Written by: Steel Masson
There are a lot of benefits to biking or cycling. It is well known that exercise helps improve the human body system. During biking exercises, the body performs some work to help burn calories, define the muscle tone and improve the mobility of the joints amongst other advantages. It is only conceivable that every biking episode tends to weaken the body system and so it would need some relaxation. Naturally, this induces some deep sleep to atone for the tiredness.
Biking to feel calm and active
A study by the National Sleep Foundation about eight years ago found out that about three-quarters of those who indulge in regular exercises get quality rest through longer sleep. It is also known that non-exercisers usually feel like they haven’t rested enough when they wake in the mornings. Most people do not go for workouts but love biking. Riding a bike is a lot different from other sports exercises like playing basketball or running.
Biking is a mild type of workout. It ensures your whole body is involved in the exercise without exerting too much stress on your bones and joints. It practically eliminates the risk of getting hurt. Unlike most other exercising sports, biking doesn’t make you wake the next day having joint pains unless of course, your mattress has an issue.
The benefits of biking for your body
When riding your bike, there is usually no stress on the back. Your core muscles get to work in keeping you balanced whenever your hips are tilting as you push down on the pedals. The rest of your body stays fixed. This helps to eliminate any back pains. The main muscles that are set to work during biking are the quadriceps and hamstrings in the upper leg. The soleus is that the calf also gets to work but not as much as the other two. The pedaling process is made possible by the way the muscles contract in a sequence.
When the muscles are working, a lot of heat is produced within the body system. This in turn burns calories. Moderate biking or cycling helps burn about 5 calories per minute. If you cycle faster, the calories burn faster. This is because the muscles work more and produce more heat. Usually, body fats burn with the presence of heat in the body. According to the Harvard Health Letter, a 155-pound person can lose as many as 298 calories during a 30 minutes bike ride.
Adding a sense of adventure
The amount of weight loss per period of biking depends on the type of bikes though. A motorized bike usually requires less effort to pedal. It could even be driven without the pedals. This is because the motorized bicycle is designed with a motor or engine and transmission which helps with the pedaling or eliminates having to pedal at all. This can be used if you are doing a long-distance journey on your bike. The motorized bicycle is what gave rise to the motorcycles we see nowadays. It is noteworthy though that you practically don’t do much work when using a motorized bike. You only need to balance yourself on the bike while it moves. No matter that, you are still having fun and experiencing a more interesting bike ride.
A study in Science has been able to reveal that when you indulge in aerobics, the feeling of anxiety can be reduced. Cycling is an example of aerobic exercise. Being anxious is when you are troubled about something. When riding the bike, your brain and subconscious concentrate on maintaining balance. The functionality of your brain and its physical structure tend to improve during cycling. The level of a stress hormone called cortisol reduces during every fifteen minutes of cycling. This helps to reduce anxiety and depression also. And this of course means better sleep at night. So whenever you come back late from biking, check your temperature controller whether your room temperature is alright, turn your lights off and have a good sleep.
Final thoughts
Having read through how the muscles work during biking, how the brain relaxes during such rides, and how the heat produced melts and eliminates body fat, you will agree with me that the body will naturally crave a deep long sleep to repair worn out tissues. Outdoor biking with friends helps more with healing depression. At that instant, all the biker thinks about is the serenity of the environment depending on the location they have chosen to ride through. The chats with friends that are also biking with you are a stress reliever. It is the reason why sleep that occurs after a memorable biking experience is longer and deeper. You are waking up fully refreshed also. So get biking more often for a longer deeper sleep.
Where to get a bike? Please see www.unlimitedbiking.com if you are in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, or Virginia!
