exercise - I Love Bicycling

Is cycling good cardio? Absolutely. It’s not only good cardio exercise, but maybe one of the best forms of it out there. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally, annually claiming the lives of almost 18 million people. All forms of cycling have been shown to reduce it significantly. Let’s get the world cycling, so we can all live longer, happier, healthier lives!

(Image credit: Adobe Stock)

What is Cardiovascular Health?

Let’s start with the cardiovascular system, also known as the circulatory system, which is a system that comprises the heart, lungs, and blood vessels, all working together to help sustain bodily functions. The heart pumps blood throughout the body, while the blood vessels serve as its conduits. The lungs oxygenate the blood and remove carbon dioxide from it.

Cardiovascular health, then, is the ability of this system and all its components to be able to do their job efficiently and effectively. Being able to transport oxygen and nutrients to the body’s tissues and organs as well as removing waste products is what helps a person regulate their blood pressure, maintain proper circulation, and have a strong, healthy immune system.

To develop this health, this fitness, we need to subject it to a certain level of stress. When people hear that word they often jump to the negative, failing to understand that there are positive stresses as well. Exercise, in the right dosage, can be a positive stressor that triggers beneficial adaptations. And for cardiovascular longevity, cycling is one of the best exercises you can do.

Cycling for Cardiovascular Health

When you take into account how adaptable cycling is to any fitness level, any level of socioeconomic status, any body type, and almost any geographical location, it’s a sport that the world can enjoy as a whole. It has a low impact on the body but a big impact on your cardiovascular health, and is something you can do at any age.

Learning to ride a bike is a common skill many of us pick up as kids, but even the inexperienced can learn later in life, and make cycling an activity that is a regular part of their routine. As a form of cardiovascular exercise, cycling can easily regress to train even the most deconditioned of individuals, and progress all the way up to elite cyclist’s with world record VO2 maxes.

By pumping the legs while pedaling, you’re placing considerable demand on several muscles, particularly the quadriceps. These muscles need oxygen and nutrients to perform those movements for you, and is one of the reasons why cycling can become so exhausting (in a good way). Our cardiovascular system needs to feed these tissues in order for them to perform.

Increasing your speed, incline, and gear are all ways to make cycling even more challenging. As you get stronger and more fit, you can ride farther, longer, and through more technical terrain like mountain paths and forest trails. The cardio demand on your body is one thing, but there are other parts of cycling that contribute to your cardiovascular health as well…

(Image Credit/Adobe Stock)

Social Benefits & Nature Exposure

Stress reduction is key when it comes to lowering cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. Lucky for us, the sport we love or are just getting into reduces stress in a number of ways. Exercise in general is a potent stress reducer, and exercising in groups can be even more effective for its social benefits.

Cycling is commonly done with a partner, as a family, or as part of another club or group environment of some kind. The social benefits of this sport should not be overlooked. We are social beings who need connection with others in order to thrive both physically and mentally. Cycling contributes to cardiovascular health not only directly but indirectly in this way, as well.

One last note worth pondering, is the exposure to nature and our connection to the planet as a whole. It is becoming evident that we need to actually look at and be in nature for optimal health. We did not evolve living in skyscrapers and staring at screens, our modern society has forgotten that we are products of the world around us, and we need to spend time in it to be healthy.

The process of breathing itself is an intimate entanglement with the world around you. You breathe in the oxygen produced by trees, and expel the CO2 that they absorb, utilize during photosynthesis, and release back into the atmosphere as oxygen. Cycling outdoors brings you into the heart of this incomprehensible and never-ending dance.

The bronchi in your lungs are hauntingly similar to the branch networks of trees. They branch off smaller and smaller into what are called bronchioles and eventually alveoli, which are tiny sacs where gas exchange occurs between the lungs and the blood stream. The alveoli are like the leaves on the ends of the branches of your lungs, for leaves on a tree are also responsible for the absorption and release of gasses (CO2 and O2, respectively). (Image credit: Adobe Stock)

Increase Your Cycling Cardio

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What the Professionals Say

If you ask any experienced cyclist about maintaining energy, they’ll say that it’s all about pacing yourself. The human body is capable of extraordinary things, and with particular exercise techniques, it’s entirely possible to improve the way that your heart, lungs and blood pressure work. In standard terms, these techniques are referred to as cardio, but what you might not know is that other forms of exercise can be even more effective.

Training your Body with Tension Exercises

If you haven’t come across ‘tension exercises’ before, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised to read about their potential. Your arms and legs play a huge role in your balance, and although your thighs will often undergo extreme pressure before tiring, there is a technique that can help to promote their endurance and keep you pedaling for much longer.

If you flex your biceps, you’ll notice that the muscle stands out far more prominently. The same could be said for your thighs. As we flex, our muscles are triggered in to action, and it’s this action that stimulates growth. It’s less about lifting heavy weights with your legs, and more about training them to cope with high amounts of pressure for extended periods of time (endurance). Here’s a great exercise that you can try from home:

Sit down comfortably, and place your legs slightly apart, with your feet flat against the floor

Keep your back straight, and use a cushion if needed

Tense/ flex your thigh muscles, so that your heels lift off of the ground and your feet enter a ‘tip-toe’ stance

Keep your thighs flexed, and hold for 15 seconds – or for as long as you can manage

Relax your thigh muscles for 5 seconds, and then repeat 3 more times

If performed correctly, your legs will ache almost immediately after exercising, and undertaking this routine just once per day for a week can provide endurance results. The same could be said of your arm muscles, and promoting their endurance will assist with a greater level of control and strength when riding your bicycle.

Enhancing your Cardiovascular Health

It may not be possible to strap a dumbbell to your lungs and build their muscle mass, but it is entirely plausible to encourage them to function at an enhanced rate. If you cycle, then your lungs may already be benefitting, but there’s nothing to say that you couldn’t further train your lungs. The best way to do this is to force the capacity of your lungs to expand over time.

Typical cardio exercises are recommended (running, swimming and cycling), but it’s been proven that deep-breathing techniques can further assist when it comes to expanding the volume of your lungs. So what sort of deep breathing techniques can you try at home? Well there’s always yoga, and this technique helps to expand your lungs, promote muscle growth, and improve your blood flow. There’s also Tai Chi which assists with physical balance, as well as general deep breathing exercises that involve holding your breath for just under a second, before exhaling.

The Benefits

Improved lung capacity results in a greater supply of oxygen. The more freely oxygen can flow around your body, the better your blood pressure will be – and this means an improved performance as far as physical activities go.

When practiced daily, each of these techniques can help to promote an increased rate of functionality, and in terms of cycling, which means an extra few minutes of performance – which can make or break a race result! Before a race, or even preceding a bit of local cycling – it’s always a good idea to prepare your body.

Performing a few simple stretches will help to elongate your muscles, and loosen them ready for the activities ahead. You can also try inhaling deeply 10 times, to encourage your lungs to stretch to their full capacity, and there’s nothing to say that you can’t continue this breathing while you cycle to keep your heart rate steady.