Cycling for Fitness

Cycling for Fitness

I have to admit that I rarely think of cycling for fitness.

I get out and ride my bike for pleasure. The fitness just happens automatically.

But the purpose of this post is to examine the various ways in which bike riding can improve your fitness level. To me at least, it's infinitely more pleasurable that running on a treadmill or hammering a stationary bike at the gym.

Cycling gets your heart rate up almost as much as running and burns a lot of calories, even more so if you're sprinting or hill climbing. Compared to most other sports, it's also gentle on your body. It doesn't put a lot of stress on your joints, which helps if you’re getting into shape or have joint problems such as arthritis.

Cycling combines physical exercise with being outdoors and exploring new views. You can ride solo, giving you time to process (and maybe solve) worries and concerns or you can ride with a group which broadens your social circle.

The Aerobic Aspect of Cycling

Aerobic Cycling Exercise

Cycling is one of the best balanced aerobic exercises that you can do and is great for older, senior citizens.

When you are cycling for fitness, your hip, knee and ankle joints are rotating smoothly, no matter how much pedal pressure you are exerting.

This means that the cartilage and synovial fluid that these joints depend on are not being attacked as they are with any sport requiring a lot of running or sudden changes of direction.

These include squash, tennis and, of course, running or even jogging. The joint impact experienced in these sports can lead to joint replacement operations later in life. Hip replacement in particular seems to be happening at a younger and younger age, though obesity is certainly another contributing factor.

And guess what one of the best things you can do to prevent obesity. That's right, cycling for fun and fitness!

Whenever your foot impacts the floor of the squash court, the tennis court surface or the hard pavement, a shock is sent up the leg, resulting in a gradual wearing away of the cartilage and reduction in synovial fluid. The result is the joint deterioration disease known as arthritis.

The amount and intensity of aerobic exercise that you get from cycling is totally under your control.

You can breathe easily while you undertake a nice long ride on a road with gentle undulations or even totally flat. Your body will still take in and absorb a lot more oxygen than if you were lying on the couch at home watching the TV.

To increase your aerobic intensity, you can increase speed or bring gravity into the equation. In other words, sprint, hill climb or, better still, both. They really help you to achieve cycling for fitness.

Sprinting and Climbing Hills

Cyclists Climbing Hill

Both sprinting and hill climbing will get your heart racing and your aerobic oxygen intake up. Both are hugely important aspects of cycling for fitness.

As anyone who's climbed a steep hill while cleated on to the pedals will attest, the difference is in the voluntary or involuntary dismount.

Sprinting is entirely voluntary. Assuming you're training, rather than in an actual race, you have a start and an end point, you ride as fast as you can between the two and stop after a set number of sprints or until you're too exhausted to go on. It's fabulous aerobic training and will spill over to improve your everyday ability.

With hill climbing, you have far less control. The start point is the bottom of the hill and the end point is the top. Your only control is the gear you select and the pedal pressure you apply.

The fact is that if you are already in your lowest gear and you stall (i.e., you cannot apply enough pressure to rotate the chain) you will fall. Because you are already applying maximum pressure, you will not be able to uncleat from the pedals when the bike stops and so it will fall over, taking you with it.

Usually, the only hurt you will suffer will be a grazed lower leg and some embarrassment.

The solution is simple.

Choose your hills wisely.

Muscle Development with Cycling

Lifting Bike for Strength

While presumably you could use a bike as a dead lift weight, there are more subtle ways in which cycling increases your strength.

Legs (obviously). There is no better exercise than cycling to increase the strength of your calves, hamstrings and quadriceps without stressing ankle, knee or hip joints.

Glutes. Do you want that firm, shapely butt universally admired by both sexes? Cycling will give it to you.

Core. Professional cyclists spend a lot of their gym exercise time developing their core This is because core strength is an important component of cycling. The reverse is also true. Cycling requires core strength and so the act of riding your bike will itself improve your core strength.

Shoulders. Less obvious, but the act of steering your bike puts a constant load on your shoulders and will contribute to their development. This is less pronounced for road and recreational riders, but mountain bikers can get a real shoulder workout!

Riding Safe: Follow These 10 Rules

Cycling Friends Riding Safe

No one wants to crash while riding their bike, hit a pedestrian or dog or, worst of all, get hit by a car. You can minimize any risk by taking some sensible precautions.

