Which is Better? Cycling, Running or Swimming—the Three Sports of Triathlon

Cycling
Advantages

Increase your brain power
Researchers from the University of Illinois have found that there is a 5% improvement in cardiorespiratorycycling fitness from cycling led to an improvement of up to 15% in mental tests. That’s because cycling helps build new brain cells. “It boosts blood flow and oxygen to the brain, which fires and regenerates receptors, explaining how exercise helps ward off Alzheimer’s,” explains the study’s author, Professor Arthur Kramer.

Modern sports medicine studies show that cycling is an antarafacial-dominated sport. Legs’ alternative pedaling enables the coinstantaneous development of the left brain and right brain, and prevents brain progeria and negligence. In fact, riding will press on the vessels to stimulate blood circulation, and your brain takes in more oxygen, so that you breathe in more fresh air. After a period of riding, you will be clear.

Enables you a perfect figure
Riding also makes your body slicker and more charming. People who lose weight by exercise, or by exercise and keeping on a diet at the same time, their figure is better and more charming than those who lose weight by keeping on a diet only. Have you ever noticed legs of professional riders? Their cruses and ankles are always slick, because they always ride bicycles. Therefore regular riding can exercise your cruses. Ride three or four times in a week enables you to keep fit.

Burn fat
Sports physiologists found that the body’s metabolic rate – the efficiency with which it burns calories and fat – is not only raised during a ride, but for several hours afterwards. “Even after cycling for 30 minutes, you could be burning a higher amount of total calories for a few hours after you stop,” says sports physiologist Mark Simpson of Loughborough University.

Strengthen your willpower
If you are fond of long-distance cycling, you would get plenty of benefits from it. Firstly, you need to get ready for it. You need to find your teammates first, and you will improve your social skill and communicative ability through this process. Then you have to make a plan together. Through this process, your team spirit will be promoted, which is very important for your work. During long-distance cycling, you may face a lot of difficulties, such as emergencies, suboptimal weathers, food or water shortness, and even the thought of giving up. Going through all these problems helps to build a stronger you and will power.

Improve your cardio-pulmonary function
Regulate effectively one’s cardio-pulmonary function, because, by cycling, you can exercise your lower-limb muscle force and strengthen stamina. According to comparative studies, cycling has the same effect on the stamina of internal organs as swimming and running do, because it can not only exercise the 3 pairs joints of the hip, knees and ankles, but also the muscles, joints of the neck, back, arms, abdomen, waist, groin and hip. Research shows that the risk of suffering coronary heart disease for people who cycle 6.5 miles every day is 50% lower than the people who don’t.



Disadvantages

The main cause of arthritis is the abrasion of bones and cartilage. Improper cycling gestures will not only cause serious skin abrasion but also arthritis.
No matter it is outdoor cycling or indoor cycling, the tool of a bike is necessary. Without a bike, you can’t cycle. And the expense of a bike and its maintenance is inevitable. If you want to be professional and increase your safety factor while riding, equipment like cycling jersey and a helmet is also very necessary.
Cycling outdoor may be dangerous, because you have to ride on the roads. There are various kinds of transportations on the road; countless vehicles travel at full speed on the expressways. All these are potential risk. You might even come across poor weather conditions.


Runningrunning
Advantages

Strengthen your knees, joints and bones
By running, you can strengthen your knees, joint and bones. It’s acknowledged that running increases bone mass and helps stem aging bone loss. A study of nearly 100k runners shows that runners are half as likely to suffer from knee osteoarthritis compared with walkers. According to Janet Hamilton, CSCS, an exercise physiologist with Running Strong in Atlanta, you will stress your cartilage and bones as well as your muscles when you pound your pavement, causing them to spring back stronger.

Good for your health
According to a study by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, running for 5 to 10 minutes every day at slow speeds reduces the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. As for women, it can also help to reduce the risk of suffering breast cancer and having a stroke. Patients who are in the early stage of diabetes, high blood pressure and osteoporosis are always recommended to run regularly, and running helps reduce the risk of suffering a heart attack effectively.

Build stamina
Running is a very good way to build your stamina. If you insist on jogging for 30 minutes three to four times a week, you will find your endurance increases significantly.



Disadvantages

Achilles tendinitis, shin splints, stress fractures, plantar fasciitis and runner knee are often found on runners. To some extent, running can strengthen the joint of the body; but it will also do harm to some parts of your body. The fact is, compared to cycling and swimming, running causes much more injury to the knee than other two sports.
If you want to thin leg by running, you must pay attention to your amount of exercise. Excessive exercise not only does harm to your health, but also gives you a pair of elephantine legs. Mastering the right way to exercise is essential for everyone.


Swimmingswimming
Advantages

Just like most of the benefits of cycling and running, the benefits of swimming are fat-burning, improving people’s cardio-pulmonary function, increasing people’s stamina, etc. However, the biggest benefit of swimming is its low impact to the joint. As I mentioned above, running causes much more injure to the knee and the joint than swimming and running. So, for people who suffer from knee injury or arthritis can choose swimming as their exercise.


Disadvantages

While some people think it is easy to learn to swim, I really doubt that. I took me several months to learn to float on the water, not to mention the time I really knew how to swim. And from now on, I still don’t know how to take a breath in breaststroke. They also say backstroke is easy to master, but I couldn’t even float on the water with this stroke.
For some people, it’s difficult for them to learn to swim. That’s one of the biggest disadvantages of swimming. If you don’t know how to swim, then you can’t take this exercise.

Drowning is a risk for swimmers, especially children. According to a statistics, an estimated 360,000 people died from drowning in 2015. Drowning is the 3rd leading cause of accidental injury death worldwide, accounting for 7% of all injury-related deaths.


From the above comparison, I believe most of the people already have their own opinions about this topic. It doesn’t matter which is better, as long as we know the right way to exercise. But I still want to say I hate running, and I prefer cycling and swimming. Running is a kind of boring for me. No matter which one you prefer, just keep on exercising. Exercise is really important to one’s health.