Bicycle Touring 480 km in Seven Days: Effects on Body Composition and Physical Fitness—A Case Study Zúñiga Moreno, David Amaro Gahete, Francisco José Chillón Garzón, Palma Bicycle touring Body composition Fat mass Lean mass Physical fitness Cardiorespiratory fitness The study is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU14/04172), by the University of Granada, Plan Propio de Investigación 2016, Excellence actions: Units of Excellence; Scientific Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES), by Grupo Nucesa and by Obra Social “La Caixa”. The authors have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article. This study is part of a Ph.D. thesis conducted in the Biomedicine Doctoral Studies of the University of Granada, Spain. Bicycle touring as a modality of physical activity that involves whole-body cardiorespiratory and metabolic functions could be a potential strategy to improve body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to investigate the effects of 7-days bicycle touring activity on body composition and physical fitness. A total of 13 individuals (three women) participated in this quasi-experimental study. The participants were evaluated at baseline and were tracked for up to 12 days after the intervention. The intervention consisted of a 480 km bicycle touring route performed over 8 days. Body weight and body composition (i.e., fat mass and lean mass) were assessed using a bioelectrical impedance analyser. Physical fitness was measured using the International Fitness Scale questionnaire. We conducted a repeated-measures analysis of variance to determine changes in body weight and body composition and paired sample t-tests to analyse changes in physical fitness. Significant differences in fat mass were observed between the baseline and both post-intervention (p = 0.003) and re-test values (p = 0.031). Significant differences were also noted in lean mass between the baseline and post-intervention values (p = 0.003), whereas no significant changes were observed when compared the baseline and re-test values (p = 0.178). Significant differences were obtained in cardiorespiratory fitness when comparing the baseline with the post-intervention values (p = 0.016), whereas no significant differences were noted in general fitness, muscular strength, speed/agility, and flexibility (all p > 0.05). In conclusion, a 7-day bicycle touring intervention can significantly reduce fat mass and increase lean mass and cardiorespiratory fitness in healthy individuals. 2022-04-05T06:49:17Z 2022-04-05T06:49:17Z 2022-02-23 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Zúñiga-Moreno, D.; Amaro-Gahete, F.J.; Chillón, P. Bicycle Touring 480 km in Seven Days: Effects on Body Composition and Physical Fitness—A Case Study. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 2550. [https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19052550] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/74119 10.3390/ijerph19052550 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI