I shared in a post of mine about a family whose kids made me fall in love with biking again after a scary incident with it. Now that I think about it, that family is a perfect role model to using cycling as a way of keeping fit.
It's been years since we moved out of that neighborhood but I could still tell well enough how the family's routine is for keeping fit. Others in the neighborhood did misunderstood them for their routine especially with the fact that they were rich and always have time for themselves as a family.
Thinking back now, they knew very well the importance of cycling and were taking good advantage of the opportunity they could access.
Image designed here
First, it was the father of the home coming back from work with one bike after the other assigning it to each of the family members. Even the family members thought it was just a gift to have fun with, the mother wouldn't stop saying she's too sophisticated to ride a bicycle but it was obvious the father had more power in what he says.
It is for our own good, we start our keep fit routine once everyone gets his or her own bike
He finally announced his plan.
The kids wouldn't stop talking to me about their new bikes even though they were still learning how to ride the bikes. After work which he always leaves for home early, the father would spend a sometime guiding them how to ride the bike he got for them. I once asked how he got to know how to ride a bike and he said it was way back in the 90s when he was still little but somehow he didn't forget how to even after the long break.
It turns out that the father was taught in a seminar the power of cycling in human health and he wanted to go back to the time he rode it regularly and for fun. Since they had a few cars, they didn't need a bicycle to go out of the environment so they rode around the house or go to a field not so far from our neighborhood to exercise with their bikes every morning.
It was fascinating to watch a five member family riding bikes together and laughing over almost everything.
I found the little kids with their small bikes more fascinating to watch as they could ride it more confidently and I was there being scared of it because of an incident. When they are not keeping fit, the kids play with their bikes and would invite me to join them. To save my face from the shame of not knowing how to ride one, I asked my elder cousin to teach me.
I did joined them to keep fit sometimes but not regularly as the bicycle wasn't mine and we didn't stay long there after I got to learn. That family taught others around them the importance of cycling and to add to that, I checked up some health benefits of riding a bike.
Help lose weight: The family model were all heavy weight, even the youngest seem bigger than me who was same age with the eldest daughter. This function must have been a reason the father introduced biking to them, to burn some fat away hehe.
Improves balance, posture and coordination of the body: I actually love this particular benefit as it trains oneself in keeping a good shape and finding a balance to it. I'm not sure how effective all their routine was for the family but I can tell how biking would provide this benefits if used regularly.
Help strengthens your legs: This one is very obvious since biking requires using legs to pedal back and forth to move. That steady act strengthens the bones on one's legs.
There are a lot more mental health and brain benefits cycling can do for humans if used more often. These are just a few I shared and I'll look forward to reading more from the comment section or a separate posts of yours in the community.
