What are the health benefits of mountain biking?

Mountain biking, especially cross-country (XC) MTBing is a physiological challenging activity that is both aerobically and anaerobically demanding, making it a vigorous-intensity form of green exercise. 

Mountain biking health benefits

• Weight loss

• Vitamin D from sun exposure 

• Increased strength (full body)

• Improvement with overall muscle tone

• Increased VO2 (heart health)

• Improved mood and level of happiness 

• Improved immune system

• Decreases in chronic diseases 

• Reduction in anxiety 

• Enhancement in clarity and focus

• Improved bone health 

• Improved sleep

outdoors & health benefits

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 143 studies with a combined population size of close to 300 million people show that spending time outside in undeveloped nature or urban forests is beneficial to your health.

Being in nature reduces “blood pressure, heart rate, salivary cortisol, incidence of type II diabetes and stroke, all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, as well as health-denoting associations with pregnancy outcomes, HRV, and HDL cholesterol, and self-reported health.”

The idea of “nature as a tonic for urban society” is nothing new, yet today the importance of de-attaching from technology and attentional fatigue places even more importance on getting outdoors.

Reaching for your cell phone is impossible while MTBing, which forces you to reconnect with nature as you cling to the singletrack, altering your mental attention away from daily stresses as you concentrate on gripping/ripping the trail.

What is green exercise? Green exercise is an activity in the presence of nature. Many health professionals refer to green exercise as nature’s Prozac, since physical activity releases endorphins, which bring about feelings of euphoria and general well-being, fighting depression and despair. 

Mountain biking produces a double-dose of endorphins as MTBing combines both physical activity with nature.

Sun exposure: mountain biking & vitamin D

While over exposure to the sun is associated with many risk factors, the average American and European is vitamin D deficient:

• Vitamin D deficient

  • 70% of Americans

  • 86 % of Europeans

Sunlight exposure, and specifically UVB light stimulates the production of vitamin D3. “The endogenous synthesis via ultraviolet-B radiation through exposure to sunlight is the major source of vitamin D in humans.” (Amorim et al., 2020)

We all know that vitamin D helps the body to absorb calcium, but vitamin D does much more, especially since Vitamin D acts as a steroid hormone, and influences the “bones, intestines, immune and cardiovascular systems, pancreas, muscles, brain, and the control of cell cycles.”

Vitamin D is insanely important for your overall health, bones, and proper weight management. The best and most efficient way to get vitamin D is not through supplements but from the sun.

Mountain biking allows you to get an ample amount of UVB exposure while riding, especially cross-country style since more of your skin is exposed to the sun.

Sun light, melatonin & improved sleep

In addition to all the vitamin D you get from being out in the sun, melatonin production is regulated by sunlight. Melatonin is a vital hormone and is responsible for regulating your sleep-wake cycle and circadian rhythm.

If you feel tired and have low energy, getting outside and into the sun is hugely important, as indoor lights don’t regulate this vital hormone. 

Regular exercise by itself improves sleep quality. A 2015 study from the Journal of Behavioral Medicine reviewed 66 sleep and exercise studies and concluded:

“Here is support for the use of exercise as a prescriptive to improve sleep quality, with expectations for immediate benefits that have the potential to grow over time.” (emphasis mine)

While regular exercise can be boring we all know the health benefits are insane and wide-ranging. Instead of taking a pill to sleep better, you can jump into the saddle and ride your way to better sleep while taking in sun rays of melatonin and vitamin D. 

Bone health & Mountain biking

Numerous studies have been conducted that have researched bone mass and bone metabolism in cyclists and have concluded that road cycling offers no benefits to bone health.

The reason is generally understood to be that cyclists ride while mostly seated in a weight-supported position while riding on smooth paved-surfaces with zero riding impacts. 

Mountain bikers, by contrast, have higher bone mineral density compared to road cyclists and the general population. 

A 2002 study from  Bone, a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal compared the bone mineral densities of cross-country mountain bikers to road cyclists. The academics conclusion, “when adjusted for body weight and controlled for age, bone mineral density was significantly higher at all sites in the mountain cyclists compared with the road cyclists and controls.”



How does mountain biking make our bones stronger?  

Mountain biking is loaded with controlled impacts, from: 

•  Drops

•  Jumps

•  Carrying MTB over obstacles

•  Vibrations from riding bumpy terrain 

• Riding over logs/stumps/roots/trail obstacles

Also, while MTBing you pedal in a variety of positions from riding on uneven trails. You activate all your muscles and bones to support yourself while descending in the attack position. During climbing, you recruit a whole new set of muscles to stabilize yourself over trail obstacles and varied riding surfaces.

Weight loss & MTB

Losing weight is about sustainable lifestyle choices that lead to activities that you enjoy and add meaning to your life, combined with eating real foods while avoiding most processed and ultra-processed food.

Mountain biking leads to realistic and lasting weight loss since MTBing combines high-intensity interval training with the outdoors. More time spent on the bike is less time spent making poor lifestyle choices. Each healthy choice leads to a healthy outcome which reinforces your actions. Setting into motion a cascade of new lifestyle habits.

Mountain biking & HIIT

High-intensity-interval-training (HIIT) has countless health benefits and aids in body-fat reduction and increases in muscle.  Moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT/MOD) methods are inferior, and often times result in greater losses of muscle-mass than body fat. 

