Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving – (Albert Einstein).
Cycling is an important part of my life
I’ve always played football semi-professionally until 2017 when I had to retire due to two bad knee injuries. I bought myself a road bike in April 2020 as I wanted to do more and more miles. With lockdown we had more opportunity to get outdoors and the weather was nice. I used it as a way to get out of the house and it became part of my routine. It almost filled the gap of my football and my love of team sport.
It’s great to get out and clear my head all in line with my person fitness goals.
Since lockdown I’ve done over 2500 miles of cycling and absolutely love it
Because I’m motivated to exercise, my drive is it to keep fit and healthy with the added benefit of getting outdoors. I aim for 150 miles a week.
So from an occupational health perspective, cycling has transferable fitness benefits, by improving muscle endurance and cardiovascular performance, if you challenge yourself enough. Improving fitness and muscle function can help reduce negative health outcomes associated with aging. Cycling to work or for fun could be an easy way to add exercise in your week to help reduce the risk of chronic disease.
GPs to prescribe cycling in new obesity strategy
The Government launched its obesity strategy on 27 July. In it, cycling has been heralded as a great way to lose weight. Public Health England research found that being overweight or obese puts people at greater risk of serious illness or death from Covid-19. In addition, we estimate that about two-thirds of adults in the UK are above a healthy weight. So there’s no better time to think about cycling.
Cycle to Work Day is 6 August 2020
Not many people are cycling to work at the moment, but we know lots of us are cycling. This year the circumstances around Cycle to Work Day are a little different, so the theme has changed to ‘Cycle to…Who? What? Where? Day’. Rather than swapping your commute, we’re being asked to ride anywhere, for any reason and with anyone. Check out more here.
Here’s my top 5 reasons why cycling is important
- Mental well-being – it’s a good way of switching off, taking you away from the mental and physical stresses of work and boosts brain power
- Getting you fit for work – it promotes weight loss and fitness, helps you sleep better and also promotes leg endurance, especially if you’re in a manual job
- Health benefits – it improves lung function and can cut heart disease and cancer risk
- Low impact – but still physically demanding
- Improves navigation skills – and can even save you time avoiding traffic jams
Exercise can be used as a modifiable risk factor to reduce the risk of developing many chronic diseases
As we age, we progressively lose skeletal muscle mass and strength – this is called ‘Sarcopenia’. This can result in physical disability, poor quality of life and even lead to death if we don’t do something about it. Poor lower extremity performance is a strong prognostic factor that can lead to negative health outcomes associated with aging. Exercise is a modifiable risk factor we can target to reduce sarcopenia, so cycling is one way we can achieve this, in particular helping with muscle endurance in the legs.
If you’d like to find out more about working at Connect Health, contact hr@connecthealth.co.uk
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