cycling

Unfortunately, cycling doesn’t tone your abs directly, but it can certainly help you lose weight and reveal them with proper diet and exercise. It’s a great core workout because the abdominal muscles keep your body stable while you pedal. The muscles contract isometrically to provide stability and the constant contractions tone the muscles.

To get the best results while cycling, tense your stomach muscles to pull your navel inwards and pull your stomach tightly and downwards slightly. Tight abs enable you to pedal stronger and more efficiently. Additionally, it helps take the pressure off your lower back muscles, which helps you stay strong and injury-free.

If you want a more direct approach to building your abs, try bicycle crunches.

1. Lay down on the floor with your lower back pressed to the ground and bend your knees. Your feet should be on the floor and your hands behind your head.

2. Contract your core muscles and draw in your abdomen to stabilize your spine.

3. Slowly raise your knees to about a 90-degree angle, lifting your feet from the floor.

4. Go through a bicycle pedal motion, bringing one knee up towards your armpit while straightening the other leg. Keep both legs elevated higher than your hips.

5. Rotate your torso so you can touch your elbow to the opposite knee.

6. Alternate and twist to the other side while drawing that knee towards your armpit and the other leg extended until your elbow touches the alternate knee.

7. Aim for 15 to 20 repetitions and three sets.

Make sure you do not twist from your neck while doing bicycle crunches, which can put pressure and strain on your neck.

Do not rock and lift your hips, and try to keep the movement stable.

Ensure your legs are extended off the ground and not too low when doing the movement, which can strain your spine and hips.

On today’s ride from John Day, OR to Baker City, OR there were three significant climbs. As one might expect, these were each followed by a significant descent. The three climbs were relatively indistinguishable. Get in the lowest gear, grind away against gravity for an indeterminable length of time, and eventually one is rewarded by attaining the summit. The descents revealed beautiful scenery, verdant forests and distant snow-capped mountains.

The second descent featured something a little different. I leaned forward with my hands in the drops, and pursuant to my usual strategy, when I reached 32 mph I braked down to 27 mph, then released the levers to the pads would cool off. Repeated often, this is a good way to make a mountain descent on good pavement in low traffic.

So when a deer jumped from the woods and ran across the road I was moving somewhere between 27 mph and 32 mph. I hit the brakes but didn’t jam them on (which would have been catastrophic at that speed) and we missed contact by inches. I managed to retain control of the Merlin and therefore avoided what would surely have been a terrible wipeout. The aging amateur biped and the cute little furry quadruped were both very lucky today. Two sentient creatures, each oblivious of the other, narrowly avoided a collision which would surely have caused severe injury to both. I considered just how random this incident was.

As I tackled the third climb I thought of how similarly random a cancer diagnosis can be. During my father’s final 16 years, doctors often told him “You have cancer.” After colon cancer, bladder cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and then another round of colon cancer, he was exhausted when finally he succumbed, though to congestive heart failure rather than cancer. A little girl named Nicole in my son’s fourth grade class was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Both kidneys were both involved and had to be removed. She suffered with dialysis for months, and died when she was just nine years old. Recently I tallied up those in my circle of friends and family who have faced the cancer demons, and found that there have been at least 50 people who have heard those awful words.

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On August 3 and 4 I will ride with more than 6,000 cyclists in the Pan Mass Challenge, an annual bike tour and fundraiser for Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I have again registered for the longest route, 192 miles from Sturbridge to Provincetown. This will be my 20th year of participation.

The Pan Mass Challenge raises more funds for charity than any other event in the country, more than $650 million dollars since 1980. This has resulted in real benefits to grateful cancer patients and their families. Since 1999, my first year of participation, together we have raised more than $128,000. This year my fundraising goal is $9,000. Fully 100 percent of rider sponsorship dollars go to Dana-Farber. 

In 822 hours we will roll from the parking lot in Sturbridge. Please consider sponsoring me in this event. You can make a safe and secure tax deductible donation at: https://profile.pmc.org/RT0014