..if cycling is unhealthy?

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
ukdodger
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by ukdodger »

Eammno wrote:For my whole working life I've driven 20+ miles to work and not suffered from a single chest infection.
Colds, sore throats etc yes. Never, ever, the slightest cough.
7 or 8 years ago I changed job which meant I could cycle the couple of miles to work. Fine for the first year or two, but every single year for the last five, or six I've suffered from the most horrendous series of chesty coughs, lasting several weeks, all around Jan/Feb. Last year the doc said I'd picked up mild pneumonia.
I'm just starting to feel this years illness develop.
Anyone else know if this is just coincidence, old age :roll: , or if it's cycling to and from work in all weathers and icy morning cold?
Previously to cycling to work I've been a strictly fair weather cyclist who never set out early.


I cant remember the last time I had a cold. I'm not boasting. I gave up my car six years ago and ride everywhere in all weathers (though not far in freezing conditions). How much fruit do you eat? I think that's the reason for my good luck. And riding my bike of course.

Maybe your car riding lowered your immune response as it had little to do.
reohn2
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by reohn2 »

I'd look seriously into my diet,cut down on processed foods and as ukdodger says fruit intake can't be enough.
Look into Vitamin supplements particularly Vit C(upto 2grams a day),Vit D3(upto 5,000 iu aday),selenium,magnesium one a day tablets.
NOT multi vitamin tablets they're uselessly low in anything to do any good.
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Gearoidmuar
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EXERCISE INDUCED ASTHMA..

Post by Gearoidmuar »

This is a real and very common condition and common in people who are otherwise never asthmatic.

Symptoms, cough and or wheeze, but usually cough after exertion, and much worse in the cold.

It is easily prevented, usually, by two puffs of Ventolin inhaler before the exercise.
70% of top runners get it because their exertion is so extreme.

That's one thing.

Now, handwashing. Handwashing can be useful but even more important is the drying afterwards.
Elizabethsdad
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by Elizabethsdad »

I remever changing jobs some years ago when I went from sampling job at a sewage works - not one days illness in nine months - to working in a lab - went down with a bad cold within a week. My wife doesn't cycle and quiteoften develops persistan coughs and when she gets a cold, has it for a weeks. I do get colds but less frequently and they go in a few days and I can still do my ten mile each way commute on the bike. The difference I noticed in my health when I started cycling to work again a few years back was that I would arrive feeling wide awake and energised and the bit of belly I had started to develop disappeared along with 5-10Kg of weight.
niggle
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by niggle »

Like several others I have found a major reduction in coughs and colds since taking up cycling in earnest four years ago and that is despite changing to a job working with children, in and out of schools and peoples' homes.

I do also get my 5 a day and have lost some weight. Another thing I think has helped is the general reduction in contact with cigarette smoke.

As for hand washing the main points are to avoid touching you mouth or anything you are going to put in your mouth with contaminated hands. Never use a fabric towel at work or in any public place, only paper towels or hand dryers, and if you have dry skin use a basic handcream to avoid getting cracked skin, which will harbour bacteria etc. even with good washing. Good washing takes more time and care than most people put in to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjpWwjzCbrw

It would also help if people covered their mouths and noses when sneezing and coughing...
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jan19
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by jan19 »

I'm a bit nervous about posting on here and saying I almost never get colds/infections as that's just asking for trouble isn't it.....?

I don't think cycling has all that much to do with it. I'm sure I'm healthier generally by cycling, but for me, the biggest change came six years ago when I stopped working on the frontline, with the Great British Public bringing in assorted germs, and took a backroom job. Just don't come into the same contact with the germs...

My favourite anecdote is from a few years ago. A lady came into the branch I was working at with a small boy - his eyes were red, and his nose running. It was in school time, and she must have felt she needed to justify why little Johnny wasn't at school. He was too poorly to go to school she said, and she didn't think the teachers would let him attend. One of my colleagues - known for a fairly sharp tongue - said that actually we weren't too keen to have him come into the branch either, given the germs he must be spreading. "But you're a public service" said Mum, clearly thinking that it was quite acceptable to put us at risk but not his teachers or school chums.

