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How often you should cycle per week to get fit
Cycling is an excellent way to get or stay fit. But how often, how long and how intensively should you cycle to achieve this?
What does it actually mean to be fit? The word “fit” means nothing more than “suitable”. However, we generally understand “fit” as a certain level of training that is not only healthy, but also makes many everyday things easier for us – for example, just catching a streetcar or playing tag with the children. Last but not least, basic fitness can be a basis for more ambitious training or sporting goals (a long bike ride, a 10-kilometer run or similar).
Cycling is basically a very good way to get or stay fit, as it trains our endurance and most major muscle groups, is easy on the joints and, in terms of intensity, is easy to control. Numerous studies also show that cycling is healthy and a good option for building up fitness. But who should cycle how often and for how long is very individual and depends above all on the current state of training and health. So you will be calm after and can focus completely on National Casino.
This is how often and how fast beginners should (be able to) cycle
Let’s assume that you want to do something for your fitness again after a long break from sport. The best way to start is to take stock: grab your bike and go for a ride to see how long you can keep going and at what pace. If you haven’t exercised for a very long time or have never done so regularly and/or suffer from pre-existing conditions, you should check with your doctor beforehand whether and how much strain you can put on your cardiovascular system.
After taking stock, you should start training slowly. In the beginning, it is enough for beginners to cycle on flat terrain for 20 to 30 minutes about three times a week.
Now for the right intensity and the right pace: For (re)beginners, the following applies: If you still have just enough air to keep yourself entertained while riding, then you’re on the right track. If you want, you can of course also train with a heart rate monitor, where the target heart rate for most people is around 120 to 130 beats per minute. However, as the exercise heart rate is very individual and depends on many factors such as age, training condition, etc., intensity control via the “conversation test” works at least as well.
If you are riding on flat terrain, you will probably reach a speed of around 18 to 20 kilometers per hour in calm conditions.
Building fitness means building new habits
This training area is called the foundation area, by the way, and this is precisely your most important goal: laying a solid foundation for your fitness. Continuity is crucial, especially at the beginning – so really try to cycle three times a week – even if it’s only 15 minutes, that’s still better than not cycling at all. This will help you get into a steady rhythm and each time you cycle it will be easier for you to get going.
According to studies, it can take up to three months for new habits to become so integrated into your life that you find them as easy as brushing your teeth – so keep at it!
If you then have no problem sticking to the basics for around 30 to 40 minutes three to four times a week, you will have built up a solid base level of fitness. This will also help you achieve the WHO’s recommended exercise target of at least 150 minutes of exercise per week. Once you have reached this basic level of fitness, you can of course always increase your training, depending on your goals.
Combining cycling with strength training
Cycling is very good endurance training. However, it is also important for our health and fitness to train our strength. Otherwise, as we get older, we lose muscle mass, which can lead to back pain and the like, but also promotes weight gain – because muscles use energy and therefore calories even at rest. Strength training also improves your performance on the bike.
All it takes is 10 to 15 minutes two to three times a week. And you don’t have to go to the gym or buy any equipment. Classic exercises such as push-ups or squats are very effective and anyone can easily do them at home.
Tip: There are many practical apps with short workouts that strengthen the entire body, for example the free app Seven – 7 Minute Workout (for Apple or Android devices). It gives you suggestions for exercises and – especially important for beginners – shows you the correct exercises to do.
Features
100-year-old Lil Duboff still taking life one day at a time
By MYRON LOVE Last march, Lil Duboff celebrated her 100th birthday in a low key manner.
“I have always been a laid back kind of person,” says the Shaftesbury retirement home resident. “I just celebrated with my family.”
Lil Duboff’s life journey began in Russia in 1925. “I was six months old when we came to Winnipeg,” she says. “Most of my extended family had come before. We were supposed to leave Russia at the same time, but my mother was pregnant with me and my parents waited until after I was born.”
The former Lil Portnoy, the daughter of Hy and Pessie, grew up the youngest of five siblings in a large and loving family in the old north end Jewish community. Upon his arrival in Winnipeg, her father, Hy, joined his father, Jack, and his brothers, Nathan and Percy, in the family business, Perth’s Cleaners, which was established in 1914.
Following the education path of most Jewish Winnipeggers in the period between the wars and into the 1950s, Duboff started her schooling at Peretz School – although she attended William Whyte School for most of her elementary schooling, supplemented by evening classes at Peretz School – followed by Aberdeen School and St. John’s Tech for high school.
The family, she recalls, belonged to the Beth Jacob Synagogue on Selkirk Avenue.
After completing high school, Duboff took a business course and joined the workforce. She first worked at Perth’s, then Stall’s, and lastly, Silpit Industries – which was owned by Harry Silverberg. (Harry Silverberg was one of the wealthier individuals in our community and a community leader who contributed generously to our communal institutions.)
