Discover the Top 10-Minute Exercise That Can Boost Men's Libido and Slow Down Aging!

DOING any kind of exercise will benefit your health in the long-term, lowering your risk of disease and keeping you fit and limber for longer.

But men who want to boost their sex drive and delay ageing should hop on their bike, studies suggest.

Cycling can help keep muscles younger and boost testosterone, studies suggestCredit: Getty

Researchers at King’s College London and University of showed that can help keep the body young and healthy – while also boosting testosterone levels in men.

They studied older adults who had exercised most of their adult lives to see if this could slow down ageing.

– published in Ageing Cell in 2018 – examined amateur cyclists aged 55 to 79, 84 of which were men.

They had to be able to cycle 100 km in under 6.5 hours, while the women had to be able to cycle 60 km in 5.5 hours.

Participants then underwent a series of laboratory tests and were compared to adults who didn’t regularly exercise.

Researchers observed that older male cyclists had higher than average levels of testosterone.

The hormone typically starts to dip with age but it plays an important role in sex drive, while ensuring bones and muscles stay strong.

Cyclists also had more muscle mass and strength, as well as lower levels of body fat and cholesterol – fatty substances that can clog up arteries and increase the risk of and .

The study also revealed that cycling could also help out the immune system.

An organ called the thymus, which makes immune cells called T cells, starts to shrink from the age of 20 and makes less T cells.

In this study, however, the cyclists’ thymuses were making as many T cells as those of a young person, researchers said.

Cycling may keep ageing at bay by preserving muscle strength, research published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders in 2021 showed.

It compared 28 middle aged men who were “trained recreational cyclists” to an equal number who were “physically inactive”.

The avid cyclists had been training for 15 years on average and had cycled more than 7000 km in the last year.

This group had larger and stronger leg and bum muscles – as you might expect from so much legwork.

But their muscles were also healthier and more youthful than the non-exercisers.

High levels of fat in muscles becomes more common as we age and exercise less.

Over time, this can lead to age-related muscle loss or sarcopenia.

It tends to accelerate after the age of 60 and lead to weakness, fatigue and falls.

Sarcopenia has also been linked to type 2 , and heart disease.

But the middle-aged cyclists in the study had much lower levels of harmful fat in their muscle fibres.

“These results suggest that cycling could help preserve muscle mass and composition in middle-aged men,” researchers, led by Professor Alister Hart – a consultant orthopaedic hip surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital – said.

Prof Hart told The Times : “It’s clear evidence that cycling helps to maintain muscles and prevent them from being weakened by fat infiltration, delaying some of the effects of ageing.”

The above studies all followed cyclists who straddled their bikes for many hours a week.

But you don’t need to spend all day on the saddle to feel the benefits.

The recommends you do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity each week, or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity.

You can make cycling vigorous if you go fast or up and down hills – meaning you’ll only need about 10 minutes a day of this to hit your quota.