Nicola points to a 2015 study of 300-plus female twins that revealed a fascinating link: Having more powerful legs—a metric captured by sitting in a machine and pushing one foot as hard and fast as possible against a pedal—is associated with relatively better cognition 10 years later, measured by performance on tests of memory and processing speed.
The article goes on to suggest gym-equipment training exercises, but regularly pushing a heavily loaded pedal via cargo-cycling seems like a much more obvious solution that doesn’t require a gym membership.
Yes and no.
On one hand, yes, go ride a bike. Go ride a cargo bike. Get outside. Exercise. Have fun. Live your life. It’s great!! And if you haven’t ridden a cargo bike before and start, or start riding it farther, then odds are your legs will get stronger and add some muscle.
Otoh, hours of cardio are an extremely inefficient way to gain muscle, and especially, to get stronger. The article noted that the specific health benefits were related to leg strength and power. As the article notes, you should aim for 8-12 reps to muscular failure (I would argue that this is on the high end of the rep range) - and a cargo bike ride of only 12 pedals will be… quite short.
And on the other other hand - god, this article reads like uninformed trash as far as its actual lifting advice. Which I suppose is fine for people who are just starting out lifting - just getting started and continuing to show up is the real key… but it reads like a bodybuilding rag from the 90s. No, not all dynamic movements are “plyometric”…
In conclusion, ride your bike to the gym, do a set of 5 heavy deads, go home. Brain accomplished
I think you’re categorizing cycling as cardio because that’s what happens on a stationary bike at the gym. When you’re riding a bike in the wild, you frequently come to a complete stop and then have to bring it up to speed again. Even at a high gearing ratio, this is not a slow-twitch muscle activity. With increased load like additional cargo, the resistance is even more significant.
