What else do you do? (activity-wise)

[Mark McM]

I ride the road from spring to fall, but the rest of the year I either (depending on the weather):

MTB
X-country ski
Roller ski
A little bit of running.

I don't enjoy the running as much, but it has a lower cost of entry, and because it requires less preparation/maintenance/travel it is also more time effective. Road running is more boring, so when I can I do trail running.

Is roller blading still a thing? It seems that I used to see roller bladers everywhere, but I don't see many now. A lot of my roller skiing is on rail trails. There are few of us out there, but it seems I see other roller skiers more often than I see roller bladers.

[AngryScientist]

i think what keeps you the fittest is mixing up the routine fairly often so no activity becomes too "comfortable".

sounds like if you;re walking to work some days, the most accessible solution for fitness would be to run to work.

since you're in Boston, i assume there are plenty of fitness club options. some cyclists hate them, but when i travel for work, i really like getting up early and popping in to a local spin studio and having a 40 -60 minute workout. different muscles used and plenty of cardio to get your body moving.

cross country skiing in the winter months in the northeast is a thing if you're near some good trails.

[BigDaddySmooth]

Rowing, running, weight-lifting, kettlebells and farmer walks. One brutish routine is kettlebell swings at 32Kg, snatch at 16kg, followed by 1 minute run and 50 yard farmer walk at 80kg with <10 seconds in-between will get you in the red zone right quick. 30 minutes and you're totally spent.

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

i really like getting up early and popping in to a local spin studio and having a 40 -60 minute workout.

You are a traitor to your country

[GregL]

Lots! Weight training year-round, tailored to support my other activities. Winter hiking and Nordic skiing. Summer hiking, mountain climbing, swimming, kayaking. Strenuous, technical hiking is great for cardio as well as strength training. Balancing on a rocky trail is great for those little-used support muscles.

NPR broadcast a story a few years back on longevity. One of the keys to longevity was a lifestyle that forced you to stay in motion. I embrace this philosophy whole-heartedly. I receive lots of hard physical exercise from home maintenance and improvements. Living in Siberacuse, you'd be amazed how much exercise you get performing snow removal. If I have the time, I'll shovel the driveway rather than run the snowblower. I walk behind my lawnmower rather than use a riding mower. When I was at our camp last week, I carried the kayaks to the water every day (approx. 150 yards each way) rather than loading them on a wagon. I walk between the buildings on my work campus rather than take my car. Every bit of motion helps!

Greg

[vqdriver]

'daily exercise' becomes the tricky part because it needs to integrate with all the other distractions of life.
oftentimes, regardless of enjoyment, time becomes the limiting factor. try em all and see what sticks. the low barrier to entry is good, but too often it necessarily means 'easiest to fit in'

[seanile]

^i think your point is getting into what i'm struggling with. "daily exercise" is a different beast than more involved hobbies spent outside of that, which for me includes: hunting, fishing, motorcycling, tinkering with my old volvo, snowboarding, and reading/learning new non-physical things. god help me if i had a girlfriend or wife. all of that takes an incredible amount of time away from the smaller joys.

that's a lot of quick responses everyone, thank you!
pretty neat to see how many of you aren't solely cyclists as i would have assumed. there's a few good suggestions in here that i'll have to look into.

Originally Posted by veggieburger

Btw....can I ask what happened? I'm not familiar with your "event". Hope it wasn't too debilitating.

with lawyers involved i'm not inclined to disclose much about it, but i was assaulted and had multiple fractures to my face.

Originally Posted by Malinois

Re swimming: After a long break I got back into freestyle lap swimming a few years ago using the “Total Immersion”/Terry Laughlin guided lessons. I basically threw away what I considered to be my previous form, rebuilt my stroke from scratch, and really enjoyed the process! ...

that's interesting, i would think it would be difficult to teach yourself proper form. do you feel your history was able to inform your re-construction of your stroke, or would it be approachable for a newb?

Originally Posted by MattTuck

Louis hasn't chimed in yet, but I'm sure he would tell you to get a Concept2 Model D rower.

i was a rower in high school and still have my erg (currently stored at my parents' place). my current living situation (apartment and housemates) is not conducive to it, otherwise i would use it through the winter.

[benb]

I'd say things you seem to have crossed off your list should probably get more serious looks to determine if the roadblocks are really roadblocks.

I have a free gym membership at work. I have historically used that quite a bit in the winter, but it's rat on a treadmill type stuff fairly boring. And not that productive.

