Progress so far...

June 30th 2009 - 22 stone 4Ibs. Current weight - 17 stone 1Ib. Weight loss - 5 stone 3Ibs. Commuting miles - 3389.
Non commuting miles - 359. Mileage this week - 101 miles. Total mileage - 3748 miles.


Tuesday 6 July 2010

Consequences of not pedalling.

As is a rule I have a permanently aching back, it's the lower back, around the lumbar region. Not a drama, it's usually just achy enough to remind me it's there and I live with it.

But I noticed this the last time I had a few days off the bike and boy am I noticing it now, my back gets far worse when I'm not pedalling. The last two nights it has cost me sleep due to the pain. I always thought rest was good? What's that all about then?

My upper body excercises are all going ok, I've already improved my failure time for the plank by 10 seconds and last night the crunches didn't hurt the old well hidden belly muscles as much as normal. I'm enjoying doing them, not least because Fay and Dan join in with me (Their choice, I didn't press gang them) and it all becomes a giggle and not a chore! Dan especially is very good at press ups and Fay is beating me with plank times. Not that we're competitive at all you understand. It's all done in a safe, non-competitive, arm around shoulder, social worker approved, everybody wins and no-one loses kind of way. Yeah right...

I trust that continuing with the upperbody/core work out and the lessening of the belly weight will eventually have a positive effect on my back pain. Either that or I never have time off the bike again!

9 comments:

  1. Stomach exercises are meant to be the best thing for lower back pain, so I hope you see some improvement soon. (Pilates helps too - might be worth a go?)

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  2. If you're anything like me it will be like a blow to the heart when your kids beat you at something. Competitive Dad, much? ;) I remember the character on The Fast Show - brilliant (not the one says "Brilliant!" - the competitive Dad. I'm rambling... OK bye.)

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  3. Hmm, there seems to be a comment problem, I recieved Chritie's and Phill's comments by email, but they ain't showing up here...

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  4. Perhaps its more noticeable when not pedalling as the rest of your body is resting and not in as much achey pain?

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  5. Are you deleting my posts?

    Am positive I commented on this this morning - something along the lines of:

    "Are you not feeling pain now because only one part of your body is aching rather than your whole body, which distracts form the pain"

    ?

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  6. And you've just answered my question at exactly the same time... Spooky

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  7. I noticed that any back pain I used to get has reduced to almost nil since I started riding. Losing some weight has probably helped too.

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  8. I've always thought doing nothing made old injuries resurface, the fine line was always what to do and how much.

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  9. Clive -

    I'm sorry I "dropped" your comment over on my blog this morning. Not sure what happened. I see Joby above thinks his two pence were dropped too. Maybe it wasn't me.

    Anyways, you've got me thinking about expanding my horizons a bit and looking the rest of old corpse now that the legs, heart and lungs are coming along.

    I hope the back straightens out for you as the weight loss continues. I know my aches and pains are generally improving.

    Mike

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