Jan
Vorpal
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by Vorpal »

niggle wrote:It would also help if people covered their mouths and noses when sneezing and coughing...


In Norway, they recommend coughing & sneezing into one's elbow (rather than hands) which I think makes good sense. An elbow may have clothing over it, which will reduce the spray effect. Also, if one shakes hands, opens a door, get a coffee fromt he vending machine, etc. at least it will be without fresh sneeze :shock:
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niggle
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by niggle »

Vorpal wrote:
niggle wrote:It would also help if people covered their mouths and noses when sneezing and coughing...


In Norway, they recommend coughing & sneezing into one's elbow (rather than hands) which I think makes good sense. An elbow may have clothing over it, which will reduce the spray effect. Also, if one shakes hands, opens a door, get a coffee fromt he vending machine, etc. at least it will be without fresh sneeze :shock:

Not just in Norway, that is being recommended over here as well now. Otherwise you should wash your hands after every sneeze or cough. Alcohol spray/gel is convenient.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

niggle wrote:As for hand washing the main points are to avoid touching you mouth or anything you are going to put in your mouth with contaminated hands. Never use a fabric towel at work or in any public place, only paper towels or hand dryers, and if you have dry skin use a basic handcream to avoid getting cracked skin, which will harbour bacteria etc. even with good washing. Good washing takes more time and care than most people put in to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjpWwjzCbrw
It would also help if people covered their mouths and noses when sneezing and coughing...

Hi,
Saw a program the other day on virus's, wearing a mask :?:
The mask they recon stoped you touching you mouth....................
Paper towels and take one with you to open the doors just before you eat at work, dont worry what others think :wink:
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Vorpal
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by Vorpal »

niggle wrote: Alcohol spray/gel is convenient.


Except that it disagrees with many people's skin, including mine. Two or three uses and my hands are red, raw, and well on their way to cracking skin. :(
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
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niggle
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by niggle »

Vorpal wrote:
niggle wrote: Alcohol spray/gel is convenient.


Except that it disagrees with many people's skin, including mine. Two or three uses and my hands are red, raw, and well on their way to cracking skin. :(

Yes mine as well actually, but some are not quite as bad as others, e.g. the spray we get issued with at work which seems to have some sort of skin conditioner in it.
JohnW
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Re: ..if cycling is unhealthy?

Post by JohnW »

For 22 years I cycled every day to and from work - 10 miles each way, and in all weathers. This may sound an impossible acheivement, but some years I didn't miss a day. I've cycled in snow conditions when cars couldn't get up the hills - I've cycled when I've arrived at work with a crust of ice on my front - I've cycled when I emptied my shoes into the planters in the office - I've cycled in winds so strong that in some places I've had to get off the bike in side winds, and crawl along the footpath in the shelter of field-walls - I've cycled through all that the weather could throw at me.

At first I suffered far, far less from the usual winter ailments than my colleagues. Generally I didn't have a day off work.

Then we were moved into a machanically ventilated - NOT air conditioned - building which was eventually officially declared a "sick building". I suffered from such sinus trouble in that building that you wouldn't believe. Half of the occupants of the building suffered from a succession of colds, 'flu, bronchitis - you name it. Unaccountably, some were not affected, and suffered nothing, but no-one suffered more than I did. I only sufferred from sinus trouble - I didn't frequently pick up infections.

After about a decade we were moved again, into an older Victorian atrium building - with huge sliding sash windows which permitted a large volume of natural ventilation, even when closed. My sinus trouble disappeared almost overnight and I became one of the healthiest and fittest members of staff - the other fit and healthy members were generally also cyclists.

I'm long retired now and fitter and healthier than many of my younger friends and acquaintances who don't cycle. The same can be said for most of my cycling colleagues - although we do of course have the boon that we don't need to mix with people who have colds, 'flu and other winter ailments.

Conclude what you will from that - I just present the facts.
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