I Love Bicycling

I Love Bicycling is a website that is geared towards cycling for beginners with road cycling tips, training articles, nutrition tips, weight loss, how to’s and bike repair articles.

Is Cycling Good Cardio? The Answer Is Yes!

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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!

cycling cardio

(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

Dynamic Cyclist was designed to help cyclists worldwide get better at their sport and to ride-pain free! We have hundreds of high-quality follow-along routines to help you get stronger, more mobile, and less susceptible to injury. Join thousands of cyclists today and try out our programming for 7-days FREE by clicking here! We’ll see you there!

Why Cycling Is Good for Your Mental Health

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Cycling and mental health are often intertwined within the same conversation. For good reason. This sport has been shown to have a profound effect on people’s mental health (perhaps even your own). But that’s a big term – mental health – what does it mean?

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

“Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.”

Our mood regulation, how we interact with people, what we remember, our ability to process information, the way we see ourselves…anything and everything in life can be linked back to and influenced by our mental states. So it goes without saying that taking care of it is important…but how do we do so?

Well, it looks like our sport is one we can rely on when it comes to mental health. IF we use it properly, that is.

Cycling and mental health

GutesaMilos/Adobe Stock

Movement & the Accessibility of Cycling

We are not made to sit still. What many people don’t realize is that your brain is actually built on movement. From the time you were a toddler and throughout the duration of your life, movement has been the bridge between your mind and the outside world. It only makes sense that we need copious amounts of it to keep us healthy.

Modern lifestyles have done their best to divorce people from movement. Our jobs are sedentary, we drive, we “relax”, we watch TV, we go on our phones…it goes against the grain of millions of years of evolution. If you look at a baby they are constantly fidgeting, moving, reaching, exploring – it’s an inherent impulse deep, deep inside our nervous system. One that can always be reignited, even if it’s been ignored or suppressed for years on end. 

Cycling is something almost everybody can do. Most of us learn to ride bikes when we’re kids, and it’s something we never really forget. This partly explains the explosion of popularity the sport has experienced over the past decades. You don’t have to join a team or get a membership, you just need a bike, and the rest of the world is yours to explore. 

Cycling & Mental Health

There are several reasons why cycling is one of the best exercises for your mental health. Exercise in general has been shown time and time again to be a crucial component in the mitigation of mental health problems, especially commonly experienced conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Cardiovascular exercise in particular has a profound effect on cognitive function and the stability of someone’s mental state. The constant pumping of blood and repetitive movements in sports such as cycling help to circulate nutrients, oxygen and neurochemicals like dopamine and serotonin to keep your organs and tissues healthy, while at the same time making you feel good, satisfied and rewarded for your efforts. 

The after effects of a ride or other physical activity are long lasting, and also contribute to you sleeping more deeply at night, lowering your stress levels, increasing your sex drive and maintaining a healthy body composition. If you view your cycling regimen from a zoomed out perspective and stretched over time, you’re going to look better, feel better and have an improved self-image. All significant factors in keeping your mind healthy. 

Being Outside & Social Connection

cycling team on a mountain road

kovop58/Adobe Stock

Two other important aspects of our sport when it comes to mental health are the outdoor element and the exciting social opportunities. 

Being outside in new environments and natural surroundings are both stimulating and salutary parts of the human experience. We are products of the environment, and it’s an ancient yearning within us all to be a part of it in some way. Think about the proclivity towards an activity like camping, even among homebodies. Cycling takes us there, and anywhere we can really imagine.

When you start riding you also instantly become a part of a new community. Humans are social beings, and we need to find relatability and commonality within other members of our tribe. Riding is a surefire way to do just that, and you’re guaranteed to find a cycling group or club that goes out for rides in or around your town. Even our equipment and apparel, which outsiders love to taunt, is something that unites us and automatically signals another tribe member from afar.

As alluded to at the beginning of this article, mental health is a massive term, and it has many components that contribute to its fitness and longevity. Being in tune with the harmony of human nature, by being outside and connecting with others, heightens our chances for a sound relationship within the mind, and are things that the essence of cycling naturally adopts.

Avoiding the Masochistic Trap

We must be careful of just one thing, and that is the often romanticized idea of working yourself to death on the bike. Cycling’s low intensity/high volume repetition allows people to train and race for hours on end, covering tens to hundreds of miles. It is one of the joys within our sport that we have the freedom to cover such distances and put in so many hours. But it is also a risk.

A healthy reminder that learning to push yourself is good, and learning how to use your bike regeneratively and therapeutically is just as valuable. Like anything, exercise/cycling can be addictive, and it’s possible to have too much of something good. The bike will always be there to pedal, it never gets tired, but you do, and you should never let it take you farther than you can go.

