The Surprising Fitness Benefits From Riding An Electric Bike

Fitness Benefits from Electric Bikes

Fitness is a broad term, including both physical and mental health. To be fit and healthy you need to be physically active. Regular physical activity can help protect you from serious diseases, and help to strengthen our mental acuity. Riding a bicycle regularly, including electric bikes, is one of the best ways to reduce your risk of health problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle.

Cycling is a healthy, low-impact exercise that can be enjoyed by people of all ages, from young children to older adults. It is also fun, cheap and good for the environment.

Riding to work or the shops is one of the most time-efficient ways to combine regular exercise with your everyday routine.

Electric bikes are now growing in popularity, especially as gyms have closed and people are looking for outdoor activities and sports that can be done safely.

Owning an ebike can give you more freedom in life, allowing you to ride farther, even, leave the car behind, and get a great workout in the process.

In this article, we are going to cover three of the coolest health benefits that ebikes offer, including cardiovascular health, joint health through low-impact exercise, and boosts to the immune system.

Let’s dive in.

Cardiovascular Health

Cardiovascular diseases are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels, including coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, peripheral arterial disease, congenital heart disease, and deep vein thrombosis. Heart attacks and strokes are usually acute events, often caused by a blockage that prevents blood flow.

The cause of heart attacks and strokes is often the presence of a combination of risk factors, such as tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet and obesity, hypertension, and the lack of physical activity.

Regular cycling stimulates and improves your heart, lungs and circulation, reducing your risk of cardiovascular diseases with every ride.

Cycling strengthens your heart muscles, lowers resting pulse and reduces blood fat levels. Research also shows that people who cycle to work have two to three times less exposure to pollution than car commuters, so their lung function is improved.

A Danish study conducted over 14 years with 30,000 people aged 20 to 93 years found that regular cycling protected people from heart disease.

Low-Impact Exercise

Riding bicycles, including ebikes, is a top-notch low-impact cardio workout. Most people don’t realize that bike riding also gives you a full-body workout. Of course as you pedal, your ankles, knees, and hips will be activated, with non-impactful circular motion. But riding an ebike also engages the upper body, including core abdominal muscles, wrists, elbows, shoulder and neck.

The way you ride your bike, from your pedaling motion to the use of your body weight to create leverage, will have an effect on how much of a workout you get.

You can ride on paved roads, or on off-road trails. If the terrain you’re going to ride on is heavily rutted or full of rocks and stump, a fat tire ebike with suspension might work best. Otherwise, those bumps in the road will be transferred through the bike to your body.

Before you begin your ride, it’s always a good idea to do a few stretches, especially of the leg muscles, but also the upper body. Even if you are not naturally flexible, it really helps if you stretch before doing any form of exercise, to loosen up the muscles and stimulate the joints.

Immune System Boost

Do you feel tired most of the time? Does it take you a week or more to battle a cold? You may feel better if you take a daily ride on your ebike, and follow a simple exercise routine a few times a week.

As we mentioned above, exercise helps decrease your chances of developing heart disease. It also keeps your bones healthy and strong. We do not know exactly how exercise increases your immunity to illness, but there are several theories.

Experts believe that physical activity like cycling may help flush bacteria out of the lungs and airways. This can reduce your chance of getting a cold, flu, or other illness. Exercise also causes change in antibodies and white blood cells, which are the body's immune system cells that fight disease. These antibodies or WBCs circulate more rapidly, so they can detect illnesses earlier than they might have before.

The rise in body temperature during and after vigorous bike rides may also prevent bacteria from growing. This temperature rise helps the body fight infection better. This is similar to what happens when you have a fever.

Physical exercise like bike riding slows down the release of stress hormones. Some stress increases the chance of illness. Lower stress hormones may protect against illness. Exercise makes you feel healthier and more energetic. Improvements in mental outlook that come from regular exercise also help boost the immune system.