Biking regularly promotes a slew of health benefits. This low-impact, low-stress exercise will surely help you achieve improvement in your health and life in general. The nice thing is you only have to cycle for about two to four hours a week to earn a host of the benefits. Biking is an incredibly realistic exercise option, because it’s something you’ll find yourself wanting to do. You can bike in any location of your choosing, as compared to other physical activities that keep you indoors or require special times or places. Cycling is also incredibly practical if you utilize it as a mode of transport, by which you can replace sedentary time spent driving. However you choose to do it, cycling certainly promotes a healthy lifestyle in the ways listed below.

Bicycling regularly can boost your cardiovascular health, cutting your risk of heart disease by 50 percent, recently confirmed in a study by the University of Purdue. How does this work? Bicycling increases your heart rate over a substantial period of time. Having your heart beat rapidly increases blood flow throughout the body which strengthens the heart and dramatically reduces blood fat levels. All of this helps to prevent cardiovascular issues and symptoms of heart disease such as heart attacks and strokes. 

Biking is an endurance exercise that can be done without too much muscle fatigue or stress on the joints. These longer distances (and allotted amounts of time) require your body to draw upon its stored energy to continue. Subsequently, the body has more stamina, which leads to an equilibrium increase regarding energy. A rise in energy levels leads to a better mood and improved productivity and quality of life as well.

Seriously. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association recently looked at nearly 14,000 men and concluded that those with a higher fitness level as they approached middle age were at a lower risk for lung and colorectal cancer. Gastroenterologist Dr. Ana Raimundo has also studied how biking and other exercise help decrease the risk for bowel cancer.

“Physical activity helps decrease the time it takes food to move through the large intestine, limiting the amount of water absorbed back into your body and leaving you with softer stools, which are easier to pass,” explains Raimundo.

“As well as preventing you from feeling bloated, this helps protect you against bowel cancer.”

Biking is a great way to lose weight as it raises your metabolic rate, builds muscle and burns body fat. Many people think of running when they think of a fat-burning exercise; but while running does burn a lot of fat, it’s not kind to you if you’re a little larger than you’d like to be and puts undue stress on your body. Not only is biking agreeable with your body, it also really works. Steady cycling burns about 300 calories per hour, a large portion of the 2,000 calories research suggests you should be burning per week.

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