Cycling for Health, Longevity & Performance 

If you’re looking to build a strong and balanced body that allows you to be the best cyclist you can be, consider joining our community over at Dynamic Cyclist. We’ve developed a 100% online, fully interactive, follow along training platform for cyclists that helps you ride pain free to the best of your abilities. Sign up for a 7-day free trial by clicking here!

This Will Make You Faster On The Trails

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Mountain biking is that unique brand of our sport notoriously responsible for its abrasions, broken bones, banged up shoulders and the odd concussion from time to time. Strength training for mountain biking should prepare us for what can sometimes be a winding trail of hostility and potential danger. That doesn’t, however, mean it’s something we should avoid.

The chance to get into nature, explore new technical paths and take in the beautiful scenery are what biking outside is all about. Preparing our bodies to handle the sudden drops, body jolts, jagged turns and unorthodox terrain means we can enjoy ourselves with a built-in insurance policy that protects us from injury and improves our cycling performance as a whole.

Becoming a better, faster mountain biker is always going to be a dynamic, ever changing goal. There are so many areas we can pay attention to for a sport that shifts focus quickly depending on where we are and how we’re riding. We have some universal tips to help and a special routine excerpt from our Dynamic Cyclist training program at the bottom for you to try!

Build Your Confidence

Source: Simona

It’s one thing to preach this idea, it’s a whole other to actually go out and do it. Especially when you’re careening down a mountain at God knows what speed, with every tree and boulder just waiting to stop you dead in your tracks. Exposing yourself to those situations though is precisely the way you get better at mountain biking.

The mitigation of fear is a competitive mountain biker’s innate advantage compared to the amateur rider. They have dealt with almost every situation, and understand how to control the forces that are going to be applied to them. They know their bike and they know their body, so they’re free to let go of the brake and use it all to their advantage.

Riding on different terrain, paths and trails will help educate your mind and body to be more comfortable amidst all the chaos. High confidence has been shown to be one of the few differentiators in downhill mountain biking performance. Other factors included hand grip endurance and aerobic capacity which, if you lack, could be significant performance detractors…

Improve Hand Grip Endurance & Aerobic Capacity

Source: marchsirawit/Adobe Stock

Surprise! In case that last sentence wasn’t a clue. Imagine the feeling of losing your grip on the handlebars or gasping for air with nature’s every creation flying by you at lightning fast speeds. That doesn’t sound to us like optimal conditions for the intense concentration required under such circumstances. 

One of the best ways to get direct functional cross over from your mountain bike training to the trails is with the use of cables. As you can see above, the woman has her arms angled similarly to the position you’ll find yourself in on the bike. Cable machines can challenge the hands, forearms and shoulders to stabilize in a similar way to biking but with progressive loading.

For aerobic capacity, making sure to challenge yourself with lots of uphill riding is a surefire way to get your heart pumping. It’s important to remember too that your aerobic capacity and overall cardiovascular health are the first variables of fitness to decrease upon taking a break from physical activity. Quick to gain, quick to lose, so make sure you train it regularly!

Adjust Your Gaze

Source: yanik88/Adobe Stock

Where you look actually has a significant influence on your overall body position, and this plays an important part in getting the most out of your muscles on the bike. Our eyes have a stimulating effect on the muscles in whatever direction we look, which is built into our nervous systems to help anticipate movement in that direction

The pelvo-ocular response is a reflex that orients our pelvis and lower extremities based on where our eyes are looking. Because of the positions we find ourselves in while mountain biking, there can be a tendency to crane the neck upwards to keep our eyes level with the horizon. This is indeed necessary sometimes, but not all the time.

Tilting the chin too far up will cause our lower backs to arch as a result of this pelvo-ocular response, this in turn will stretch the core muscles and cause them to disengage, which is not something we want. It is instead better, when possible, to keep the spine and neck in a neutral position, retracting the chin and letting your gaze fall naturally in front of you for a tight, stable core.

Deadlift Position & Mountain Biking

An interesting parallel to the fitness world is deadlift positioning in the gym. It has been shown that retraction of the neck and chin into a straight, neutral position helps a person to engage the erector spinae (back) muscles and exterior obliques in their core when lifting. Transferring this activation to the bike would result in far superior force production and absorption.

Ready To Get Stronger On The Bike?

Dynamic Cyclist offers an all around training platform for cyclists of all disciplines worldwide. We have comprehensive strength training workouts, injury prevention sessions, mobility and warm up routines all available with the click of a button! 

