Great for your health
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Cycling - the healthy option
• Cycling regularly will improve your fitness and can help you live a long and healthy life.
• Riding a bike can help you maintain a healthy weight.
• Three quarters of all personal journeys are less than 10 kilometers long - that's half an hour on a bike.
Switching these short journeys from car to bicycle will benefit your health and your community. You'll be helping to reduce noise and air pollution as well as traffic congestion.
What's In It For You?
More cycling is good news for the environment and your local community. But the biggest benefit is for you as an individual.
Increasing Fitness
Your strength, stamina, aerobic fitness and general muscle function will all be improved. Cycling is a low impact activity and one of the safest ways to exercise without risk of over-exertion or strain to muscles and joints. Regular physical activity also facilitates other healthy behaviour and could help you reduce weight or even give up smoking.
Lowering Risk of Heart Attack
Your heart muscles are strengthened, resting pulse is lowered and blood fat levels reduced. People taking regular physical activity suffer far less heart disease than people who don't!
Shedding Excess Weight
By burning body fat and raising your metabolic rate you can lose weight. If you undertake physical activity regularly you can enjoy a more varied diet without increasing body weight. Cycling is one of the more comfortable forms of physical activity for those who are new to exercise, allowing most people to get fit easily and safely without undue physical strain.
Reducing Stress
Anxiety, stress and depression are all alleviated, partly due to the physical activity itself, but also due to the pleasure and satisfaction of riding a bike. Cycling is convenient for short journeys, and often faster across town than other forms of transport. It's a stress free means of taking physical activity because it can form part of a daily routine. So there's no need to worry about fitting your new healthy lifestyle into an already overcrowded schedule.
So come and ride with us - you'll feel better for it!
Boost Your Immunity With Exercise
I've got a cold - should I exercise?
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that if cold symptoms are limited to the neck up, then moderate exercise should be fine. Mild exercise such as walking does not appear to make a cold worse. If there are more serious symptoms such as fever, muscle aches and swollen lymph glands, total rest is recommended. If in doubt about your symptoms, always consult your doctor.
Here are some important guidelines to follow when deciding whether or not to exercise if you have a cold:
What are the symptoms?
Do you just have a cold or do you have something a lot worse? If you have a fever or chills, joint or muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea or swollen glands, chances are you've got something a little more serious than the common cold. Don't exercise, just rest and check in with your doctor.
Ease up on the intensity, avoid overtraining
The often held view that you can beat a cold by "training through it" has not been supported by medical research. In fact, ignoring the symptoms and training intensely can sometimes make a cold worse. If you have to train, modify your training intensity so you're only doing moderate exercise. Training hard when you're less than 100 per cent can quickly lead to overtraining which will only make matters worse. Listen to your body and use common sense.
Boost immunity through regular exercise
Regular moderate exercise can boost immunity by circulating disease-fighting cells more quickly around the body. The key is to maintain your health and fitness by training regularly, keeping it enjoyable and, most importantly, avoiding overtraining and stress.
Avoid catching a cold in the first place!
There are some things you can do to minimise your chances of getting a cold. Avoid people that are infected, and particularly equipment or utensils they've been using as germs can spread through contact as well as inhalation. Wash your hands in soap and water frequently.
Hygiene in the workplace is very important. It goes without saying that coughs and sneezes should be smothered with a tissue or handkerchief whenever possible. If the gym is crowded with people with colds, choose another time when it's less crowded - or exercise outside.
Returning to exercise after a cold or illness
If you've been out of action for a while because of a cold or other illness, ease yourself back gently into your exercise routine. All too often you'll see folks jump straight back into their program and expect to pick up where they left off before they got sick. This can quickly lead to overtraining and another cold, simply because the immune system can't handle the sudden and extreme demands placed on it.
Start back slowly and allow your body to recover from your exercise training. Gradually increase the training intensity until you're back to where you left off.
This article reproduced from fitness2live.com.au. Bicycle Victoria membership offers an exclusive member deal to access the site for half the normal price. find out more