Hit the Trails for Fitness Fun!

If your goals are to lose weight, or to increase your endurance, stamina, strength, or cardiovascular fitness I highly recommend you hit the trail. Cardiovascular exercise has many benefits in addition to fat burning, you’ll have an increased metabolism, lowered blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol levels. A 190 lb person can burn off 228 calories with just a leisurely bike ride.

When most people think of cardio exercise the most common images are of sweating to an aerobics video, walking/running on a treadmill, a stair stepper, an elliptical machine or riding a stationary bike. All of these are excellent cardiovascular activities but now that the weather is nice I say dust off that bicycle and hit the beautiful trail systems our city has to offer. Omaha has over 80 miles of paved as well as unpaved trails and paths throughout the city and surrounding areas. These trails are very popular and are used by runners, hikers, bicyclists and recreational walkers of all ages. This is the time of year to make your cardiovascular activities fun and enjoyable. And what better way to get in some exercise than adding a social aspect by including your friends, children, and parents.

So get thee to the garage, basement, thrift store, garage sale, bike shop or wherever your bike may be, grab a helmet and hit the trails for fitness fun!

Tracy L. Speights

Tweet This Post 

Tags: bicyclists, bike, cardiovascular, endurance, family, friends, hikers, lose weight, runners, stamina

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.