1. Don't ride at night and don't ride into the setting sun in the evening or the rising sun in the morning. All those situations impair not only your vision but the vision of any motorists coming up behind you.

2. Always wear a close fitting cycling helmet (stack hat). While not perfect, it will give you a degree of protection if you come off your bike and hit your head on a hard surface. Check out our excellent cycling helmets at Cycling Helmets.

3. Always wear cycling gloves. If you come off your bike, your instinct is to protect your head and body by splaying out your hands in front of you. Cycling gloves will protect the skin on the palms and heels of your hands. They look pretty cool, too.

4. Make sure you have a warning bell in good working order on your handlebars. This is essential if you are riding on a shared bike path, to let pedestrians ahead of you know that you are coming up behind them. It's common courtesy as well as a safety measure. In some jurisdictions, it's illegal not to have one.

5. Install a good quality headlight and taillight on your bike and keep them fully charged. Always turn your taillight on when you go out for a ride, including in full daylight. Use its flashing mode. This will ensure that you are noticed by motorists behind you and will protect you from the dreaded SMIDSY (Sorry Mate I Didn't See Ya) syndrome.

6. When at all possible, ride on roads that have a clearly marked bike lane. Do not ride two or more abreast in the bike lane. If there are roads in your area that could have a bike lane but don't, agitate with your local government body to get it done. They are very sensitive to a letter or email on file warning them of a potential fatality because they know that if it happens, the newspapers will be all over it.

7. Never get into an argument with a motorist. Bike vs Car is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. You're not going to change their attitude, so shrug your shoulders and move on.

8. Before heading out, check that your wheels are on tight, your saddle is correctly height adjusted and your chain is lubed.

9. Always acknowledge courtesy. If a motorist gives way to you on a roundabout, give them a friendly wave of acknowledgement as you go through. That will encourage them to be courteous to other riders in the future. It's a way of paying it forward.

10. One of the best protective habits you can develop when road riding is clear and timely hand signals. Most drivers are perfectly happy to let you change lanes or turn in front of them if you have clearly signaled your intentions. You still need to sight check, of course!

Start Young

Start Young Kids on Bikes

You know the saying "You never forget. It's like riding a bicycle."

Learning to ride a bicycle is HARD.

Perhaps the main reason is the bicycle needs to be moving before you can balance on it.

But it's difficult to get it moving without being balanced. It's counter-intuitive and requires some courage, especially for a child.

But once mastered, it's never forgotten.

That's why it's a great idea to teach your children young how to ride a bicycle.

It's a skill that will stay with them for life and may even engender a love of cycling for fitness and, by seeking out other friends to ride with, create a support group and enhance their social contacts and skills.

The way to start your child learning how to ride a bicycle is to sit them on the bike with their feet comfortably on the pedals. Their feet must remain on the pedals at the lowest rotation. If they don't, the saddle is too high. If they still don't after the saddle is fully lowered, the bicycle is too big and trying to ride it will adversely affect their confidence. If you can't get a smaller bike, wait until they've grown a bit more.

With the child comfortably in riding position, hold the bike's saddle from behind and walk it forward. Encourage the child to steer with the handlebars and to pedal, so that their body starts to feel the relationship between pedals and wheels and handlebars and direction.

Teach how to dismount, but with you in control so that the child doesn't fall. You will have succeeded when the child's own leg supports both their own weight and the bike's during the dismount and your role is just to provide a safety margin.

Repeat this as often as you can, making the trips longer and longer until you feel the bike trying to get away from you because the child is now putting real pressure on the pedals.

Once the bike has got sufficient speed to stay upright, let go, but don't broadcast the fact. Run after the bike to help with the dismount if necessary, but do show the child how far they rode on their own.

There'll be no holding them back after that. Their journey to both cycling for pleasure and cycling for fitness is well and truly under way.

About the author 

Phil Lancaster

At 77 in 2021, Phil is an enthusiastic Aussie cyclist who does 100 km bike rides for fun and out-sprints and out-climbs cyclists half his age. He is an avid believer in cycling for both fitness and pleasure and encourages families to take it up with their children from a young age. This website aims to bring you all things bike-related. This includes advice but also bicycles, accessories and clothing at great value pricing.

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