Health Issues
Reasons to go to the GYM
For me it cured heal pain, knee pain, calf and leg pain, posture, Reynaud's, stress release and is helping with weight loss.
One exercise that all motorcycle riders should do after stopping...
This is even more effective if you do it kneeling. The muscle that runs over your hip contracts when the leg is bent. This will help straighten it out.
Leg Pain
My biggest fear after a long ride was DVT or deep vein thrombosis. BTW this is why Dr. House played by Hugh Laurie walks with a limp. A blood clot develops and then lets go and causes a stroke heart attack or in his case damage to the leg muscle.
About 1 week after completing a 2500 mile 4000 Kilometer ride my legs started to hurt. Turned out I had Bursitis. Bursitis is the inflammation of a bursa. Normally, the bursa provides a slippery surface that has almost no friction. As it was explained to me by my Chiropractor the leg tightened up on top of the Bursa - a small fat pack that protects the joint. He was able to correct this almost instantly by stretching out the leg muscle at the side by digging his elbow into it.
A few weeks later my calf muscles tighten up. I am now going to the gym with a personal trainer and getting stretched out three times a week. As a side note after talking to a few people about this the tight hamstrings can lead to back problems.
One stretch I will be doing on my next tour is to put my leg up on something waist high and lengthening those calf and ham strings.
Tailbone
Riding your bike has a certain element of danger but most problems I have encountered came from sitting behind a computer.
Tailbone pain symptoms can be minimized by sitting on a saddle that is properly fitted. And don't forget to remove that wallet.
Things that have helped me...
-Cortisone shot x 6
-Stretching exercises. Place one leg up and gently stretch out butt muscles or kneel down on one knee and place your hand on your hips around back and push forward. Switch knees and repeat. In my case the muscle on the right thigh was tight and I could feel it stretch.
Apparently this muscle pulls on the hip bone and that in turn pulls on the tailbone inflaming it.
Heal Pain
After Orthodics and many years of early day and late day heal pain my personal trainer gave some instant pain relief quite by accident.
In the gym he was working my legs with "step ups".
This is a simple exercise involving two different level steps say 12" and 18" spread apart by three feet. Leading with the right foot and landing on your toes (to stretch your arch) step up and bring the trailing foot up and then down to each level (baby steps) Switch lead foot on return. I did this 3 sets of 10 (5 each foot. A soft cushy step increases stability muscles. I used a 10-30 lb weight in each hand.
Weight loss
Having personally experienced riding over weight and having lost weight I couldn't help notice the difference in comfort in the seat after losing weight. After all you can only make the seat so big to support your weight. On the other hand a lot of my customers don't have enough padding and find the seat too firm. Remember the reason to drink lots of water while on a diet is to flush the extra waste from your system to avoid kidney stones.
Heart Burn
Having experienced heart burn and having suffered lung damage as a result I can only warn others not to go another day without curing yourself of this ailment. You can read up on reflux and heartburn elsewhere so I wont spend time on that. What I can tell you is that losing weight cured me of heartburn (see above). I occasionally get it in a very small way and I know that this is from eating too much sugar (yes even Scotch has sugar in it!). Apparently the sugar reacts with your stomach acid and raises the PH. Its not the acid in orange juice, its the sugar.
Itchy hands
This is another ailment that I notice other people find hard to nail down. This had gotten so bad that the Dr. prescribed sedatives. I cured this by cutting down on the laundry soap and by double rinsing clothes and bed sheets. A water softener allows you to use even less soap.
I also found that Athletes foot medicine cured a redness between my fingers.
Itchy scalp when riding on hot days may be improved by rinsing your hair with cold water. This will remove more soap than warm water. Skull caps work very well.
Cold Hands
I have recently been getting very painful fingers when the weather is cold. "Reynaud's phenomenon is a condition that causes a loss of blood flow to the fingers, toes, nose or ears. The affected areas turn white from the lack of circulation, then blue and cold, and finally numb. When the attack subsides, the affected parts may turn red and may throb, tingle or swell."
The easiest cure is dress your core warmer so that your body doesn't naturally sacrifice the extremities so to protect the core. Exercise works well.
| Regarding High Cholesterol. ...."Now, here's the rub. Cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream is unavailable to the brain; both LDL and HDL are too large to pass the blood/brain barrier. Cholesterol needed by the brain must be manufactured on-site. |
Eye Glasses
If you feel like you are being force fed plastic lenses you are not alone. I switched back to glass. The optician at Wal-Mart says that they are optically clearer and the photo grey will work better as it works from heat and apparently cold. I do regret not buying the upgraded lenses for better peripheral vision. The new glasses in a slightly smaller size in new titanium frames weigh 1oz - exactly the same as one old plastic ones!
Microwave Safety
I really never thought about it much but this site is certainly worth a look.
Sick Dog?
