You don’t have to stop cycling, but you may need to seriously reduce the amount of time you’re spending on your bike…unless you want to be osteoporotic and sarcopenic. This affects everyone.
When we hear about bone (osteopenia/porosis) and muscle loss (sarcopenia), we tend to think about elderly frail people, not active and fit cyclists. The problem is that avid cyclists are EXTREMELY prone to both muscle and bone loss. It’s highly likely you need to do something about it before it becomes a serious health concern. The good thing is that a lot can be done before the damage is significant but the time to act is now. If you think this doesn’t apply to you, perhaps you are right if you cycle a couple days a week. However, if you cycling many days a week, your risk is greatly elevated. In other words, if you’re on your bike for around 20 hours a week, it’s time to get off and do something else.
Loss of bone quality is significant with cyclists. We can do a lot to prevent this.
How is it possible that such ‘fit’ and active people can get loss of muscle and quality of bone, regardless of age? After all, isn’t exercise good for us? Don’t we build stronger bones and more muscle with lots of activity? Isn’t cycling considered a good activity?
Let’s talk about that. The majority of cyclists used to bike outdoors and with less frequency. But, with the creation of Zwift and other indoor programs, it’s now easy for people to sit on a bike in their basement or garage for hours at a time, almost every day, and just pedal away. Ouch! This is simply over-training and it’s never good. We know that pro cyclists suffer from bone loss and muscle loss, but now we can all throw ourselves into this same realm and this is certainly not good!. The problem tends to also be worse for women than for men, although some sources say the damage is comparable. Also, the older we get, the worse it gets! Yikes! Continue Reading →