Why Biking Is a Great Way To Stay Fit

There are many ways you can keep your body slim and fit. Yoga, strength training, cardio, Zumba, Crossfit — you name it. With so many options these days, you can stick to a method you know works for you. And while biking hasn’t necessarily been an unpopular way of losing weight, it just doesn’t have that same level of excitement as dancing or lifting heavy weights.

Still, biking is a great way to stay healthy and fit, and here are a couple of reasons why.

BIKING AND FITNESS

The reason why biking works in the first place for staying fit has to do with the activity itself. To be considered “fit”, you must have well-toned muscles and a healthy amount of body fat. Not zero fat at all, but just enough. You can achieve this in many ways, but biking does both at the same time.

When it comes to muscle growth, it’s not hard to see that biking has that covered from the get-go. When you’re biking, you use your legs to pedal the bike forward. This comprises the majority of your “exercise” as you bike — your legs push you forward with the help of transferred energy onto the wheels. Your arms also do work a bit by steering the bicycle left and right, but it’s not nearly as much work.

Then there’s the healthy amount of fat. Biking requires a lot of energy usage, and this means that you’ll easily start burning through your fat reserves once you’ve run out of carbohydrates in your body. By biking regularly, your body will constantly need to burn off excess fat to keep up, and you will lose weight eventually.

REASONS TO LIKE BIKING

It’s a practical exercise

Unlike other forms of exercise, biking actually has a practical element to it. You can commute from one place to another with a bike, as it’s a common form of transportation around cities and towns. Bikes let you move from point A to point B much faster than walking and with less effort, so they’re great to have even if you don’t care about losing weight. Still, it never hurts to stay fit, and being able to do so by simply traveling from one place to another is very convenient.

Depending on where you live, however, biking can be a little more difficult for commuting purposes. Not all countries have streets or roads designated for bikes, and even if there are, they may not be practical enough. This can be an issue if you mean to use the bike for commuting purposes, but as long as you can find a park or some other open area, you can still use the bike to exercise just fine.

It’s fun

Biking is fun. There’s nothing quite like it — the feeling of moving faster than you can run with the wind on your face feels very refreshing. It can be a little dangerous, so you may want to have protective equipment such as a bike helmet, but for the most part, it’s a very active endeavor that many people enjoy, even if they just use it to get to work. While you can exercise at home or at the gym, biking offers an experience that you can’t enjoy anywhere else.