Can Choosing the Wrong Bicycle Effect Your Health?

Can Choosing the Wrong Bicycle Effect Your Health?

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The human body needs regular physical activity to remain in top shape. Finding time to set aside for exercise can be a tricky task for most people due to their busy work schedules. An easy way to include some exercise without having to go out of the way to tweak one’s routine is to cycle to and from work.

Once people get into the habit of cycling regularly, they often get hooked and even tend to go on cycling trips for their weekend getaways. Cycling is a form of physical exercise that has many benefits. These long-term advantages include:

  • Increased cardiovascular efficiency
  • Improved overall muscle strength
  • Increased stamina

But despite the many physical advantages and the accompanying improved mental health that cycling brings about, it unfortunately still has its downsides. These negative effects can be further exacerbated due to people unknowingly choosing the wrong type of bicycle.

While the negative effects of biking are far outweighed by the positive ones, it is still better to not simply ignore them. One way to prevent them is by choosing the right kind of bike. This can go a long way in ensuring that unnecessary health risks are mitigated before they can manifest into long term debilitating issues.

If you are a newbie considering taking up cycling as a hobby, then you must acquaint yourself with the health risks that may stem from using the wrong type of equipment. So, in this post we will discuss at length the few ways in which choosing the wrong bicycle can affect your health and the various kinds of bicycles including hybrid bike to opt for to mitigate that.

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1. Bad posture leading to chronic back pain

Cycling for long periods of time or even moderate duration too often results in you having to stay seated in a stooped position for a while. This may cause you to develop an unnatural forward bend in your posture. Bad postures are the most common root of chronic back pain that often lead to a lifetime’s worth of discomfort.

There are many new types of bicycles currently available in physical as well as online stores that are designed to ensure that your stance remains upright throughout your ride. They have the perfect proportions in terms of the distance of the seat from the handles and the pedals to generate the right balanced stance in the rider.

2. Erectile dysfunction in men

Sitting on bikes for long periods of time and traveling through rocky terrains and bumpy trails can inflict a considerable amount of force and damage to the delicate male genitalia. In some severe cases, this may even cause erectile dysfunction and sterility. This is obviously a pretty severe problem and though not very common, preventive steps are still a must.

One way to mitigate this problem is to choose a bike that comes with comfort-giving padded seats and suspension posts to better support the seats. This ensures that the seats are able to absorb most of the shock from bumps while riding on uneven roads. Thus, the right bicycle can to a great extent, help prevent this injurious outcome.

3. Overuse of knee joints can lead to injury

Professional and even amateur cyclists can often get hooked to the adrenaline rush that biking can produce. While there are many natural supplements that people can try out to better stimulate and extend their biking experience, cycling can often lead to bikers suffering injuries.

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Over working any part of the body is physically harmful. Biking consists of a lot of repetitive motions of the legs. This leads to overuse of the knee joints as well as the leg muscles causing injuries and painful cramps. To prevent this issue, choose a bike that comes with suspension posts supporting the seats that absorbs jarring shocks to the knees.

Thus, it is evident that while cycling is very beneficial to a person’s physical as well as mental well being, it also comes with its fair share of negative effects. If left unchecked and allowed to continue unmitigated, these may develop into chronic issues with the potential to cause long-term detriment to the biker’s overall health. But as discussed in the previous paragraphs, these problems can also all be easily fixed by just choosing the right bicycle. So follow our tips a happy biking experience!