Cycling for fitness: What does cycling do to your body?
It’s no revelation that cycling is beneficial for your health and fitness. With millions worldwide participating in the activity, cycling can maintain your cardiovascular health, strengthen muscles, help you maintain a healthy weight and help improve your mobility and flexibility without applying pressure to your knee and hip joints like running does.
In this fitness guide, we’ll explore the health and fitness benefits of regular cycling and discover what exactly happens to your body when you cycle.
What does cycling do to your body?
Cycling has many positive physical effects on your body, from when you start cycling to longer-term effects. Here is what happens to your body when you get on your bike.
Immediate effects
The immediate effects you experience when you start cycling can sometimes feel uncomfortable. But with regular practice, these effects can provide long-term benefits and become less bothersome.
Heart rate increase
As you begin cycling, your heart rate will increase to pump more blood to your muscles, delivering oxygen and nutrients. Regularly increasing your heart rate through exercise will improve your blood circulation overall, strengthen your heart and lower your blood pressure risk, contributing to better cardiovascular health in the long term.
Your heart is a muscle, so with more cycling training, it will become stronger and more efficient at pumping blood around your body. In later life, this can reduce the risk of heart disease, strokes and high blood pressure.
Breathing rate increases
When you begin cycling, your breathing rate will increase to supply more oxygen to your muscles and remove carbon dioxide. Again, giving your lungs regular practice will improve your lung function overall and increase the efficiency with which your lungs exchange oxygen. You’ll find that the more you cycle, the less “puffed out” you’ll be when doing more challenging cycles.
Muscle contraction
Cycling requires muscle strength to push the bike forward, particularly your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and calves to pedal the bike. With regular cycling practice, your muscles will grow, building additional muscle endurance, which helps you sustain pedalling for longer, more challenging rides.
Sweating
When you begin cycling, your body generates heat. Your body will then sweat to help regulate your body temperature to prevent overheating while exercising.
Effects over time
From better heart health to immunity-boosting benefits, cycling can boast numerous long-term health effects.
Calorie burning and weight management
Over the course of your cycle, you will burn calories, which can contribute to a calorie deficit. With regular persistence and the right diet, cycling will help you lose or maintain weight.
Bone strengthening
One of the main advantages of cycling for fitness is that it is a low-impact activity, meaning it won’t cause stress to your bones and joints compared to high-impact exercises like running. By choosing low-weight-bearing exercises, you can help maintain your bone density, which reduces your risk of developing osteoporosis later in life.
Improved joint flexibility
Because cycling is low-impact, it can help you exercise if you have arthritis or joint problems.
Insulin regulation
Regular exercise like cycling can also help regulate insulin levels, reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Improved coordination
With regular cycling, your balance and coordination will improve. Repeated cycling practice trains your muscles and body to balance better through synchronised movements.
Improved digestion
Regular exercise like cycling can promote healthy digestion and alleviate common gastrointestinal issues.
Enhance immunity
Regular moderate exercise like cycling can boost your immune system and reduce your risk of common illnesses.
Cycling for specific goals
Above are the general effects on the body when cycling. But if you want more specific goals, you can alter your cycling style and regime to achieve them.
Building endurance
If you want to be able to cycle for longer, maybe you’re training for a sportive or endurance race, or you want to achieve a multi-day cycling holiday, you need to build your endurance.
To build endurance, you have to work on pacing. Tailor your workouts with various pedal paces so when you’re cycling for longer at a regular pedal pace, you will find it easier. Start easy and gradually increase your pace, distances and frequency to build endurance.
Strength training
If you’re trying to build muscle, cycling is a great way to incorporate a low-impact workout into your exercise regime. Build muscle by challenging them to increasingly higher impact. For example, incorporate hill climbing and high-resistance cycling into indoor and outdoor cycling workouts.
Weight loss and cardiovascular fitness
If you aim to burn calories, lose weight and improve your cardiovascular fitness, interval training will raise your heart rate, helping you burn more calories over a shorter period.
