General Cycling Discussion - Stupid Question about Health.

Does anyone here besides me ride just for health purposes? Im overweight, have high blood pressure and all kinds of aches and pains. Im only 37 yrs old. :eek: I feel better about myself and I feel more energized now. But my blood pressure is sky "high". Anyone else ride with High blood Pressure or other health problems? :cry:

I don't have health problems but riding to maintain my health is part of the reason why cycling has been part of me for many many years. Most other hobbies that does not involve physical activity have come and gone.

George

Yes! Dr. told me that my triglycerides(sp) were double the max of 149. He said "300 is just too much. You need some exercise to bring that number down or meds. I said, "don't want meds." He said, "a stroke or heartattack may just solve many of you problems then." He laughed when he saw I was serious. The doctor continued, "just exercise, and we'll see where you are, okay?" That was 9 months ago. I will make an appt. to see him and get an evaluation on how I'm doing.

Urbanmonk

I used to...then I got addicted...now I ride for thrills :D..

[SIZE=6][COLOR=Black] :D YES! We all ride for health, cycling is the most demanding of sports. IF done corectly you should come home after 100 miles no more pained than when you left. So whats your pains ASa a cettified cycling coach Perhaps I can pin point how to rectify some related to your ride .
I ride a 100 mile course moderate hills in just over 5 hours I have 11 broken vertebra, had 3 spinal surgeries, and I have COPD. I ride to maintian my lung For winter and to reduce my pain in my back. Cycling does just that . but I had to modify the bike and Myaparrel to suit my handicaps. but I am OFF season high BP and low Aerobic capacity. RIDE AND RIDE HARD AS YOU CAN.


Does anyone here besides me ride just for health purposes? Im overweight, have high blood pressure and all kinds of aches and pains. Im only 37 yrs old. :eek: I feel better about myself and I feel more energized now. But my blood pressure is sky "high". Anyone else ride with High blood Pressure or other health problems? :cry:
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Hi,
I have high BP. When I ride a lot, it goes down. In the summer, I cut my dosage in half, and I stay lower than in than in the winter. The single greatest piece of advice in cycling history was given by Eddie Mercyx...."Ride lots"

I have TYPE II diabetes. So yes, I started riding for health. Now I ride out of the passion for it. The health benefits are a great bonus!

Thanks Guys.

Good Health is a nice side effect, I mainly like the sensation of speed.

I would have very high blood pressure if I didn't take the tablets. It was only my knees that stopped me running marathons. Now I ride to excess instead. My cardiologist confirmed for me that my blood pressure goes down during exercise - your blood vessels dilate to let more blood through, hence a drop in pressure.

Well let's see. I started back riding, rode everywhere when I was a teen, at about your age,I'm 40 now. My resting heart rate at that time was around 75, BP normal. My HDL cholestrol was around 23, I smoked,and I weighed, hold your hat, 280! I am a med tech and was running blood work on folks my age who where having heart attacks all the time. Got me to thinking I had better change my life style and NOW! I kicked the habbit, haven't even wanted to touch another cig.,and dropped 60 lbs the first year, got me a hybred bike and started riding. Moved to a road bike, in the late summer of year before last and started to ride more and more. Last year put in a little over 3000 miles, I haven't lost any weight last year, but my speed keeps getting faster and faster and my legs are getting bigger, while my gut is getting smaller and smaller! :p

Now my resting HR is 50, my HDL is up to 48, I weigh 240 now, and I feel like, no better, than I did at 30! I'm really working hard at dumping that 40 pounds by the middle of the summer. The only thing is that my resting BP is now on the edge of being elevated???? I have really been keeping a check on this. I think it is because the amount of red blood cells in my plasma has gotten up to almost 50%.

So, YES I did start because of health, but I love the feeling of being out riding. BTW the faster the better!hehehehe yeeeehaaa! :D

Does anyone here besides me ride just for health purposes?

February is heart month here.

As much as many worry about the "risks" of riding, not riding is much riskier.

About 7 B.C.ers' die from accidents on a bike, and 400 die in automobiles, but 10,000 die from heart disease and strokes. 1 in 10 men and 1 in 12 women die from heart attacks and strokes account for 16% of female deaths and 23% of male deaths .