Mountain biking IS high-intensity interval training. Steep heart-pounding climbs and fast technical descents followed by relatively flat sections that facilitate active recovery. 

How is MTBing a HIIT exercise?

Mountain biking is performed at an intensity that is above your lactate threshold (an intensity that is unsustainable) and is separated with periods of lower intensity active recovery periods or broken up with pauses of complete rest.  

The energy expended during your mountain bike ride is determined by the duration and riding intensity in proportion to your overall body weight.

flawed weight-loss formula

Obesity is often described as a simple energy balance equation, where the over-weight person is consuming more calories than expending.

Obesity prevention and weight loss are generally erroneously portrayed as a simple “calories in, calories out” model with oversimplified advice to eat less and move more. Numerous health ‘experts’ and weight loss ‘gurus’ extoll the 3500 kcal per pound ‘rule’ yet don’t provide advice on metabolic adaptation, macronutrient composition, preferential energy partitioning, or homeostatic signals.

All of which barely scratch the surface of the mechanisms involved in human metabolism and weight reduction.  

However, the main flaw with the 3500 kcal ‘rule’ and the ‘calories in, calories out’ model, is that you can eat whatever you want so long as you expend more calories then what you consume. 

Calories are not created equal, but more specifically, calories from fake foods commonly know as ultra-processed food products are not treated by your body the same as real, or minimally processed foods.

The idea that you can eat whatever you want so long as you’re eating less and moving more isn’t a terrible bad concept as long as the concept is modified:

• Avoid ultra-processed foods

• Eat real or minimally processed foods

• Move more and preferable outdoors in nature, like by riding singletrack on your MTB

• Avoid snacking or eating between meals, unless MTBing or participating in other intense forms of physical activity

avoid ultra-processed products 

Ultra-processed products are not foods, or even modified foods, but are formulations of industrial sources that combine fats, starches, sugars, salt with additives, and are devoid of nutrients. 

Nearly 60% of the energy calories consumed in the United States fall into the category of ultra-processed. 

How do you know if it’s ultra-processed?

•  If it comes in a box, package, or is pre-made, chances are……it’s ultra-processed. 

• If it’s ready-to-eat, and it didn’t just come from the garden or farm, then chances are it’s ultra-processed.

• Any food with a long shelf life with an ingredient list that rivals a book in length. 

  • If the list of ingredients is super long, or if you don’t know how to pronounce the chemical compounds that masquerade as ‘ingredients,’ then…..it’s ultra-processed.

Ultra-processed foods:

• Soft drinks, fruit juices, & fruit drinks, energy drinks, most sport drinks

• Mass produced packaged bread

• Protein power, such as whey powder

• “Health” bars & “energy” jells

• Fast food dishes

• Sauces & spreads

• Packaged snacks, candies & chips

• Margarine

• Breakfasts cereals

• Most dairy based products (except milk and plain yogurt)

• Reconstituted meat products

• Crackers

• Frozen prepared meals

calories & weight loss

Modes of weight loss that employ the ‘calories in, calories out’ only consider energy intake and energy expenditure. Our bodies have homeostatic signals related to weight loss and attempts to alter energy balance through specific diets or exercise set off a chain of complex physiological adaptations.

Caloric restriction diets are touted in the mainstream as viable weight loss interventions.

However, restricting calories never produces the weight loss that is predicted based upon caloric formulas. These weight loss formulas fail to account for all the underlying compensatory mechanisms.

As you restrict your daily caloric intake, your body will compensate by reducing your energy expenditure. This is accomplished in a variety of ways, however, two mechanisms predominant:

1. You will become hungry

   • Your body is hoping that you will eat more

2. Reduction in physical activity

   • If you don’t eat more your bodies next move is to reduce caloric expenditure through a reduction in physical exertion

Even though your body will attempt to restrict your amount of physical activity, you can trick your body into moving more. All you need to do is saddle-up and pedal your way to a successful first step.

Health benefits: Road vs MTB

If you have read this far then it’s probably obvious that mountain biking confers significantly more health benefits than road cycling. Mountain biking requires more:



• Upper Body Strength: MTBers lift the front wheel over obstacles while climbing and use a healthy dose of arms, shoulders, and chest muscles for stabilization during descending. 

  • Read my article:  What Muscles Do You Use While Mountain Biking for more info.

• Decision Making: While riding singletrack you must make quick decisions with constant mental effort. Choosing what line to ride and how to attack the trail is far from the mindless pedaling that most road cyclists engage in. 

• Muscular Strength & Endurance: MTB tires are significantly wider, knobbier, and run at much lower pressures because the tires need to be able to ride over sand, mud, gravel, grass, and rocks all increasing the rolling resistance (harder to pedal). While riding single-track you are constantly accelerating and decelerating through turns and hills, all with a heavier bike with less efficient suspensions.

• Stronger Bones: Road cycling doesn’t contribute anything to bone health while some health experts even go as far as saying that that road cyclists are “pedaling to osteoporosis.” Mountain biking, on the other hand, is comparable to weight training when it comes to bone health and strong bones. 

• Green Exercise: Researchers believe that there is a synergistic benefit to exercising in nature, magnifying the benefits of both activities resulting in a mega-dose of natural endorphins.

Jesse is the Director of Pedal Chile and lives in Chile’s Patagonia (most of the year). Jesse has a Master of Science in Health and Human Performance & Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology. Jesse is an avid MTB rider & snowboarder and enjoys researching and reading non-fiction and academic studies.

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