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9 powerful physical and mental health benefits of mountain biking
Discover the health and mental benefits of mountain biking, from heart health and muscle strength to stress relief, better sleep and a brighter mood.
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9 Powerful benefits of mountain biking to strengthen your body
There's nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of speeding down a single-track on your mountain bike out in nature surrounded by awesome views. Mountain biking gets you outside to amazing places, it helps you meet cool people, and you also get tons of health benefits as a mountain biker. Check out these 9 mind-blowing benefits you can get when you go for a mountain bike ride.
Aaron Gwin
© Bartek Wolinski
From the physical health benefits of mountain biking to the mental benefits of mountain biking, riding regularly works your whole body while giving your mind a break — here's exactly how.
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Biking gets your heart pumping
When you climb up long hills or do a fast sprint to the finish line, your heart pumps fast to get plenty of oxygen to your muscles. When you mountain bike, you use major muscle groups like your quadriceps, hamstrings, and calf muscles. These large muscles need lots of oxygenated blood flowing through them, and your heart has to pump hard to get the blood cranking through your system.
This kind of sustained cardio is one of the clearest health benefits of mountain biking: regular climbing and sprinting strengthens your heart muscle itself, which can help lower resting heart rate and blood pressure over time.
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Biking builds strong muscles
We all want strong muscles to make us look fabulous, but we also need them to keep our bones strong. You pretty much use every muscle group when you ride. Keeping balanced on your bike when flying over rough terrain and climbing up tricky ascents uses your core muscles, which helps to give you powerful abdominal muscles. Maneuvering your bike over rocks, logs, and muddy terrain requires upper body strength, so you're also getting your arms strong. Pedaling uses your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves to keep your lower body toned.
Even when you're not able to hit the trails with your mountain bike, you can still work out to stay on top of your fitness routine. Many of the MTB athletes who faced challenges in 2021 used their downtime to build up their muscles and work on strength training. Do you need some motivation to help you train inside? Check out these MTB athlete's training playlists.
Aaron Gwin
© Filip Nagy
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Biking is easy on your joints
Engaging in strenuous physical activity like running, jumping, or bodybuilding can have a serious impact on your joints and ligaments. Because mountain biking is a non-load-bearing way to get physically fit, your joints, especially your knees and hips, don't take such a beating. If you're looking for ideas on indoor training tips from MTB athletes, check out these moves.
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Biking is a great stress reliever
When you're feeling frustrated, have anxiety, or just need to blow off steam, getting on your mountain bike and hitting the trail can help you decrease stress levels. If you have a million different thoughts running through your brain, riding your bike can help you clear your head. Instead of listening to the chatter in your head, you have to focus on tire placement, picking your line, and not running into a tree or riding off a cliff. In some ways, mountain biking is like meditation. You let all of that noise in your head evaporate, focus on the here and now, and after a strenuous, sweaty ride, you'll feel much calmer inside.
Hannah Bergemann
© Katie Lozancich
This is one of the most talked-about mental benefits of mountain biking: the trail forces total focus, which pushes out everyday worries in a way that's hard to replicate at the gym or on a treadmill.
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Biking improves your reaction times
When you're sailing downhill at top speed, you need to have quick reactions to make decisions such as body posture, braking force, and which direction to turn the front wheel as things come at you in rapid successions. The more time you spend on your mountain bike, the quicker your reaction time becomes. Building your reaction time involves improving the connection of your central nervous system to the peripheral nervous system. The stronger the connection, the quicker you can control your movements so you don't end up flying over the handlebars of your bike.
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Biking helps you sleep well
After a day of burning calories and energy, sleep will come easy. Your body needs sleep to rebuild muscle and for the brain to do a bit of housecleaning by removing toxins while you sleep. If you tend toward insomnia, a late-afternoon or evening ride can help you sleep better. Exercise causes your body temperature to rise, and once you're done with your bike ride, cool off, take a shower, and get some good nutrition in you, the post-exercise drop in temperature can help you fall fast asleep.
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Biking gets you out in nature
At Red Bull, we have MTB competitions you can watch that are set in wild places and will make you want to book your next trip, pack your bike with you, and let your wanderlust take over. To get inspired to see the beautiful scenery that mountain bikers around the world get to experience, check out our trailer for the gorgeously filmed movie, The Old World. The film shows how some of the world's top MTB riders train, the amazing terrain they ride through, and the amazing natural world they get to race in.
Stefan Svitko
© Filip Nagy
Time spent outdoors is itself linked to lower stress and better mood, so this is where the physical and mental benefits of mountain biking overlap most clearly — you're exercising and getting fresh air and green space at the same time.
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Biking puts you in a good mood
Just watching these guys at Crankworx makes you feel on top of the world. When you're out doing twists and flips, flying downhill, and going over obstacles, in your head you're high-fiving yourself. When you ride, endorphins get released that make you feel over-the-top fabulous. Riding also releases serotonin, which is a natural chemical in your body that helps to prevent depression. So if you're feeling blue and want to improve your mental health, strap on your helmet, armor up, and get out and ride.
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When you bike, you're part of an awesome community
One of the best parts of mountain biking is the amazing people you'll meet. People from around the world come together in one place to cheer each other on during downhill competitions or to enjoy riding as a group on a mountain biking adventure. After your ride, you can share stories of your travels around the world, make suggestions for the latest-and-greatest MTB gear, and make fast friends with like-minded folks who enjoy the wild world of MTB.
Once you've experienced how great you feel after an epic ride and how you end up smiling at the end of the day, you'll want to ride as often as you can.
That sense of belonging counts among the mental benefits of mountain biking too — social connection is consistently linked to better mental wellbeing, and a trail crew or local riding group is an easy way to build it in.
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Why racing takes the benefits even further
If you really want to feel the health benefits of mountain biking and the mental benefits of mountain biking kick in, signing up for an actual race takes everything above several steps further. Entering an event — anything from a local enduro to an XCO race or even a Red Bull Hardline qualifier — gives you a reason to train consistently, a genuine adrenaline rush that casual riding can't quite match, and a few extra perks along the way.
Training with a purpose: Nothing motivates a consistent training routine like a race entry already on the calendar. Once you've signed up, the gym sessions and extra trail time suddenly have a deadline, which is one of the simplest ways to turn good intentions into an actual fitness habit.
A different kind of mental challenge: Racing produces a kind of 'positive stress' that's different from a relaxed trail ride — you're forced to focus completely on the track in front of you, pushing out everyday worries in a more intense version of the mental benefits of mountain biking already covered above.
Bragging rights and camaraderie: Racing against friends, rather than just comparing Strava times after the fact, adds a social and competitive edge to riding that strengthens the sense of community mountain biking already brings.
An excuse to travel: From the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup circuit to events like Red Bull Hardline, racing calendars take riders to some genuinely spectacular parts of the world — adding a travel incentive on top of the physical and mental upsides already covered above.
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The bottom line on the health and mental benefits of mountain biking
Taken together, the health benefits of mountain biking and the mental benefits of mountain biking are hard to separate — a stronger heart and muscles come from the same rides that clear your head and lift your mood. Whether you're chasing fitness, stress relief, or just an excuse to get outside, time in the saddle delivers on all three.
