Nutrition
The age-old Adage 'You are what you eat' is an old chestnut that keeps coming back, especially around times of traditional food and drink abuse (Xmas, New year, Birthdays, etc.). It is true, to a certain extent, and worth bearing in mind if you're particularly motivated toward a healthy lifestyle. Diet is an important factor and to ensure that you're not deviating from a pretty healthy set-up already, see your GP for some advice. They will undoubtledly point you towards the food pyramid and this is an excellent way to start your food planning. For cyclists, it is essential that you consume lots of good quality protein. This can come in the form of protein shakes but if you want to keep it real, then eating quality chicken breast and turkey steaks is the way forward. These food sources are lean and healthy and swapping these into your diet in place of red meat will help protect your heart from copious amounts of fat that run through the animal flesh.
Fish Supper
Another good tip for food intake is tinned macarel and tuna, it keeps for ages and when it is stored under oil, it takes on the aroma of the oil as it penetrates the fish tissue. The oil from the fish is the same kind of oil which makes up the cod liver oil capsules and when combined with the sunflower storage oil, it gives the benefits of B vitamins too. The oil from the fish penetrates your joints and keeps them supple and fluid. You can capitalise on this extra bendiness by taking up some yoga practise.
Yoga: Bend and Stretch and Breathe
Normally given a cameo appearance in sit-coms on television, yoga is typically personified in popular media by people so bendy, they can fire a bow and arrow with their feet... whilst standing on their hands or all coiled up to the size of a small suitcase. These, like many other stereotypes are true to an extent but the reality is much more diverse. There are people looking to support their back as they work in offices and are concerned about posture and joint pain.
The cyclist can benefit from yoga by reversing all the damage done to the upper back, shoulders and neck from being hunched over the handlebars for hours a week (a day in the case of the cyclist commuter). There is yoga designed specifically for cyclists and is easily found via google search but the general focus is working out the afore mentioned areas. There is an emphasis on groundwork and back bends to reverse the position the body has been in. This is an excellent way to ensure that you don't get a long term injury requiring physiotherapy and, when used in tandem with regular yoga, can help eliminate sprains and strains by making the muscles and joints more supple and mobile. Also, as time goes on, your posture will improve as you're essentially practising putting your body into poses.
Not only can a regular yoga practise ensure that your body is flexible and not damaged by cycling, the breathing component of all yoga moves can help still the mind so the poses become a way to relax and de-stress after a trying work day. It can help give you a much more balanced approach to life and as you're breathing more, more oxygen gets to the brain and muscles so you get an pronounced feeling of well-being relative to not using yoga.
I hope this post helped and keep on enjoying cycling :)
health