Give it a try by following along today with our coach, Alisha. This is just one of the hundreds of videos from our library that is available for a low monthly subscription. Our goal is to make you a better, stronger cyclist who enjoys being on the bike and rides pain free. You can sign up here for a 7-day free trial and see what you think! 

Strength Training Considerations For Different Types Of Biking

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Whether you’re on the road, a velodrome or carving up mountain trails, your bike riding is going to be significantly improved with a proper strength and conditioning routine. Strength training for cycling is often overlooked because it takes you off the bike, but with a small shift in perspective we’d like to suggest it will actually pack more riding into your life over time.

Source: 24K-Production – Adobe Stock

Strength Demands of Different Rider Types

Depending on the type of bike riding you choose to participate in, the demands on your body will also change from style to style. While there’s certainly cross over amongst the three types we have categorized below, they all have distinct differences that are unique to that particular discipline.

 Mountain Biking

Source: yanik88 – Adobe Stock

Diverse terrain, varying depths, hard corners, jumps, rocks, roots and everything the outdoors has to offer are factors that every mountain biker must deal with. The movement is much more dynamic than road or track cycling, and in terms of force absorption this is most definitely the hardest type of biking on your body. 

It is well known that adult road cyclists are typically at a much higher risk for osteoporosis than other athletes. Some studies actually show their bone density to closely resemble (and in one case, even be lower than) sedentary control groups. This is not encouraging news for the cycling community.

Conversely, related research has made note of mountain biking being a possible cycling alternative that doesn’t so negatively affect a person’s bone density. Operation of a heavier bike, turbulent jolts and violent carving all translate to more load being put through your body. Strength training for mountain biking should prepare you to handle these types of forces.

Road Cycling

Source: ibravery – Adobe Stock

As mentioned above, road cyclists tend to have a lower bone mineral density compared to other athletes and even the general population. This is because the bike is supporting you while you’re riding, so even though your legs are pumping hard and your heart is beating fast, your bones are sitting there wondering what all the huff and puff is about.

Another factor to consider with road cycling is the prolonged, folded over postures you’ll often find yourself in. The hips have to work in a less than optimal range, the lower back is in a vulnerable position and the neck gets craned back (only some of the issues unfortunately). Low back problems, faulty breathing patterns and tight hips are often the result.

Strength training for cyclists should focus on correcting these postural and functional shortcomings. Introducing load through the body off the bike will help you become stronger on the bike. Not only that, a properly designed program will actually make riding more comfortable and lower your risk of injury despite the less than optimal positions you might find yourself in.

Track Cycling

Source: AboutLife – Adobe Stock

Track cycling is a unique discipline within the broader realm of our sport. There are many types of events and formats, but for the purpose of this article we want to focus on the particular differences in sprint cycling. These are races performed over short distances where maximum power and force production is required. 

Athletes who are successful in sprint cycling tend to have a higher composition of type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers. Individuals with more fast twitch fibers are capable of producing quicker movements and generating more strength in a shorter period of time (power). There is a direct correlation between muscle fiber composition and sprint cycling performance.

Different muscle fibers react to different training modalities. An explosive athlete like a sprint cyclist will likely be doing a lot of jumping and sprinting exercises. Training with heavy weights for low repetitions will also be common in order to teach their body to produce as much force as possible in as little time as possible. Long, leisurely rides will be for nothing more than recovery.

Lifting Weights For Cycling

Source: Flamingo Images – Adobe Stock

Incorporating weight lifting into your cycling training plan is a great way to make yourself stronger on the bike, balance your pedal stroke and most importantly reduce the risk of injury. The #1 goal of any athlete in the gym (unless you’re a powerlifter, olympic lifter or bodybuilder) is injury prevention, because nothing else matters if you can’t actually do your sport.

Determining how to train, what exercises to do, in what rep range and at what weight can all be tricky variables if you don’t have much experience in the gym. This is where the help of a one-on-one coach becomes valuable, as they’ll be able to provide you with the guidance necessary to ensure you’re not wasting your time doing something counterproductive. 

As we’ve already seen, the type of riding you’re doing is going to determine the bulk of your strength training routine. You might be wondering though, is there anything I can do for strength training outside the gym? Regardless of whether I’m a mountain biker, road or track cyclist? The answer is yes!

At Home Strength Training For Cyclists

Dynamic Cyclist is our fully immersive training platform that combines mobility, stretching, injury prevention and strength workouts all into one, easy to use interface. We’ve taken care of all the programming, technical work and coaching so that all you have to do is follow along!

