Bicycling for Fitness

Now it's probably a fair guess that you, as a cycling machine, are carrying a few extra, un-machinelike pounds in nonmechanical places. Obviously, to transform your body into an efficient human engine requires getting in shape. In terms of developing overall fitness, there are few activities better than cycling to accomplish the task.

What the Experts Say

In a survey of fitness experts conducted a few years ago by the President's Council on Physical Fitness, cycling rated second only to running among popular forms of exercise as a well-rounded means of staying fit. (The experts were not asked to factor in such stuff as fun, where cycling surely has running beat by a comfortable margin.) Cycling was deemed a terrific way of developing cardiorespiratory endurance, of developing muscular endurance and strength, and of controlling weight.

Cycling received low grades only in the"flexibility" category, lacking the kind of twisting, turning, and stretching of sports such as swimming or tennis. But the survey was also conducted before mountain biking had established a beachhead on the American recreational front. Certainly the technical bike-handling skills required to negotiate funky backcountry terrain call for a degree of flexibility uncommon in road riding. Maybe if those experts were asked again today, they'd bump cycling up in the flexibility category and give running a run for its most-favored-sport money.

All of this should point toward the obvious: If you want to get your human machine into hummingly good shape, the best thing to do it is simply go out and ride. And the best way to do that is to develop a regular riding program.