heart health - 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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Was it a Heart Attack?

When you hear about someone who is quite fit and middle aged having a heart attack, this is likely the cause. Heart attacks in the traditional sense, where a blockage or failure causes the heart to stop functioning correctly, are highly unlikely in someone that exercises regularly. Atrial fibrillation can be severe enough to interrupt delivery of oxygen, leading to heart attack-like conditions. The scary part is that you may not know you have atrial fibrillation until one of these signs pops up.

But most cases of atrial fibrillation share the common risk factors of heart disease. A much smaller percentage have atrial fibrillation because of genetics. Those are usually the cases of the heart attack in a fit person while exercising. There is treatment for atrial fibrillation, whether it is genetic or heart disease related, through medication, electrical therapy, and surgery.

Atrial Fibrillation in Endurance Athletes

Estimates count about 2.7 million Americans with atrial fibrillation. Most of those cases are associated with heart disease, but as the number of people exercising increases, so does the number of exercise related atrial fibrillation cases. The myocardial cells in the heart degrade as you age, a condition called myocardial fibrosis. It is stiffening of the cells of the heart muscle, resulting in less than optimal heart function. This can lead to atrial fibrillation because the muscle no longer can fire properly.

For the average endurance athlete, myocardial fibrosis and atrial fibrillation occur at the same rates as the general population. Elite endurance athletes may be at increased risk of myocardial fibrosis and atrial fibrillation because of the large cardiac loads they exert on their hearts. As many as twenty percent of endurance athletes have enlarged atria. Exercise has long been proven a benefit to overall health, including reducing the risk of heart disease, but the recent research on atrial fibrillation and endurance athletes shows an increased risk. Be aware that atrial fibrillation is likely to occur many years after starting an exercise regimen. It takes a long time with a lot of hard effort for myocardial fibrosis to develop. Someone who was an elite athlete at a younger age that has dialed back exercise is still at risk for atrial fibrillation.

Take the Risk

While endurance athletes are at increased risk for atrial fibrillation, they are at far lower risk of many other dangerous conditions: coronary disease, diabetes, thyroid conditions, obesity, stroke and most everything else associated with as sedentary lifestyle.

While you are continuing your cycling, always be in tune with your body. If you feel any of the symptoms of atrial fibrillation: weakness, heart palpitations and shortness of breath not associated with exercise intensity, see a doctor. There are medical interventions that can alleviate the atrial fibrillation, allowing you to continue your exercise and minimize the impact of the condition.

Beyond the awareness of knowing it exists, there is not much you can do for atrial fibrillation to minimize the risk. Continuing on the bike is the best option because it has so many other long-term health benefits. Listen to your body for any signs of atrial fibrillation. It is likely you will not have any, but if you do, get it checked out so you can get back on the bike as quickly as possible.