For the last 4-5 months I've been going to a rock climbing gym and splitting my time 50/50 with cycling, the barrier there is nowhere near as severe for me as I would have thought. The gear for indoor is tiddlywinks compared to cycling. My harness was $60, Locking Carabiner $10, Belay device was like $17. Got a killer deal on shoes for $20 but beginner shoes are less than $100 in almost all cases, they're probably the cheapest pair of shoes I own. Got my chalk bag for $5 again in a deal. Got a $10 chalk sock that'll probably last me a year. If I start lead climbing I'll have to buy a rope, they are about $100. Ropes and chalk are consumables but the other stuff lasts for a very long time with minimal or no maintenance. Outdoor climbing seems to have a lot more equipment but still trivial compared to cycling. I found a partner really quick, but that's not really an excuse. About 1/3 of the time I can't go at the same time as my climbing partner. Those days I go use the bouldering wall, or I use the Auto Belays. Having to use the auto-belays cuts you down to about 5 pitches you can do instead of 50+ that you can do with a belaying partner or 100+ if you can lead climb with a partner, but it doesn't really impact the quality of the workout. The auto belay doesn't cooperate so you probably get more of a workout. Biggest negative for me is drive time there. It's not bad. Dues are $99/month, but I bought a family membership so I'm paying more. It's a high value gym membership anyway because you could go there and not rock climb at all and just use the standard gym equipment and go to the included Yoga classes and it would be somewhat cost competitive with local gyms. Most of the conventional local gyms near me run $80-100/month and then you pay extra for every additional thing like group activities.

Not saying rock climbing indoor or outdoor would be fun for you just that any activity if you turn out to actually like it you find a way around the road blocks pretty quickly.

It's been good for me. Perhaps one of the motivators is I had a decent operation to remove something the dermatologist was worried about in February. It's tempered my desire to bake my skin out out on the road for hundreds of hours each year. Mine wasn't cancerous but there's a fair amount of skin cancer in my family. But the cross training aspect has been good for all the things that are neglected if you bike 100% of the time.

I would personally bias away from other cardio activities just for fitness balance. I love cycling, running will never be as much for as cycling for me and has basically the same fitness benefit, you get cardio & lower body and not much else.

I love swimming (former lifeguard/instructor) but usually the logistics suck for me. The only pool that works is a luxury gym that's like $200/month. And I really prefer to swim outdoors.

I still have rollerblades, I got a new pair about 6-7 years ago. They are really quite dangerous even though I'm pretty skilled. I use them occasionally on the bike path, but the weather is finicky. Blades suck on wet pavement, and most bike paths around here are heavily shaded, so the trees drop all kinds of stuff on the trail which can make it even more sketchy. I can handle it being a little sketchy, but if you're rollerblading and the conditions get sketchy you have to temper your workout a lot. Mostly the issue is the brakes are just terrible, no matter how good you are. Inline skaters mostly just rationalize this away but basically no matter how good you are your braking distance is huge compared to bikes and way more dependent on weather/road conditions. It's a very good workout though.

Realistically cycling has outrageous equipment costs and maintenance load.. almost everything is better, we just ignore it cause we love cycling.

[Malinois]

Originally Posted by seanile

that's interesting, i would think it would be difficult to teach yourself proper form. do you feel your history was able to inform your re-construction of your stroke, or would it be approachable for a newb?

If anything I think that my history was a detriment; while not exactly thrashing about I was a lot more frenetic and choppy. Definitely slower and less efficient.

Starting with the fundamental basics, all the way down to simply floating face down, was important. Building up the skill set without hanging on to bad form out of habit made a major difference and if you were to begin fresh it would be much easier to develop proper form with your reference point being the right way to do it from the beginning.

The Laughlin DVD “Perpetual Motion Freestyle In 10 Lessons” was my jumping off point. While it can be a little repetitive and hokey, there’s some very good info there. I would even take little notes on index cards while watching then stick them in a ziplock baggie and leave them at the end of the lane to look over during the workout. Each lesson, another card went in the bag so that I could go back over them easily and make sure I wasn’t missing a building block as I processed the new info. Everything started to catch, and before long it was fairly easy.

Of course there’s always improvements or adjustments to be made as you continue, but if you start off with good habits it’s so much easier!

[seanile]

^thank you, i'll look into that. i do have a history of shoulder injuries (labrum, not rotator cuff), so that worries me a bit, but if i'm not racing and am just slow and steady, perhaps it'll work fine.

Originally Posted by benb

Realistically cycling has outrageous equipment costs and maintenance load.. almost everything is better, we just ignore it cause we love cycling.

i have to say, this point is good for me to hear. i've been straining over the idea of spending a monthly fee on a membership (such as a rock gym), and yet i'll spending the equivalent of a half a year's fees on 2 items at some point during the year. so i see the value proposition is there, if just a little hidden behind a different kind of transaction...

[Matthew]

Weight lifting and of course cycling when weather permits here in the great white north. Used to run but grew to hate it after chronic foot pain. A little hockey in the winter to go with weights, and a spin bike.

[jasonification]

I play disc golf!

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[gomango]

Hiking
White water kayaking
Sea kayaking
Fly fishing
Birding with my wife
Occasional goal keeping for a men's league soccer team! btw I stink, so I'm the last resort if the regular player doesn't show.

[fkelly]

Post ride napping.

[Willy]

I would recommend swimming which I make much more enjoyable by using a waterproof iPod setup ( you can google that, there a lot of outfits that now provide them). Having the music in your ears makes the swimming a lot easier.