To give you a taste of the world class instruction and workout quality we provide, we’ve included below one of our FULL BODY routines that is going to work you from head to toe. Everything at Dynamic Cyclist is designed to make you better on the bike, regardless of what discipline you most participate in.

Follow along with Alisha, Dynamic Cyclist’s certified coach!

How To Improve Your Fitness Without Training More

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Achieving better fitness with a limited schedule can be difficult. To get stronger within your time constraints, you must be exacting in your methods of both training and recovery. This is the best way to make the most of your time and effort.

How To Improve Your Fitness Without Training More

Riding Hard

There is no sense in riding easy if you have only a few days per week to ride to improve your fitness. Three very hard days on the bike should get you passable fitness to get you through your local group rides. More than three very hard days on the bike could burn you out if you do not get a week of recovery every four weeks or so. A very hard day means blindingly hard, so hard that you probably want to quit, have tunnel vision or maybe even release your bowels in your chamois. If you have never tested this dark, dark place, now is the time to try it.

Specific IntervalsHow To Improve Your Fitness Without Training More

Set out with a plan of specific intervals for your extra hard days. This way you cannot cheat or have the power fall off by the end of the ride, or if you do cheat, you will know it was blatant. High intensity interval training has proven to be quite effective in increasing fitness with short workouts. Remember the last paragraph; you must be prepared to really slay it on the bike to make the most of these workouts. Start with small sessions once or twice a week and build up.

Sleep

Without sleep, all of your hard training, all of the hours you suffered on the bike are for nought. Sleep is when you make your real gains. It is when your body compensates for the training stress you put it through and adapts to the load. It is always incredibly important, but if you are burning the candle at both ends with work, family and other obligations on top of training, quality (and large quantities) of sleep will keep you afloat in all aspects of life and let you make fitness gains.

Nutrition

Again, with the focused approach that is necessary when you are short on hours, your nutrition needs to be completely dialed too. You will not be doing huge volume, so you do not need large quantities of food, but you need to make sure you are getting the highest quality food. Good nutrition will fuel your workouts to the best of your ability along with fueling proper recovery.

When you are pulled in many directions, it is easy to fall into a routine of quick and dirty food. If you want those fitness gains bad enough, you will need to figure out a way to get the best nutrition possible. It will make every pedal stroke that much better and mean that much more in the long run.

Drink lots of water (with electrolytes, not purified water, whether it is distilled or reverse osmosis) to keep your blood viscous and flowing. It will deliver nutrients to your muscles more freely and keep your heart’s work to a minimum.

Cross TrainingHow To Improve Your Fitness Without Training More

With limited time, sometimes a full training ride is difficult to squeeze in. On those days, cross training may be a quick way to maintain fitness that you are trying to hold onto or increase. If you can keep it cycling specific, whether it is in the weight room, skating or nordic skiing, that is great. If you have other activities that fit into your schedule, like running, that is fine too, although it will not have as much of a positive impact on your cycling musculature.

Recover Hard

Recovery should be happening whenever you are not training, although that is probably a stretch when you have a busy life. When you are recovering, do it full on. Get your feet up, keep hydrated, eat well and keep the external stress down. An additional recovery tactic is compression gear. You can wear it when you are at work under your normal work clothes.

Do it Full-on

If your time is limited and you want to make fitness gains, everything you do has to be full-on: your riding, your sleep, your nutrition and your recovery. Make it a routine that works and you will make the most of your time.

Will Cycling Make Your Legs Bigger?

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Will Cycling Make Your Legs Bigger?

Will Cycling Make Your Legs Bigger?

Despite this photo, it is unlikely that cycling will make your legs larger unless you really focus on it. For the women cyclists in the crowd that do not want to bulk up, don’t worry. Cyclists legs are directly correlated with the type of cycling each cyclist does. You are able to receive nice toned legs or you can build some monster quads.

You will not receive the monster quads that you see in this photo unless you start doing some serious weight training though!

How To Build Leg Muscle for Cycling

Cyclists thighs can be strengthened on and off the bike with a few simple exercises.

On the bike exercises:

  1. Low RPM “Grinding” – Get in the big gear and keep the cadence below 65rpm for 3 sets of 5 to 10 minute intervals.
  2. Stand Up Climbing – Find a hill that takes 5 to 10 minutes to summit and climb it out of the saddle 2 or 3 times.
  3. Single Leg Drills – Really focus on the upstroke as the hip flexor is likely your limitor. Do 3 sets of 1 minute per leg.

Off the bike exercise:

  1. Leg Press or Weighted Squat – If you do not have experience in weight lifting then do a leg press as it is much safer. Do 3 sets of 10 to build leg muscle.

