nesdog

Wife and I generally hike 3-6 miles each Sunday. (which, unfortunately is slightly on hold while she recovers from a broken foot sustained running). When we vacation in Lake Tahoe in the summers, we will cover about 45 miles over a couple of weeks.

Cyclist0108

These just went on sale at REI:

https://www.rei.com/product/134977/a...ing-shoes-mens

I might try them.

TimothyH

Great. Thanks. Made my day.

fietsbob

live on a hill walk your dog a mile a day..

Cyclist0108

If it makes you feel better, I spent an hour each way driving to REI to check them out, and didn't get them because my feet hurt. There was loads of room, but they are very light, soft and flexible, which, for me, doesn't work. (Actually, it seemed ok on my left foot.)

I guess I should have paid attention to "feels like slippers." I think that is a very accurate description.

Hawkowl2

My docs have told me that as a general rule be Very Careful with weight bearing exercise. Bones thin as we age and unless you are willing to take the radiation dose for a bone scan you really don't know the strength of your bones.

The other caveat is to not do exercises at any weight that require you to bend at the waist without bending knees. Things like deadlifts, kettle bell swings, squats where the upper leg goes below horizontal, etc. are strictly verboten.

Another recommendation is to pay what it takes to get a Therapist, or Certified Trainer teach you proper form. Saves a lot of pain.

One exercise I use a lot is to get dressed and undressed from skin out while standing unsupported.

Carbonfiberboy 

Pretty funny, really. That's how you make some one get old, saying that you shouldn't do the helpful stuff. If your doc doesn't weight train, ignore him, he knows nothing. My doctor is an endurance cyclist. I listen to him.

Weight training doesn't begin to affect positive bone replacement until you're using enough weight to put a strain on the bone equal to 10% of the bone's breaking strength. That's a heckuva lot of weight. The problem isn't weak bones there, it's getting the muscles and connective tissue strong enough to prevent injury when using heavy weights. It's never too soon to start an intelligent lifting program. Any good personal trainer can help. My 86 y.o. aunt weight trains and didn't start until she was 80. Her trainer put her right into weight training, no DEXA scan. She deadlifts 95 lbs. and heaves truck tires around.

I don't do regular barbell deadlifts, but only because they're too much of a metabolic strain and thus harder to recover from. I do barbell squats, including squats where my hams bottom out against my calves, dumbbell deadlifts, kettle bell swings, stiff-legged barbell deadlfits, the back machine, all that stuff. I'm 73.

One can also forget the personal trainer and just go to the gym and do anything one wants, but with weight which allows one to do 30 reps with good form, using enough weight that one can't actually do the 30th rep. When one can do that comfortably, work up to doing 3 sets of 30 circuit style, all sets of that exercise with the same weight. Raise the weight when you can complete the 30th rep of the last set. Do that for a year and you'll feel a lot better and be ready to start using more weight.

There's a good primer here: https://www.bikeforums.net/training-...e-athlete.html

The weight training chapter in The Cyclist's Training Bible is very good.

I've had a DEXA scan. I'm osteoporotic. My doctor says keep on with the weight lifting but drink more milk, eat more cheese, and take this drug. I trust her. She's a very smart woman. My scale says my bone weight has gone up a little.

Refuse to get old. You'll age, just don't get old.

Carbonfiberboy 

My wife and I used to hike and backpack in full-on mountain boots, Raichle Eigers. After 12 miles, the bottoms of our feet would always hurt. We discussed this with a number of PCT thru-hikers we met on the trail. They all use trail runners now. All of them. They convinced us to give it a try. We've found that La Sportiva shoes work best for us. Yep, we can feel every rock through the sole, but somehow that prevents foot soreness. Our feet never get sore anymore, no matter how heavy the pack and how long the miles. Our legs and shoulders are another matter. The idea that one needs the ankle support of a tall boot is a myth. Our ankles take care of that just fine.

We're faster and more comfortable. The soles do wear out, but we accept that for the comfort they provide.

Machoman121

BINGO - 100% correct. Being a Doctor does not equal to God - many doctors only know what they read from their textbooks. And if i have to ask a 'personal trainer' i'll rather go to google. Personal Trainer's are more for house wives' first day out.

And i've also read that all those walks doesn't really do jack - to build bones you need weight training - heavy and something with vibration and impact.

Weight training gets even more important as one gets older - it's probably the best exercise out of all exercises. I think one needs to fight old age and not succumb to it.

"don't go quietly into the night".......

Machoman121

The above is probably the worst advice i've read in here. Don't bend? wow - does the word atrophy rings a bell with your 'doctor'.

"pay what it takes to get a Therapist, or Certified Trainer teach you proper form" - these guys get all their training from youtube. So save yourself the moolah and youtube it too.

Carbonfiberboy 

My sample size is pretty small, but from what I've seen, PTs are pretty good. My aunt's PT is a whip-smart educated woman heading for medical school. She's totally rebuilt my aunt as a human being. In my gym, the PTs are fit, educated, certificated, and from what I've seen, know what they're doing. It really, really helps to have a coach watch you when you work out, at least until you have your form down and have a program. I have a "coach", a world class powerlifter, who's been a lot of help to me. He formally coaches several very strong young women, no funny business. He just like to coach women, I think because they do what he tells them to do. Men can be idiots.

You know you have a good doctor if you do your research and cite some new studies to him/her, and the doc has read the studies and can place them into the panoply of medical knowledge for you. My doc's like that and he's in his 60s. Good doctors read medical journals in bed.

