Amelia Grant

Biking, or cycling, is more than just a great low-impact cardio workout. A new study suggests it may also help avoid knee discomfort and arthritis.

By middle age, persons who had participated in cycling or bicycling at some point in their lives were 17 percent less likely to have knee pain and 21 percent less likely to have symptomatic arthritis in the knee.

The natural history of osteoarthritis is lengthy, making it difficult to follow the various exercises you'll engage in throughout your life, as well as their impact on joint health.

Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, can develop in one or both knees as you age, causing symptoms like pain, edema, and stiffness in the joint. While some people have little symptoms, others may endure swelling and pain, making it difficult to undertake regular activities such as gardening or cleaning or to continue working.

Low-Impact Exercise for Knee Osteoarthritis
There is no cure for knee arthritis, but doctors frequently encourage patients to engage in low-impact exercise such as cycling, swimming, or walking while avoiding high-impact activities such as jogging or tennis to help manage their symptoms. Until today, it was unclear which low-impact activity would be most beneficial for promoting healthy knee joints.

The new study focuses on the possible benefits of cycling. Scientists polled approximately 2,500 people at four different ages: 12 to 18, 19 to 34, 35 to 49, and 50 and up.

The researchers next examined the patients' X-rays for signs of knee arthritis, often known as radiographic osteoarthritis. Participants also mentioned any knee discomfort they were experiencing, allowing investigators to identify patients with symptomatic radiographic osteoarthritis (SOA), which occurs when there is X-ray evidence of arthritis in the knee joint and symptoms such as pain and swelling.

The study found that those who biked at any point in their lives had less knee pain, ROA, and SOA than those who did not bike. Furthermore, those who biked and did so at various ages throughout their lifetimes reported lower incidences of all three.

Cycling for Knee Osteoarthritis
This could be because osteoarthritis is linked to muscle mass loss, worse muscular performance, decreased physical activity, and possibly increased body fat.

Such alterations make it more difficult to engage in daily tasks and may increase the strain on the knee joint during activities like walking, stair climbing, and squatting.

Cycling and other types of exercise can help minimize osteoarthritis-related muscle mass loss, muscular function, and physical activity, resulting in better long-term symptom management.

This study's weakness is that researchers depended on subjects to reliably recollect and report on their exercise routines over multiple decades, which raises the possibility that faulty memory influenced the findings. It's also likely that persons who rode bikes regularly throughout their lives had other healthy habits that helped them have a decreased chance of knee pain or arthritis.

The study also did not aim to discover the optimal frequency, intensity, or duration of cycling sessions for preventing or treating knee osteoarthritis. However, study participants reported benefits from cycling two to five times per week, for 20 to 60 minutes each.

This implies that a wide range of bicycle exercise prescriptions can still be helpful. Individuals with knee osteoarthritis may need to find the appropriate cycling frequency, intensity, and duration for themselves.

Even if you are already experiencing discomfort from knee osteoarthritis, it is not too late to start.

Strengthening the muscles around the joint will assist in relieving stress and discomfort from osteoarthritis. Of course, exercising will not remove the arthritis that already exists.