times a week for eight weeks. This was the case whether they were riding regular bikes or electric bikes that assisted with pedaling. The researchers think that there’s something more than just the exercise involved in cycling that helps improve mental health.
8. Boosts immune system: Doing regular, moderate exercise like biking to work can boost your immune system, which can help you avoid getting colds and other viruses. Even if you do catch a virus, you’re likely to have milder symptoms compared to your colleagues who don’t exercise as much.
Exercise can help your body make more white blood cells that fight off infections and strengthen your antibody response. Important immune cells move around your body faster for up to three hours after you exercise, helping to fight off bacteria and viruses.
9. Diabetes: Type 2 diabetes is becoming more common and is a big health problem. People often get this disease because they don’t exercise enough. A study in Finland found that people who biked for more than 30 minutes a day were 40% less likely to get diabetes.
What is Cycling’s relation with weight loss?
Any exercise that gets your heart rate up like biking or running can help you lose weight. It’s a great way to help you get rid of extra pounds. That’s because you can burn a lot of calories when you’re biking, especially if you bike faster than at a slow, relaxed pace.
If you pedal your bike quicker, you’ll use up more energy and burn more calories. This could help you lose more weight.
If you cycle at a regular, moderate speed, you’ll burn around 300 calories in an hour. But if you pedal harder, you can burn even more calories.
According to a health report from Harvard, if you weigh about 155 pounds and ride a bike for 30 minutes at a speed of 12 to 13.9 miles per hour, you could burn up to 298 calories. If you weigh more, like 185 pounds, you could burn up to 355 calories doing the same.
A study from 2017 found that both high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and regular, moderate workouts can help you lose 10% of your body fat in 12 weeks. But since HIIT workouts are shorter, they might be a better choice if you’re looking to lose fat quickly.
A study showed that overweight women who didn’t exercise much were able to lose weight by following a 12-week indoor cycling plan, even without changing what they ate.
The American Council on Exercise suggests that if you want to lose weight, you should cycle with a medium level of effort for at least 30 minutes. If you want to burn even more calories, try to cycle for a longer time.
How to Get Started With Cycling Workouts?
Before you start any new exercise routine, it’s important to talk to your doctor. This is especially true if you have ongoing health problems like heart disease or joint issues that could make working out unsafe. Also, if you have any other worries, don’t hesitate to discuss them with your doctor.
Once your doctor gives you the go-ahead, a good way to begin is by cycling for 20 to 30 minutes a few times each week. This is a suggestion from Garret Seacat, a cycling coach based in Manhattan, Kansas, who is certified by USA Cycling.
When you’re new to cycling, just sitting on the bike can feel different. You’re getting your body used to a new kind of pressure on your hands, wrists, groin, and feet. It might take a while to feel comfortable, so if you feel a bit strange at first, that’s totally normal.
Generally, if you find yourself pedaling too fast to keep up with the speed of your bike (or if you start bouncing in the seat or feel a bit out of control), that’s when you should change to a harder gear. This usually happens after you’ve gone up a hill and are now on flat ground, or if you’re going downhill. On the other hand, if you’re finding it hard to complete a full pedal rotation (like when you’re going up a hill), that’s when you should switch to an easier gear.
Trying out the gears, particularly on various types of ground, can help you get a better sense of how much work you’re doing and how much control you have.
How to get the most from the Cyclic Workout?
To make your cycling more effective, you can do cross-training. This means doing other exercises that help your cycling workouts. It includes improving your strength, flexibility, and movement range. Warloski recommends yoga, which can help with these areas.
Just like adding short sprints to your running can make you better, the same is true for cycling, says Warloski. But, going full speed can be tough unless you’re on a stationary bike. So, he suggests improving your stamina to increase your heart rate. This means cycling harder than usual, but still being able to talk.
If you’ve begun with cycling two days a week, Seacat suggests adding one more day. The more you ride, the better you’ll get at adjusting your speed, going further, and pushing harder.
What are diet tips for Cycling?
If your body doesn’t have enough energy stored, you risk experiencing something called “bonking” or “hitting the wall”. This can happen with any long-lasting activity, but it’s a term often used in cycling.
According to a study from the Nutrients journal in 2018, when your body runs out of glycogen, which is the energy stored in your muscles, you might start to feel tired and weak.
Stephanie Hnatiuk, a dietitian and sports nutrition specialist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, says that having enough energy is important not only to avoid feeling exhausted but also to enjoy your exercise overall.
Let’s follow some of the tips:
Before Workout: Hnatiuk suggests picking carbohydrates that are easy to digest for your pre-workout snack, which should be mostly carbs. She says that the less time you have before exercising, the faster your food should be able to be digested. This means choosing foods that are low in fiber and fat, like fruit, toast with jam, crackers, and pretzels. If you have an hour or more before exercising, she recommends adding a bit of protein, like nuts or cheese.
During Ride: Hnatiuk says that if your exercise is less than 90 minutes, you probably just need to stay hydrated. But if you’re doing intense exercises during that time, or if you’re exercising for a longer period, that’s when you might use up the energy stored in your muscles. To avoid feeling exhausted, she suggests having 30 to 90 grams of carbohydrates every hour. You can get this from a sports drink, or from snacks like pretzels or a small jam sandwich that you can carry in a fanny pack or bike pouch.
After Biking: Hnatiuk says that eating the right food after your exercise is important for the best recovery. She suggests eating within an hour after exercising, and your meal should have both protein and carbohydrates. The protein helps fix and build your muscles and can lessen muscle pain, while the carbohydrates give back the energy stored in your muscles. Some foods you can eat are Greek yogurt with fruit, a protein shake, or a sandwich with tuna, salmon, chicken, or egg salad.
She recommends that you maintain a diary of what you eat. In this diary, you should also note down how you feel during your cycling exercise. This way, you can identify which foods help maintain your energy levels during your workout.
Conclusion:
Cycling is a great activity that provides many health benefits. It’s suitable for everyone, regardless of age or fitness level. You can cycle for exercise, commuting, or just for fun. There are many ways to begin cycling and enhance your abilities. If you stick to your cycling routine and follow the advice given in this article, you’ll experience various physical, mental, and social benefits from cycling.
Dr. Roman Off is a multi-talented professional with expertise in psychology, nutrition, and content writing. She has a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and is a psychologist with several years of experience helping individuals overcome mental health issues. In addition, Dr. Roman Off is a dietitian and nutritionist, specializing in helping clients achieve optimal health through proper nutrition and lifestyle changes.
