The Health Benefits of Riding a Motorcycle
Motorcycles are more compact, agile, and maneuverable than cars, offering a thrilling way to get around. Whether you prefer to ride your bike solo or with your partner, you can be sure you’ll enjoy fun and memorable on-road experiences. Did you know that motorcycle riding can also improve your overall health? Here are a few ways hitting the open road can benefit your physical, mental, and emotional well-being, so keep reading to learn more!
Get a Full-Body Workout
Riding a motorcycle is a fantastic way to exercise and engage your entire body—from your core, legs, back, and neck to shoulders. As you’ll involve every muscle group in this activity, regular riding will help strengthen your muscles, improve your balance, and enhance your overall physical fitness.
Soak Up Some Vitamin D
Modern-day lifestyle leaves little time to go outdoors and get some sun. Vitamin D is essential for maintaining healthy bones and boosting your immune system. Spending time in the sunshine while enjoying your ride can help your body absorb this vitamin and improve your overall well-being.
Boost Your Cognitive Function
Riding a motorcycle requires a high level of vigilance & focus and quick decision-making. This exercise can help actively engage your mind and body and lead to improved cognitive abilities. Riding also requires specific skills like balance and control that can help boost your confidence and mental focus.
Enhance Your Mood
Getting outdoors is a great way to clear your mind and boost your mood. When you’re happy, your body releases endorphins, which can help reduce stress and anxiety and improve your emotional health. So, the next time you feel low, hop on your bike to experience the freedom and positivity of riding.
From Bike Social
Finally, and perhaps most interesting, is something called proprioception which is how we subconsciously manage positional changes in space and movements in our body. Experts suggest standing on one leg or using a balance ball to develop proprioception, but motorcycling (and cycling and horse riding) demand it naturally as we subtly adjust body position, reacting to changing conditions. Again though, the difference for us is we do it for longer.
Increasingly, scientists believe that better proprioception helps prevent Alzheimer’s and dementia. You might take this with a pinch of salt because dementia is the disease-of-the-moment and everything seems to promote it, prevent it or both. But proprioception is at the core of our nervous system and has a direct impact on the function of the cerebellum, a part of the brain that collects neural impulses from around the body and amplifies them as they transfer to the other parts of the brain that control movement, cognition and thought. Put very simply, enhanced cerebellum function means a person has fine control of their movements, thoughts and speech. Patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia often show reduced cerebellum function. Cycling and motorcycling are especially good at promoting proprioception and therefore will enhance cerebellum function and potentially reduce dementia.
Dementia, depression and obesity are the currently the biggest problems facing our healthcare system and motorcycling can directly impact all three. Wouldn’t it be great if giving everyone a motorcycle on the NHS turned out to be the most cost-effective way of making us all healthier and happier? If that’s not a reason to put biking at the heart of Government policy for health and transport, we don’t know what is.
Even if they don’t, the more you ride the more chance you have to stay mentally and physically sharp enough to enjoy riding for even longer.