I have friends my age tell me about how they hurt their back or whatever, by picking up something heavy and twisting to set it down again. Yep, don't go to the gym, do you? In a way, only cycling makes it worse for us geezers, because some things get strong, but others keep getting weaker. Makes it easier to damage ourselves off the bike.

Further, on the subject of bone strength, walking is helpful for maintaining bone density or at least minimizing bone loss: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8304358
To increase bone density takes more. Box jumping is really good, up and down. Impact multiplies your weight by acceleration multiples, IOW the g's you pull when you hit. Easy to get 5 g's or more = 750 lbs. for me.

Here's something really simple you can do every day: put on your socks and shoes while standing on one leg. If you don't do this now, it's not that easy but you'll definitely improve over time. Also brush your teeth while standing on one leg. This improves lower leg strength and your priopreception, key to preventing falls.

Hawkowl2

Just getting to know folks. Part of that is discovering who is the Forum Troll. Thanks for making that process quick and easy.

Hawkowl2

Just a note.

Some of the posts seem to carry over elements of our current divisive political discourse. In that vein please don't put words or meaning into my posts that aren't there.

daoswald

It's hard to get used to being considered "older" at 51, but ok, I'll participate.

To supplement my riding, I walk a bit, hike a bit, and lift weights at the gym consistently.

My lifting aims to hit all major muscle groups (but not on the same day). If I don't work out my shoulders I get shoulder pain. If I don't work out my back, my posture suffers. If I don't work out my legs and core muscle groups I get bad at crouching down to grab pots and pans from deep inside a cabinet below the kitchen counter. ...and so on.

If I do work out all these groups, I find myself better able to ignore the fact that I'm 51 as I go about my daily life. There are many studies that suggest aging is a better experience for those who retain muscle strength, particularly in their legs and core. Before I started lifting I thought my legs were pretty strong for all the biking I do. Then my brother taught me how to squat, and I discovered just how tremendously weak I really was. I was concerned that even with light weights on the Smith machine I would squat down and not be able to get back up again under load.

That was six months ago. Now I'm squatting more reasonable weights, doing dead lifts and roman dead lifts with body weight or more, hack squats, and many other lower-body things that I didn't think I could do before. So weight bearing exercise is highly useful as we age, and not just natural exercise such as walking, but also exercise that forces us to do things that we tend to avoid as we age; squatting, lifting with our shoulders, lifting with our backs (safely), etc.

I'm continuing to improve, and as I do improve cycling is also getting easier. But even more importantly, little aches and pains that I had almost put out of my mind because they had been with me for so long are actually going away entirely. The price for this: $10/month, about four hours a week in the gym, and nearly continual mild muscle aches from 'DOMS' (delayed onset muscle soreness, from working out).

Carbonfiberboy 

We challenge each other all the time. It's a forum. If you don't like questions shouted from the audience, maybe this isn't the place for you. Johann Fichte: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

BKE

I'm glad I looked up Masochist before I replied to this because it's probably not the correct term but I'm sure someone here can tell me what I'm looking for.
DOMS" , over the years (running, weightlifting, what ever activity I was into at the time) was something I actually looked forward to and still do at 62, enjoyed the feeling. I always took it for what it was (not an injury), just my body letting me know I had a good work out. Some will disagree, that's ok.

Hawkowl2

Interesting comments in that some display an inability to read and some are promoting ideas that are patently dangerous.

For example: I never said "don't bend". Instead, a person needs to be careful not to put excess stress on the back. I said to get qualified instruction before attempting weight bearing exercise. Exercises like kettle bell swings are inherently dangerous.

In exercise knowing your own medical situation and using proper form are key. I've had the good fortune to get good advice from a doc who, at the time, was a team doc for a professional athletic team. I won't belabor the point. But, no one cares more for a person's health than the person. All too often that is not another person in the gym.

As a person ages there are changes to the body that need to be accommodated. A person can either be cautious and discover them before injury, or they can discover them while healing from a possibly life alterinng injury.

john m flores 

I've gone back and forth between running and cycling my whole life. Running when time is tight, cycling when it's not. Love trail running, possibly more than mountain biking. Keeps the body and mind sharp.

TimothyH

@FrenchFit

This wound up being prophetic and I thought of your post while on a most enjoyable run yesterday.

I've switched Hoka One One shoes with a 5 mm drop and much more cushion. My legs are much happier now.

https://flow.polar.com/training/relive/3693620891


-Tim-

Rowdy

To supplement my cycling I like to run and lift sandbags. When I run on grass I run barefoot. If I run on pavement I wear cheap water shoes from Walmart. One benefit to running barefoot or minimalist is that my core gets one heck of a workout and I experience no lower back pain on the bicycle. It also increases bone density.

Because the sandbags are odd objects to lift and carry I feel as though I get a better workout.

caloso

I've started going to the gym a couple of times a week. I also play soccer in a Friday night rec league. I'm not very good, but it's great interval training.

TimothyH

I ran a 5k race once and a guy kept passing me going really fast. Then I would pass him while he walked. This went on quite a few times, back and forth passing each other and I asked him what was up...

Sure enough, he was a soccer player.

He couldn't run for more than 100 yards at a time and then had to recover but each interval was fast. He did the whole race that way and beat me.


-Tim-

TimothyH

Wow. That's pretty hardcore compared to most.

I've seen those guys on Worlds Strongest Man competition lifting odd shaped objects such as smooth rocks. The competition was once held in Africa and they had to lift a six inch thick piece of iron shaped like the continent of Africa.


-Tim-

Daniel4

Then you need to clarify what this means:

Hawkowl2

The statement means exactly what it says. Don't bend your back under load without bending your knees. Don't put a lot of torsional stress on your back by swinging weights.