Exercise bike: seven healthy reasons to use it. Strengthen legs, lose weight, prevent falls, keep your blood sugar at bay… How have you been able to live without a stationary bike until now?
I give you important and healthy reasons so that you decide to buy an exercise bike or rescue the one you already had – in the storage room or at your mother-in-law’s house – you decide.
Chondromalacia patella or anterior knee pain.
One. Chondromalacia patella. Does it ring a bell?
Exercising with a bike without (or very little) resistance and with the seat high enough helps tone the quadriceps and biceps of the legs. The more powerful your muscles are, your knees and patellas will feel better.
In the first days, do not forget to do little, less than expected, check the sensations, and use the ice at the end of the exercise (like our Rafa Nadal).
You can investigate more in Chondromalacia: basic exercises.
Important: stationary bike first without resistance and with the seat high! (to see photos)
Two. Knee osteoarthritis.
You may have incipient osteoarthritis or a “horse” osteoarthritis, but muscular those legs without weight, without gravity, and impact, can only help your legs feel lighter and more powerful.
And powerful muscles will help stabilize the knee at all times.
Even if you are a candidate for a knee prosthesis, without resistance and to prepare your knees for the intervention, the stationary bike would not be contraindicated, and it is even more indicated!
Three. Bodybuilding legs. Avoid falls.
Static bike. A server with a high seat, correctly regulated. Hence the green.
Stationary bicycle. A server with a high seat, correctly regulated. Hence the green. Observe how the knee does not reach 90 degrees of flexion—grace: HIGH SEAT.
The muscle that helps with the most significant difference in stabilizing the knee is the quadriceps…
Did you know that a study shows that if you need to help yourself with one or two hands to go from sitting to standing, your health should improve?
Brazilian study on mortality and the need to get up from a chair with zero or two hands.
And then other articles talk about it… (and they depress the most painted, a servant because getting up from the ground without putting a hand on the floor… in my case, it is no longer viable!)
Using the leg muscles helps empty and drain your legs’ blood-filled veins.
You see, another reason to get on the stationary bike now!
Five. Help maintain your weight.
Static bike. A server with a low seat, poorly regulated. Observe the flexion of the knee. Hence the red.
Static bike. A server with a low seat, poorly regulated. Observe the flexion of the knee. Hence the red. The misfortune: A LOW SEAT, POORLY PLACED.
Before the bikini operation, you will want to improve your health habits. And if you burn a few more calories, even better.
Suppose the bike is new and blows you the ridiculous amount of calories burned. You will realize that an ultra-processed (croissant, donut, potato chips?) burned on the bike is thirty or forty minutes more!
Between you and me: "close your mouth" to overcome those extra kilos; they are the "best" option.
Do not stop reading: Body mass index and osteoarthritis
Six. Keeps your sugar at bay.
A few minutes after lunch or dinner helps keep your glycemia, your blood sugar level, at the correct values. I know that lounging after eating is fabulous, it has a prize, but the best reward will have your next glycosylated Hemoglobin within the normal range.
Glycosylated Hemoglobin: a marker with which your doctor “finds out” how little “goodness” you have done in the last three months. (A sneak, hey!)
Seven. Anxiolytic.
How do you feel after a good bike session? In the glory. This always helps to improve your mood and avoid the need to take certain pills to be calm and fall asleep.
Well, I can’t afford to buy one… Other options.
Find out if healthy parks near your city have urban materials to keep fit without spending a penny.
Barter options, thrift stores. Wallanosequé, Amazon, etc.
Massive WhatsApp groups, somewhere someone who loves Marie Kondo will want to get rid of one for free, and there you will be. Then… Santa Rita, what is given is not taken away.
Well, there is no room in my house! No Excuses: The Funny Anecdote.
Stationary or wheeled bike on a spring day by the sea. The Paradise.
Bicycle on a spring day by the sea: paradise.
In Vila Seca, the town where half of the Port Aventura park resides (then there is Salou), a group of neighbors had a brilliant, Solomonic, and exemplary idea: to place the exercise bike on the landing of the apartment. Thus, it does not take up space for any neighbor, and everyone can benefit from it. Good for them!
Who pedals together and loves each other to infinity and beyond.
I will tell you about Pere and Rosita, Pere is over 90 years old, and Rosita is almost; they have two exercise bikes in the storage room of their house; they have passed the pandemic alone, with the help of the neighbors and the concern of the children from a distance… But rigorously and stoically, they have carried out daily physical exercise: when it was time for the gym… they took the opportunity to pedal together. That is love!
Conflict of interest: zero.
Any sports equipment business does not sponsor this article. What’s more, I have already had my exercise bike since September 2019 (before the pandemic); it was a suggestion from members of the Knee Unit of my Hospi, the Hospital de Sant Pau I Santa Tecla de Tarragona, where I work. Everything is to eternally perpetuate this false sense of health that we must treasure as if there were no tomorrow.
Occasionally, when they ask about my routine and my knees, I medically allow them to scan my quads over my jeans. This coming summer, 2021, in the few days that I dare to dress in a mini, the results will be evident.