The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
So next on my list of "things I should have picked up twenty years ago, and now are vaguely embarrassing to learn" is bicycling. I found myself in possession of a 21 speed Pacific mountain bike, and I've been riding it a few miles as a warmup before climbing workouts on the moon board. The things is...I suck at bicycling. Like, badly. I can ride a bike, but even just keeping my balance while signaling a turn is a conscious effort, and I regularly get concerned I'm going to just fall over, which is deeply stupid. I feel like I should be more fluent in my motion, but I'm just not.
I learned to ride a bike at an appropriate age, but never really did it much after a few 15-20 mile bike trips in scouts in my early teens. My parents never really let me ride my bike anywhere interesting because I would have to cross "busy roads" and I was the kind of quiet submissive kid that listened to them and didn't push boundaries.
So here I am, 33 years old, and I'm bad at riding a bike. But it seems like something I "should" be able to do, and the novelty is making it a pretty fun workout.
How does one get better at riding a bike as an adult? What should I be doing to bike as a workout program? What should my goals be? I literally have no idea, so far I just ride a mile up the road and turn around and ride back, then climb.
I don't know how you could do it but I think the best way to find your limits is to exceed them, so if you're concerned you're going to fall over you should make a point of falling over. One point in your favour is that bikes become more stable as the speed goes up, so balance-to-failure can be practiced by going as slowly as possible. Also you're a BJJ guy so you're probably used to getting thrown on the floor.
You could try finding somewhere semi-soft like some grass [1] and then riding very tight circles and figure-of-8s as slowly as possible, then slower than possible. Stall. Fall off. Then try it a bit faster. Keep speeding up, turning tight and falling off until self preservation kicks in when the falls get uncomfortable enough that you chicken out of falling off and correct the turn. Then repeat the exercise one handed. You'll look like a clown doing it but you'll quickly map out the lower end of the performance envelope, and you can practice your judo/BJJ falling technique at the same time (the only time my childhood judo classes have paid dividends is when I fall off my bike).
[1] Narrow bike tyres are bad for grass so try and choose somewhere more like a cow pasture or a rugby pitch, not someone's lawn(!).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link