Does cycling give you a healthy body?

Our paper on muscle health in cyclists features on Global Cycling News.

It’s no accident that professional cyclists tend to look slim — even skinny. So is a cyclists’ body a healthy one? This was a recent talking point on Global Cycling News — the YouTube channel with 3m+ subscribers — in an episode exploring our Medical Journal paper on the health of cyclists’ muscles:

Is a cyclist’s body a healthy body? | GCN Show Ep. 589, released in May 2024. (The section on body health starts at 3 minutes 15 seconds.)

In this episode ex-pro cyclists Dan Lloyd and Simon Richardson weigh up the evidence that cycling improves cardiovascular health and therefore longevity, even for Tour de France veterans who are often thought to push themselves beyond healthy limits.

They highlight our main finding: that midlife male cyclists, when compared to a group of midlife males who are physically inactive, have less intra-muscular fat and greater gluteal muscle mass.

The presenters point out how unlikely this finding that cycling can preserve muscle mass might seem, “given how slight cyclists look”, that they’re “not exactly bulky” and “don’t look hench”.

Our evidence supports a key message from the episode: that cycling is effective in reducing the risk of sarcopenia (age-related loss of muscle mass, strength and performance) by preserving muscle mass.