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 | health information | health living | lifestyle | exercise | cycling | why cycle | maintains strength
Cycling maintains strength and coordination
Cycling is also helpful in later life: it builds up your leg strength and overall coordination and this helps to reduce your risk of falling in later life.1,2,3,4 This is important because the injuries caused by falling can be seriously disabling in older people, making them unable to continue to look after themselves.
The good news is that physically active older people have much reduced rates of hip fracture.5 This is because they have better coordination than inactive people, which helps to lower their risk of falling, and they have better leg strength, which improves their mobility by helping them to get out of chairs more easily.3 In this way people who remain physically active are more likely to be able to lead an independent and full life in old age.
People worry about the fumes that cyclists inhale when in traffic - yet the truth is far more surprising. Please see our next article "Cycling is good for your lungs" for more information.
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References
- www.nationalcyclingstrategy.org.uk/assets/NCS_topics/cycling%20and%20health%20final%20draft.pdf
- Rutter H. Modal shift. Transport and health. A policy report on the health benefits of increasing levels of cycling in Oxfordshire. www.modalshift.org/reports/tandh/print_version.htm
- Department for Transport Traffic Advisory Leaflet. 12/99: Cycling for better health. http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_roads/documents/page/dft_roads_504739.hcsp
- Fentem PH. ABC of sports medicine. Benefits of exercise in health and disease. BMJ 1994; 308: 1291-5.
- Joakimsen RM, Magnus JH, Fonnebo V. Physical activity and predisposition for hip fractures: a review. Osteoporosis Int 1998; 7: 503-13.
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