As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be a runner. Actually, I was never fast enough to be called a runner — I think 10-minute miles are more in the realm of jogging.
Anyway, I gave it up a couple of years ago because my knees just couldn’t take the pounding anymore. That’s when I started biking.
Biking’s been great for me, fitness-wise. I’ve got better endurance, a lower resting heart rate, and my waist size is down two inches.
But biking has some disadvantages, too. It’s not a weight-bearing exercise, so although my thighs and calves look like those on a 20-something, my upper body looks like it belongs on a 58-year-old. Which I am.
But I stick with biking as my only real exercise. Lots of folks I know mix it up — they run, or swim, or lift weights, or do something in addition to biking.
I don’t.
None of those other activities excite me much. Weight lifting is a turn-off, swimming bores me (not that I’m much good at it anyway), and although I enjoy golf, come on, there’s no way that qualifies as exercise. By the way, I walk the entire 18 holes and carry my bag, too.
Do you supplement your biking with other forms of exercise? What do you do? Do you do more than one other activity? What’s the mix of biking vs. that other stuff?
I jog 3 or 4 miles a couple of times a week to supplement my cycling. I try to keep my routine at about 85% cycling, 15% everything else.
To supplement my time on the bike there is No jogging for me, because my knees are shot. I try to get planks and side planks in about 4 x week along with pushups. In addition I recently discovered that the Yoga routine which comes on the Wii fitness program disc is really fun (and at times difficult) to do. So, now I try to get at least 40 minutes of Yoga/week into my routine to stretch out my old body. That’s about it.
Push-ups were one of the things that I thought right off the bat. Heck, even better if you can manage to do them right after your cycling rides, that is if you still have the stamina to do them right after 😀
Btw, I would not have the stamina to do them right after
Right now, I’m doing the workout described in http://springfieldcyclist.com/2009/07/08/wednesday-at-the-fitness-center/ a couple of times a week.
When it starts getting too cold and dark to enjoy riding as much, I’ll probably start running 3 days a week before commuting to work again. Last year I managed to stay injury free by limiting my mileage to a 5k run on MWF and doing something like a boot camp workout at the fitness center on TTh.
The bottom line for me is that fitness is a lifestyle and mixing up what you do is always good!
Triathlon, baby!