What can we do to to lower your risk?

Don't smoke, limit drinking alchohol, reduce stress, eat well and exercise aerobically, as in, riding your bike!

Ride or die.

I ride for the health of it. I just haven't decided whether it is for the mental or physical part of it. :D It is good for you physically to be well of mentally. It is good for you mentally to know your are better off physically. They pretty much go hand in hand for me.

People very seldom have a passion for anything that is good for them. For example. How many people would stand out in the cold to eat a carrot the way they stand out in the cold to smoke a cigarette? ;)

Does anyone here besides me ride just for health purposes? Im overweight, have high blood pressure and all kinds of aches and pains. Im only 37 yrs old. :eek: I feel better about myself and I feel more energized now. But my blood pressure is sky "high". Anyone else ride with High blood Pressure or other health problems? :cry:

I tend to have borderline high cholesterol but nothing like some people around here. I have been keeping my cholestrol in check by changing my diet. That is getting rid of trans fats and saturated fats in my diet and dumping all but very lean meat and not that much of that.

Aerobic exercise like bicycling is a good component to being healthy. It keeps the body in tone (but for best results you do need to supplement it with some weight lifting). It keeps one's weight in check. It lowers heart rate. It can lower blood pressure, increase HDL Cholesterol and so on. Oh, and exercise does protect one from getting diabetes to a degree.

But exercise is only half of it. Having a proper diet is very important and that is hard given the fact that the convenience food industry gives people what they want rather then what they should have. I am not necessarily saying that the gov should step in on this one, but the rates of obesity and diabetes are sky rocketing.

I ride for the sake of other people's health. If i dont ride i may release my built up rage on someone as apposed to my cranks.

Aerobic exercise like bicycling is a good component to being healthy. It keeps one's weight in check. It lowers heart rate. It can lower blood pressure, increase HDL Cholesterol and so on. Oh, and exercise does protect one from getting diabetes to a degree.

But exercise is only half of it. Having a proper diet is very important ... the rates of obesity and diabetes are sky rocketing.

I can never understand how these important health benefits are not taken into consideration when the liabilities of cycling are mentioned in safety topics.

The benefits far outweigh the liabilities here.

I just read Walter Gretzky's book about his stroke and proper stress management, exercise (that cycling can help with), and diet can help prevent many strokes.

It seems to me, many more lives can be saved by improving health through cycling than trying to save lives through restrictive cycling laws.

Lots of Great Info. Thanks People. :)

If you want to spend the time, a great page to read is

http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm


the risk involve in not bicycling (or getting some equivalent form of exercise) has much more serious and more certain results. According to results published in Pedalling Health (from the USA), a sedentary lifestyle fosters coronary heart disease, strokes, obesity, and type II diabetes. An excellent way to fight such life destroyers is to travel by bicycle, and Pedalling Health indicates that the equivalent of 60 miles a week provides the necessary protection. Henry Thoreau once said, "A man sits as many risks as he runs" and for once Thoreau understated it. According to Pedalling Health, a person who bicycles six hours a week reduces his chance of death by coronary heart disease alone by over four times as much as he increases his chance of death through a traffic accident. Mayer Hillman of the British Medical Association has estimated that the total health benefit of cycling is twenty times the risk...

a person who choses a bicycle over an automobile for daily travel and who obeys the traffic laws and uses care at all times will experience greatly improved health and a greatly reduced risk of death as a result. Thus rather than being dangerous, cycling greatly reduces major health risks.

"We're more afraid of shark attacks than heart attacks and statistically that's wrong," says David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. "The more awful the manner of death, the more likely we are to be afraid of it," says Ropeik. "But it leads us to make statistically riskier choices -- we should be worried about but downplay, risks like the flu, medical errors, skin cancer and traffic accidents."

Canadian physician Thomas J. Demarco says, "Whenever someone chooses to cycle rather than drive, both personal and public health benefit. Cyclists, therefore, are allies of the medical profession. We should be doing all we can to encourage the activity. Increased participation in this activity would not only benefit the national health and environment, but also would contribute significantly to road safety. Cycling is not a problem -- it is a solution."