Well, Get That Bike Out Of The Garage and Go The Distance!

You know that you want to get yourself active and start living a healthier lifestyle. You already made the commitment to eating healthier and now that you’re putting down the bag of potato chips and trading them in for pita chips and humus, the time is ripe to give your heart and your body’s circulatory and cardiovascular system a workout so you can be that mean, lean physical specimen you always wanted to be… Well, at least a healthier version of what you were last year 

You know you tried the walking around the block system, and that just didn’t do it for you. Not that you got bored with it, well, maybe just a little, but you found your knees just couldn’t handle the shock of your feet hitting the pavement over a period of time. And let’s face it, you need to rack up some miles walking to get the benefits you’re looking for, while trying to get yourself in shape, you need to listen to your body’s aches and pains. That is your body trying to communicate with you. If you’re hurting after you’ve been hitting the streets or trails recently there is another option you may want to try to let you keep being active and pushing your body for its health.

What most of us do not realize is that stuck in the back of most of our garages is a bicycle. Or at least we all have memories of having one. Well now that you’re a little older, biking is probably one of the best forms of physical exercise next to swimming (And that will be another blog post later) that you can do for yourself!

Whether you're young or old, athletic or sedentary, bicycling is an enjoyable and healthy way to travel and experience the outdoors. Done vigorously, it gives the heart and circulatory system a workout and can burn more than 500 calories per hour. The development of new types of bicycles—notably the hybrid, which combines the speed of a road bike and the ruggedness of a mountain bike—has made riding easier and offers more options to suit your specific needs. What's more, cyclists now have more places to ride.

Cycling's low impact, so you can keep going longer, and it’s a sustained stamina training form of exercise as well. If you already experience twinges in your knees. Powering your bike is called "Cycling Power" which is generated by your glutes, quads and hamstrings. So it won't be long before you start to see some improvements in the overall strength and definition of your legs and thighs, without putting a lot of strain on your knees and calf muscles.

Now before you just go climbing onto the old bike saddle (seat) and hit the open road, there are a few things you need to have checked out first!
1. Is your health, get yourself checked out by your doctor, just to make sure there are no issues that would prevent you from undertaking this new form of physical activity.
2. If you have a bike, get it to a reputable bike shop to have it checked out. The last thing you need is to go off on the road or bike trails and have a breakdown with your bike.
3. If you don’t have a bike, refer back to number 2 above and get yourself to that bike shop and talk with them. Let them know what you plan on doing. Tell them this is not a purchase for an occasional bike ride, that you will be putting some serious miles on your new bike and want one that is suited to your current body frame. Believe me, if they are good at what they do, they will pair you up with the right bike to fit your needs, even a combo bike that is good for the roads but is also adequate for some easier bike trails as well.
4. Get yourself a helmet! This is probably the first thing you need to do, after getting yourself checked out by your doctor. And since you’re going to the bike shop anyway, ask them to fit your head with the right helmet. These can be a little tricky, so let them help you.

That’s about it for the important part of what you need to get yourself out in the open and enjoying the beauty of the scenery around you.

Now, one thing you may want to consider is getting yourself a good GPS bike computer/navigator to take with you as you venture out further than your living area. Now you won’t need one if you’re just going to be biking around the neighborhood 15 times a day, but that really goes beyond boring.

We like the Garmin Edge 520 GPS Bike Computer  Because it not only offers some of the best features that Garmin has engineered over the past decade or more, but now they have developed an easy to view smart screen that can be easily seen in the daylight, which before ow, presented some problems. So now you can not only see where you are but with the Bluetooth functionality built into the Garmin 520, your friends can see just where you are as well, as the device’s data can be uploaded to the Garmin community up there in the vastness of space called the internet!

Just kidding but yes your friends can see and follow your progress, so besides sharing this bike course with your friends, you never have to worry about them not knowing where you are!

One of the key reasons a lot of people that are say, mid 30’s and are starting to feel the aches and pains of going for a long run, sprints or up and down mountain trails is their knees, calf’s or ankles can’t take that impact from having them pounding the ground. So, cycling is the best next thing to keeping yourself fit, and enjoying the outdoors in and around where you live.

And since you decided to take to the open road or mountain trails, its a good idea to be able to see where your going if your ride finds you still wheeling around and its starting to get dark. You want to make sure you have a reliable lighting system on that 2-wheeler of yours and the Garmin Varia Smart Bike Lights will do the trick!

So, what are you waiting for, get that bike ready and start enjoying the summer sunshine out on a bike ride. But don’t forget that helmet. I want you around to read our next post.

Stay safe, have fun! From your support team here at HeartRateMonitorsUSA.com !