Sowing the Seeds of Fitness

The days are getting shorter and the long low shadows stretch across Beech Drive in the afternoon, slivers of sunlight slashing the tarmac as I try to get in a ride after work. Seasonal adjustment disorder is peering through the increasingly bare trees, as hungry as the whitetails creeping out to the roadside to pluck the last of the summer grass, waiting to catch me in the dark and plunge me into despair. Or, you know, I’ll just have to set up the trainer in the basement. Either way, it’s depressing. So what’s a cyclist to do when winter descends? Well…

As Grant Says…

In yesterday’s post I reported on a visit with Grant Petersen, founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works who is on a tour promoting his new book Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike. One of the first things you notice about Grant is that he’s pretty buff for a guy so closely associated with cycling. When you think of bikey guys you typically think of emaciated twinks with spindly arms and no upper body strength. But not Grant. For a 58 year old man, he is the picture of fitness. He maintains in his book that cycling, while good for you, is lousy all-around exercise. In fact, that’s the title of Chapter 31. And he’s right. We’ve all seen that fat guy on a bike at every century but who still manages to carry an extra fifty pounds or more. Obviously cycling alone won’t make you thin unless you have the 5 or 6 hours a day that pro racers have to ride. So what’s his secret? Burpees. Sort of a squat thrust with a push-up and a hop thrown in. To wit:

I love Jenny. Her schmaltzy lounge-lizard patter and AM radio voice conveys a level of ironic sarcasm not seen since the heyday of Richard Cheese. 

Grant suggests other stuff like controlling your diet (yeah, right!), kettle bells, yoga/pilates and cross training, but burpees are the one that clinches the deal. Plus, upon request he willingly demonstrated how to do one in the parking lot of College Park Bicycles. Try a few. They take almost no time and are surprisingly effective.