Mental effects
Along with a multitude of physical benefits, cycling also contributes to a healthy mental and emotional state.
Stress release
Cycling can reduce stress and anxiety. Furthermore, the psychological benefits of spending time outdoors on your bike and connecting with nature are unparalleled.
Endorphine release
Cycling will also release endorphins, which is the “happy hormone”. An injection of endorphins into your brain can improve your mood. In the long term, regular physical activity can alleviate symptoms of depression. Endorphins can also reduce pain perception.
Mental clarity
With an increased blood flow to your brain, you will experience an enhancement in your cognitive function and mental clarity.
What muscles does cycling work?
Cycling is a highly effective cardiovascular exercise that engages multiple muscle groups for a full-body workout. Here are the main groups of muscles that engage while cycling.
- Quadriceps, found at the front of your thigh, heavily engage with your downwards pedal stroke.
- The hamstrings at the back of your thighs are involved in your upward pedal stroke.
- Your calves, specifically the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles at the back of your lower leg, engage when you push and pull the pedals.
- The gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in your buttocks, engages when you push down on your pedals. Your glute provides the power for each stroke.
- The hip flexor muscles, such as the iliopsoas, engage when you lift your leg during the upward pedal stroke.
- Your hip extensors include muscles like the gluteus maximus and hamstrings, which work together to extend your hips, allowing you to push the pedal downward with force.
- You will also engage your core muscles, including your rectus abdominis, obliques and lower back muscles, which helps stabilise your body and maintain a good posture while cycling.
- Your deltoids and trapezius engage to a certain extent to help support your upper body, especially while in an upright position.
Note that these are general muscles you use when cycling. However, these can vary based on what cycling type you do, for example, road cycling, mountain biking and spinning. You might also use different muscles on various terrains and the ride intensity. By varying your riding style and terrains, you can target multiple muscle groups and develop a more well-rounded workout schedule.
How many calories do you burn while cycling?
The number of calories you burn while cycling will depend on your weight, your cycling intensity, the duration of your speed and the type of bike you’re using, meaning every person’s calorie burn rate will be different.
For example, if you weigh more, you will typically burn more calories. The faster, longer and more intense your ride is, the more calories you burn. Light road bikes on tarmac roads with little resistance will burn fewer calories than pedalling heavier mountain bikes on uneven surfaces.
As an illustration, take an average person weighing 155-160 pounds or 70-73kg. On a leisurely cycle doing a moderate pace of 12-14 miles per hour or 19-22km/h, the average person will burn 290-355 calories per hour. But on a vigorous ride at a faster pace of around 16-20 miles per hour or 25-32km/h, they will burn 590-740 calories per hour.
However, using mountain bikes on rough terrain or uphill trails, the average person will burn more calories because it will require more effort to navigate the challenging terrain and keep the same pace. Mountain biking can burn 500-600 calories per hour, depending on the intensity.
However, if you’re using an indoor turbo trainer or in a spin class, an indoor setting provides a more controlled environment for cycling and burning calories, where you can set the exact intensity.
A moderate stationary cycling session can burn approximately 400-500 calories per hour, while a vigorous session can burn around 600-800 calories, depending on your weight and intensity.
Note that these are just rough estimates, and each person will have a unique calorie expenditure. For more accurate calorie calculations while exercising, you can use a fitness tracker or heart rate monitor, which accounts for your weight, cycling speed and duration of activity to accurately determine how many calories you’ve burned during a cycling session and display it in an app on your phone.
Fitness bikes at Swinnerton Cycles
If you’re looking to profit from the benefits of cycling, we cannot recommend it to you enough. From physical benefits in your long-term health to improving your mental health, you can’t get better than cycling.
If you’re new to cycling, why not browse our range of bikes at Swinnerton Cycles to start reaping the health benefits immediately? We also have a range of women’s bikes specific to women’s sizes.
Or, if you’re unsure what bike to get, visit us in-store, and we’ll help you find the perfect bike for you. Happy cycling!
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