A sport suitable for all ages, cycling is an ally of heart and artery health. For the benefits to be maximum, however, suitable diet and vitamin supplementation are necessary.
Pedaling, whether on a racing bike, on a mountain bike or also on the exercise bike, is a sport that trains and keeps the heart and arteries healthy, and is suitable for everyone.
It minimizes the risk of load trauma to the joints, tendons and muscles, as body weight is distributed in a balanced way over the saddle, handlebars and pedals. And it allows you to calibrate physical activity according to different health conditions, degree of training and age.
Thus, those who ride a bicycle can decide the resistance levels of the pedals, the route to be taken, the speed to be kept and how long to carry out the activity in order to obtain the maximum benefits without risk.
Calculated diet, guaranteed benefits
To achieve good performance and benefit from the benefits that cycling brings to health, it is essential to follow a balanced diet tailored from time to time. If the goal is muscle strengthening we will have to provide our body with a greater amount of protein, to be used for the “construction” of tissues. If, on the contrary, we want to engage in a competition, it is time to fill up on carbohydrates.
Adequate supplementation with vitamins B, A, C and E
However, it is necessary to consider the general increase in nutritional needs and, above all, the importance of recovering substances lost during effort, such as vitamins, minerals and water.
In this regard, vitamin and mineral supplementation helps the athlete to complete his diet and to supply the body with the main substances consumed during the activity in a shorter time and in simpler ways than those allowed by common nutrition.
Among the most important vitamins for bicycle lovers are those of group B, essential in energy production processes and antioxidant vitamins (A, C and E) able to counteract the harmful action of free radicals. In particular, the intake of vitamin C is essential to facilitate the absorption of iron, a mineral often lacking in the practice of endurance sports.
An extra eye on the bones for agonists
Alongside the indisputable benefits, however, according to a team of American scholars also for this sport the pitfalls would not be lacking.
In fact, researchers have found that those who use the bicycle more intensely and assiduously have a lower bone density (especially at the spine level) than those who wear two wheels more occasionally.
The cause is to be found precisely in one of the characteristics considered positive: cycling does not stress the bone structure very much. And it is instead known that the more intense the load exerted on the bones, the greater the increase in their mass in response to the stress.
Vitamin D and calcium To protect the skeleton
The risk, therefore, is to meet a greater chance of developing osteopenia and osteoporosis: a perspective that unites cyclists and swimmers, given that even pool lovers are engaged in an activity exercised almost in the absence of gravity.
Not only that, but the considerable expenditure of calories and nutrients that cycling involves deprives the body of substances important for the integrity of the bones, such as calcium and vitamin D that must therefore be replaced.
Therefore, the most avid cyclists in addition to taking care of nutrition and integrating vitamins and minerals should accompany training with load exercises, in order to stimulate bone mass density.
Joycelyn Elders is the author and creator of EmpowerEssence, a health and wellness blog. Elders is a respected public health advocate and pediatrician dedicated to promoting general health and well-being.
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