How To Keep Toned Legs For Cycling

If you are looking for a more lean look then focus on endurance and sustained efforts. The average bikers legs are perfectly toned and it is a very sexy look. No real extra work required other than biking around as much as you are able to.

Male vs Female Cyclist Legs

Men have a unfair natural advantage over women and that is they produce more testosterone, in fact, male adults produce about 7 to 8 times as much testosterone as adult females.

It is no wonder that when you look at Victoria Pendleton (a serious female track sprinter) and compare her legs to someone like Chris Hoy (a serious male track sprinter) they look slender in comparison.

Cyclist Legs - Victoria PendletonCycling Legs - Chris Hoy

Muscle Burns More Calories Than Fat

Muscle burns nearly 3 times more calories than fat does, so you need to eat more calories (especially protein) if you are trying to bulk up. If you are trying to lose weight the benefit of building muscle is that it will work as a natural furnace burning off calories at an expedited rate.

Genetics

Genetics play a huge role in your body composition, some body types will be more suitable to building large amounts of muscle mass quickly while other body types will be more prone to keep on unwanted excess fat stores while another will stay lean and mean no matter how many weighted squats they do.

No matter what your goal is cycling is a great way to tone your body!

Exercise Techniques to Maximize your Cycling Performance

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Exercise Techniques to Maximize your Cycling PerformanceIt’s no secret that cycling is an incredibly potent method of exercise, and it’s actually considered one of the most effective forms of cardio on the planet. Training your body to perform to its fullest potential is something that most competitive cyclists strive for, and just a few extra seconds of energy can spell the difference between a confident win, and losing out as your heart rate struggles to keep up with your pace!

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:

  1. Sit down comfortably, and place your legs slightly apart, with your feet flat against the floor
  2. Keep your back straight, and use a cushion if needed
  3. Tense/ flex your thigh muscles, so that your heels lift off of the ground and your feet enter a ‘tip-toe’ stance
  4. Keep your thighs flexed, and hold for 15 seconds – or for as long as you can manage
  5. 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.


What Happens to You When You Stop Cycling

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Cycling is one of the best forms of exercise around for boosting your overall fitness and dropping those extra pounds that you have been finding so difficult to shed. It is excellent for your cardiovascular conditioning and the fact that it is a low impact sport means that you don’t need to worry about suffering injuries in the same way that you would with weight training or running.

As the amount of cycling you do increases, your body’s fitness levels improve with it. As such, if you choose to stop cycling regularly you are going to find that everything that you worked so hard to achieve is going to come under threat. Here we look at just a few of the things that will happen to your body if you choose to stop cycling regularly.

What Happens to You When You Stop Cycling

Your Mood Dips

Every time you exercise your brain is improving. In fact, exercise is considered to be a key way of keeping the brain healthy and active even into old age. Exercise also triggers the release of serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant and generally keeps your mood positive. That great feeling you have after a good workout? That’s the serotonin at play.

Your body becomes used to having this shot of happiness on a regular basis if you are exercising, so if you suddenly stop cycling regularly you are going to find that your mood starts dipping as a result, making you even less likely to start exercising again.

Your Metabolism Drops

Exercise causes your metabolism to speed up, which is one of the key reasons why you can burn so many calories when you are cycling. In fact, it is believed that your metabolism works at five times the speed when you’re on the bike than it normally does. This accounts for about 400 to 500 calories every hour.

If you stop cycling regularly, your metabolism is going to stagnate and you are no longer going to lose weight if your diet remains the same.

Blood Pressure Rises

Cycling is an aerobic exercise, which means that it encourages your body to release hormones that keep your blood vessels in check and ensures that your blood pressure stays at a healthy level. Cycling on a regular basis has been found to lower your blood pressure somewhere between 8 to 10 points every single month, which reduces the risk of heart issues and other ailments caused by high blood pressure.

If you stop cycling regularly you lose all of these advantages very quickly, and you will find that your blood pressure starts rising again. It will start after about a week and in just a few weeks you will find it is back to the level it was at before you started.

You Might Put On Weight

It should go without saying that when you stop cycling regularly you are going to put on weight if every other aspect of your life remains the same. There is a misconception that the gains you have made will last a long time even if you stop.

In fact, that simply isn’t the case. As mentioned previously, your metabolism stagnates when you stop exercising, which means your body’s ability to burn fat is reduced. This means that if you stick to the same diet you are going to start noticing that your body is getting a little softer in areas that used to be lean and trim. Even if you reduce you calorie intake, you are going to notice your tone softening and your waistline increasing. Over time, the effects will only increase, so be sure to keep getting out there and exercising to keep yourself in top shape.

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