Cycling is one of the healthiest activities you can do - it can improve your fitness, strengthen your immunity, and boost your overall well-being. Here’s a quick overview of the health benefits riding an electric bike can provide.
E-bikes provide moderate exercise
Cycling an e-bike can provide the user with additional assistance; however, e-biking is not an exercise-free alternative it is an excellent way of getting moderate-intensity activity.
Recent studies have shown that in most cases, moderate physical activity is gained from using an e-bike, albeit providing less intensity than conventional cycling but more intensity than walking.
E-bikers are physically active for 95% of the riding time, researchers found that e-bikers were 8.5 times more active than when static, while cyclists were 10.9 times more active, a closer margin than researchers previously assumed. That means, even by getting support while cycling you are keeping active.
Improves your cardiovascular health
By using an e-bike and exercising regularly, your body adapts to the activity by creating more capillaries that can swap oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body. The result: Much healthier and more efficient lungs!
Cycling on an electric bike just a few times each week can improve an adult’s cardiorespiratory performance and general health in ways like riding a conventional bicycle or taking vigorous walks, according to several clinical studies.
“One of the most telling studies, released in the May 2018 edition of the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, compared the peak oxygen uptake (VO2 max) of 32, overweight adults before and after four weeks of bicycle commuting.”
Separately, according to Dr. Amar Singal, a cardiologist, “cycling is one of the best cardio exercises for people of all age groups and all body types. It not only helps burn calories and keeps weight under control, but also helps build stamina and increase muscle and bone strength. Being a low-impact exercise, it is also soft on the joints and unlike hard gym training sessions, it doesn’t put you at risk of overuse injuries or sprains. Therefore, it can also be taken up by elderly people who have arthritic joints.”
Improves your heart health
Along with improving cardiovascular health, regularly riding an e-bike can also improve your heart health. By implementing an exercise routine into your daily life, your heart must beat faster and stronger to keep your blood pumping and circulating. Even with moderate, routine exercise through e-bike use, your heart health can improve significantly. Cycling an e-bike regularly equals improved heart health!
“Cycling all or part of the way to work was associated with a substantially lower risk of adverse health outcomes. Those who cycled the full length of their commute had an over 40 percent lower risk of heart disease, cancer, and overall mortality over the five years of follow-up” said Dr. Jason Gill of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, according to a Cycling Weekly article.
If one assumes regularly riding a bicycle or electric bike is like bike commuting, it will follow that regularly riding — whether to work or not — may help improve heart health specifically and overall health generally.
Boosts your immune system
With improved health comes improved immunity. A more robust immune system results in the body's ability to resist colds and feeling run down. Riding an e-bike outdoors can make a difference in boosting your immune system.
Moderate exercise, like regularly riding an electric bike, may reduce an adult’s risk of contracting an upper respiratory tract infection by 29 percent compared to adults who don’t exercise, according to often-cited research published in The Journal of Applied Physiology.
In addition, researchers at the University of California-San Diego found that just 20 minutes of exercise adjusted to your fitness level can boost your immune system, according to Reader’s Digest report.
Improves your quality of sleep
Getting enough quality sleep is vital for your mind and body to recover after a long day. By riding an e-bike and exercising regularly, we can invigorate our energy levels and encourage our minds and bodies to fall asleep faster.
Regular exercise, including riding an electric bike, can also contribute to better sleep and fight insomnia. For example, a long-term study found that getting regular exercise helped folks to fall asleep more quickly than sedentary subjects. People who exercised were also less likely to wake up during the night than people who did not exercise.