Biking Or Walking to Work Better For Fitness
If you live in the city and your work is close by, you’ll have thought about walking or biking to work. The benefit of this is that it’s better for fitness levels overall.
According to the first large U.S. Study of health and commuting, few of us actually do it – in fact just under 17% of working adults surveyed walked or bicycled for any piece of their journey to work.
Previous research has found that states with the highest levels of walking or biking have lower obesity levels too.
But research on how these activities might affect Americans has been pretty limited, till this cross-sectional study. This latest work appears in the July-, 2009 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Of the study participators,’2 (’% ) of the men, 203 ( 16% ) of the ladies were categorized as active commuters. The average length of the physical part of their daily commute for both the bikers and walkers was 5 miles. The majority of the subjects walked, instead of biked, to work.
The study revealed that active commuters did mush better on treadmill tests of fitness, even when they took into account any other physical activities subjects did in their own time.
The findings here suggest the activity of going to work can impact on overall fitness.
The participants, more than 2,300 city-dwellers in their middle years were indulging in a federally financed study known as Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults ( CARDIA ).
For men, but not girls, researchers found that the commuters who walked or biked had better BMI numbers, blood pressure, insulin and triglycerides.
The researchers explain these by suggesting the ladies in the study walked or biked shorter distances to the office, or were less powerful in their workouts.
Naturally there’s also the difficulty of which came 1st, are already active folks more likely to be active commuters also or is the walk ( or bike ) to work planting the seed for being more active in other areas of life as well?
Being an active commuter might not be straightforward.
Beyond the challenge of arriving to work sweat-covered and gasping, an active commute is typically bound by crumbling paths, few bike paths and real concerns about safety.
Zoning in many U.S. Towns keeps commercial and home areas separate, and this makes commutes longer and being active along the way almost impossible.
Towns that build bike trails have a higher rate of biking, as do places of employment that have on-site showers, changing areas and a secure place to keep your bicycle during the day.
The benefits of active commuting go past your own health and the pluses to the environment to include :
- reliable, predictable means to get to and from work, or a point along the path
- works for businesses by encouraging health as well as company responsibility
- decreases stress and improves productivity of the commuters
More research is needed to find the quantity of active commuting that will benefit your wellbeing, but this health friendly way to get from home to work is definitely going to get more attention over the coming years as it seems to be better for fitness levels overall.
Next – just head on over to the Daily Health Bulletin for information why you should ride your bike to work. Click here for more details on study and more reasons to ride your bike to work.
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