How I Fixed a Depressing Workout

Can't go on ...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wadecouch/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Yes, I know exercise is supposed to help fight depression. It doesn’t always. At least, not when I do it. This is one of those weird psychological things that I'm noting here in the hope someone else can make sense of it.

Lately I've been commuting by bicycle. I've been taking the straightest shortest bicycle route home. In theory, it seemed an ideal route: not too much traffic and a straight ride in. In practice, it was a mind-numbingly, bum-numbingly, hell-on-earth ride. I used to get reeeeally depressed just contemplating the ride home.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raymaclean/ / CC BY 2.0

Merry’s recipe for a depressing workout

Ingredients:

- Take one Long Straight Road
- Add in one out-of-shape cyclist
- Throw in the mournful sound of the wind keening through the telephone wires
- Broil for one hour under a relentless overhead sun

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jespr/ / CC BY 2.0

Serves… well, serves me right, I suppose.

I tried jazzing it up with sprints or timing different sections to see if I could improve my time, but no matter what I tried, I arrived home tired, dispirited, and dreading the next day's ride.

I thought maybe I found this ride hard because I was so out of shape. Seemed a valid reason, what with developing asthma and not having done much riding for the past year. I figured that the cycling-dread phenomenon would go away as I got back into the habit.

Then one day, I had to run an errand, which meant I had to take the high road home. Literally. Instead of a few little hills, I went up three moderately sized and quite long hills, then flat along a busy road with lots of cars. It was a longer route as well as a hillier one. And I enjoyed myself a whole lot more. It’s amazing how much easier the ride was, even though the route was actually a mile or so longer.

Yeah, Merry, thrilling as this chronicle your daily life is, what’s the point?

Seems to me that what was killing me on these rides was the LSR syndrome, i.e. the Long, Straight Road.

It's a long way... to anywhere...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheilascarborough/ / CC BY 2.0

My Big Fat Greek Analogy

Always, I have a tendency to overthink my exercise routine. They say it’s good to visualize doing the exercise before you actually move the muscles. Not in my case. I’ve been known to visualize an entire exercise routine, but only as a Bad Thing. Just the idea of a workout can appear as a huge rock that I have to lift up a hill, only to watch it roll down once I get it to the top.

Mind you, it does help develop the muscles...

I tend to picture every possible thing that can go wrong, up to suddenly having a heart attack in the middle of a cardio routine. I can really depress myself by Looking Ahead. (Why I don’t ever use this talent to visualize myself as thin and fit and happy is another question.)

Taking the high road home made it much harder to look ahead. I went along a route that curved up and down and around, going past shopping malls and apartment complexes, shopping malls and parks, shopping malls and empty fields. And then a few more shopping malls. (The Portland suburbs apparently have a great need for lots of shopping malls.)

Even with the traffic and shoppers and whatnot, two things remained constant: there was always something different to look at and I never had to face a long straight vista ahead of me. For some reason that made a huge difference. (Note to self: never try to bicycle in the Midwest. I suppose this means I’ll never make it to RAGBRAI.)

I'm noting this here because hopefully someone who hates their exercise routine will try a different one instead of giving up on exercise itself. Okay, honestly, I’m noting it here also so that there’s a slight chance that I might remember this phenomenon the next time I run into an exercise routine that makes me feel depressed.

Have you ever found that making a small change makes a big difference? If so, why?

Runners: More Dense than Weight Lifters?

I love this picture. It perfectly captures how I feel about weight lifting.

Mind you, I feel that way about running too. So while I might have a bias in this post, at least I'm equally biased about both running and lifting weights.

And about parents.

My mother called me up on the telephone, and said the following: "I just got back from a visit to the doctor, and I'm afraid I have some bad news."
Gulp. "Okay, what's that?"
She said, sadly, "In another 20 years, you're going to have to worry about osteoporosis."


After I'd recovered my breath, I wanted to shake her.

20 years? Loads of time. I can take calcium, lift weights, buy a house that doesn't have steep steps. I mean, that's one of the benefits of having older relatives, to alert you to what's coming in your future. In each generation, we learn. My grandmother was terrified to walk down even a few steps due to a fear of falling and fracturing her fragile bones. My mother prepared by eating right and exercising, and so has only a much mild version of the disorder.

These days, there is such a proliferation of research on ways to maintain bone density that there's no excuse not to do what I can to strengthen my bones.

Much as I loathe exercise, it's top of the list. The good news is that there's a lot of research into how bone density is affected by different types of exercise.

The illustrious Dr. Mirkin quotes a study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, March 2009, that finds sprint cyclists have denser bones than long distance cyclists, who in turn have denser bones than sedentary control subjects.


And another study finds that runners are even further along in the bone mineral density scale, even more so than weight lifters.

It always impresses Crabby when I put research into chart format, so here's my summary of these two studies. (Not done to scale.)



I wish the studies had gone into more detail about the comparisons between weight lifters and runners, or whether it made a difference what type of runner you are. But the comforting thought here is that as long as I get off the couch, I'm making progress.

And to be thorough, I thought I should include another chart:



I mean, are these studies really going to change your mind? You've already got a workout routine that you enjoy don't mind doing. Would you change your workout as a result of a couple of studies?




Weight lifting photo courtesy JonTunn.

Rules of the Road Runner

[By Merry]

Sometimes only the cyclist has the right

Rules of the road from the driver's P.O.V.

Rule #1 - Merry's vehicle has the right of way at all times. (This rule, for some reason, has not yet been universally adopted. But I am hopeful.)
Rule #2 - Bicycles, joggers, and inline skaters should just get out of the way right now, thankyouverymuch. (Not my personal rule, but one I've observed many times.)
Rule #3 - When you're not sure if there's room to pass the cyclist/jogger/skater, rather than slow down and wait until it's safe to pass, go past them very, very, very quickly. (That rule always bugs me. If you're not sure it's safe, you want to pass quickly so that you'll be far down the road when the ambulance comes?)

Rules of the road from the cyclist's P.O.V.
Rule #1 - Merry's bicycle has the right of way at all times. Except when a driver is on a cell phone. Or when the rules of the road give someone else the right of way.
Rule #2 - When another cyclist starts to pass you, be sure to speed up until the impudent upstart has learned their place and drops back behind you.
Rule #3 - If you get a flat tire, stand by the side of the road and look helpless. Some man will stop and change the flat for you. (This rule is generally applicable to the female of the species. Luckily, there are a lot more men on bicycles in the middle-of-nowhere, 'cause most women would tell me to fix it myself.)

Rules of the road from the runner's P.O.V.
Rule #1 - Don't snigger too loudly when passing Merry on the jogging trail
Rule #2 - If someone starts to pass you, be sure to speed up until the impudent upstart has learned their place and drops back behind you. If you feel like your heart is going to leap out of your body, stop to make sure your shoe laces aren't untied. Catch your breath while waiting for the upstart to go around the curve up ahead.
Rule #3 -
um...
.... wait a minute,

Oh all right, I know I need to put up a third R of the R. It's not my fault.

I got distracted.

By:
Graph Jams: pop culture for people in cubicles


And by:
Daily jigsaw puzzle

And by:
An online self-designed kaleidoscope (Dangerous. Easy to get sucked into wasting time with this.)

I know it's not Friday yet. The plain fact is that my brain still thinks it's the weekend. Does anyone have any idea what the third Rule of the Road for Runners is? Please leave a comment if I left out any others, too.

On the bright side, Crabby's blogging tomorrow, and she's got some good stuff lined up.