It was while working at Silpit Industries that Lil Portnoy met Nathan Duboff. “Nathan worked in the shipping department,” she recalls. “We dated for three or four years before getting married.”
They wed in 1953 at the Hebrew Sick Hall on Selkirk Avenue. The bride was pregnant soon after and quit work to look after her family. The couple had three children: Chuck, Neil and Cynthia.
The family lived in the Garden City area. While Nathan continued to work for Harry Silverberg for a time – at his Brown and Rutherford lumber business, he later moved to Portage Lumber as sales manager, and then Dominion Lumber, finally retiring as sales manager for McDermot Lumber in 1995.
During those years Lil did what many married Jewish women did and put her time in as a volunteer with different Jewish organizations. She served as president of the Chevra Mishnayes Congregation sisterhood and the ORT chapter to which she belonged. She also volunteered with B’nai B’rith Women and Jewish Child and Family Service.
Her leisure activities included playing mahjong with friends and enjoying – with Nathan – the ballet and the symphony. There were also all the holiday gatherings with the extended family and summers spent at the family cottage in Gimli.
In the mid-1980s, Lil and Nathan sold their Garden City home and moved to a condo on Cambridge in the south end. After Nathan’s sudden passing in 2003, Lil continued living at Cambridge Towers until three years ago when her declining physical health required her to move into assisted living at the Shaftesbury.
While Lil Duboff suffers from many of the complaints of old age, such as limited eyesight and hearing, and other health issues, she retains a clear and positive frame of mind. She appreciates that her children all still live in Winnipeg and visit frequently. She happily reports that she also has five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
“It’s different living here (at the Shaftesbury),” she observes. “I don’t see as many people as I used to. But I am accepting my limitations and take life one day at a time. You never know what tomorrow might bring.”
Features
The First Time: A Memoir
By DAVID R. TOPPER Nearly every life has a series of “first times,” no matter how long or short one lives. The first day of school, or the first bicycle – these quickly come to mind. Probably because of the deep and wide reading I’ve been doing for a story I wrote, I recalled another “first” in my life. It came to me with the same chill up my spine as on the day it happened. And that was long ago.
I’m now into my early 80s and this event is from the late 1960s when I was finishing my PhD, which required that I pass a second language test. It was the last essential test, since I was finishing up my dissertation. In the early 1960s, as an undergraduate, I had taken German for the language requirement and naturally I opted for German for the graduate requirement too. Relevant here is the fact that of all the undergraduate courses I took, the only subject for which I had poor grades was – you guessed it? – German, where I got less than As and Bs.
On the day appointed, I walked across campus to the German department and took the test. The task was to translate a page of text. I can’t recall the content or anything about it. But the result was sent to me and – I suppose not surprisingly – I didn’t pass. I was informed that I could make an appointment with a member of the department to go over the test and to get some tutoring to help me prepare for another try.
But where is the “first in my life” that this memoir is all about? As said above, I only recently recalled this “first.” The trigger was a newscast that Yale University professor Timothy Snyder was moving to the University of Toronto because of the recent presidential elections in the USA. This caught my attention because his monumental book, Black Earth, on the Holocaust in the shtetls of Eastern Europe during World War II, was so crucial to that story I wrote. Thus, my subconscious kicked in and that newscast led me back to when I met the tutor.
Frankly, I don’t remember much about that day. Not the time of year, or the weather. Except that I again walked across campus, this time to meet my German tutor. Even so, I only remember three things about the tutor – beyond the fact that it was woman. She was much older than me and she spoke with a thick accent.
We sat at a table, she to my left, and in front of us on the table was my translation sheet covered with corrections in red; the original German text was beside it, to the right. Slowly she went over my translation, pointing out my mistakes. I sat, focusing on what I did wrong and listening to her suggestions for what I should have done – when, for a brief moment, she reached across my sheet to point to a German word in the original text. With her left hand and her bare arm right in front of me – I saw something on the underside of that arm.
At the time, I knew about this. I had read about it. But back in the late 1960s I had never seen it for real – in the flesh. Really. Yes, “in the flesh” isn’t a metaphor. Indeed, I’m getting the same chill now just thinking about it, as I did when I saw it – for the first time.
On the inside of that arm, she had a tattoo – a very simple tattoo – just a five-digit number. Nothing else.
I was so rattled by this that I couldn’t focus on what she was saying anymore. The tattoo blurred out much of everything else for the rest of the day.
Fortunately, this happened near the end of our meeting, and I apparently absorbed enough of her help so that when I did take the test the second time – I passed. And here I am: a retired professor after many years of teaching.
Even today, that first tattoo is still seared in my mind. Oh, and that’s the third thing I’ll always remember about the tutor who helped me pass that key test on the road to my PhD.
Features
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