Make Biking Your New Go-To Exercise

I don’t know about you, but sometimes just the IDEA of having to go to the gym makes me want to cry.

Yes, I’m getting my body right for the summer blah blah blah; but WOW can it be exhausting! My body is in pain, I just did my hair yesterday, I’m feeling lazy…I guess the odds are against me going in right? Well, not so fast.

Even though 2 out of 5 times of the week I do feel like this, I feel even worse when the end of the day comes around and I haven’t done any type of exercise whatsoever. I’m not going to lie, missing out on my gym hours is something that happens every now and then, but I have since found a solution so I’m not a complete couch potato when I do want to skip on the weights.

Biking

My new, go to exercise that doesn’t really feel like exercise… (Does that make sense?)

It’s great. It’s easy. It’s cheap. Everyone has a bike; I don’t care where you live or what you do; EVERYONE. OWNS. A BIKE. If you don’t, your neighbor does, so there’s no excuse. This type of work out is usually misconceived low-intensity cardio, making people overlook the fact that it’s one of the best fat diminishing exercises. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Say hello to FUN CARDIO; these type of exercises help increase red blood cells, making the heart stronger and able to deliver more blood to various organs.
2. When cycling, you’re increasing your heart rate for an extended period of time, which in consequence, will keep your heart rate high up to two hours after the work out. This is great because even when you’re not exercising, your body is still going to be burning calories.
3. This type of exercise is also extremely versatile, beginners can start out slowly and easily increase it as they see fit. Some bicycles have different gear strengths which you can adjust, if your bicycle does not have this type of gadget, you can substitute this by adding strap-on weights to your ankles, and it will give you the same intensity as if you where changing the gears of your bike. If you become comfortable with this gear/weight technique, then you can really increase the amount of weight you’re losing. If you do sets of 1 minute fast cycling, followed by a slow 30 second round, you’ll be getting the most out of your work out. You can follow that pattern for 15mins and it’s going to give you the same intensity as if you were doing a 45min work out at the gym.
4. It’s going to improve your metabolism, stamina and resistance

See? 15 mins using this bad boy and you’ve already done your work out for the day. I usually take those 15 minutes to bike around the block, to the grocery store, maybe get some close errands done. It doesn’t really matter; it’s going to be fun, it’s going to be healthy, and it’s easy.

What else can you ask for?

You’re welcome.

Ashley Lied is a young writer, nutritionist and future full time mother of three puppies. Keep on the look out for the rest of her blog posts!