By Kevin Kolodziejski
The science world calls it mind-wandering. The rest of the world calls it daydreaming. While that distinction may not be important to you as a road biker rider, this fact about whatever you choose to call it should be.
The world spends nearly half its waking hours doing it. Well, 46.9 percent.
That’s the figure found in a study published in the November 2010 issue of Science that evaluated the random thoughts of 2250 adults via smartphone technology. It’s a figure, the researchers note, “considerably higher than is typically seen in laboratory experiments.”
But you don’t ride in a laboratory or even its parking lot, so you need to figure about half the automobile drivers that pass you out on the roads do so on mental autopilot. Which makes this form of exercise and mental cleansing you choose to do potentially dangerous. You already know that obviously, but have you come to grips with the converse? That while out and about on the bike, you often daydream too.
While it may not be 46.9 percent of the time, it could be up to 1.56 miles. At least that’s the distance I estimated for one not so long ago that ended only when my “bikey sense” (not quite the equivalent to Peter Parker’s “spidey sense” in the comic book world, but close) broke the reverie, and I swerved to avoid a ride wrecker of a pothole, one vertically shaped and more than twice the width of my tires.
Not About ‘Bikey Sense’
But you’re not about to learn how to channel your own “bikey sense” as a means to keep the bicycle upright. Just, and in brief, what the daydream was about.
I was reliving in my mind a conversation I had had with an acquaintance of mine. She says she rides, but in the way a slave to fashion etiquette wears white — from Memorial Day to Labor Day only. During said time, she lets her gym membership lapse and does all her other exercise outside too. My response was the same as today’s title.
Don’t Be a Dumbbell. Lift Them Whatever the Weather
Then I suggested a plan. To let the membership lapse again, but purchase a couple pairs of dumbbells with the money she’s saving, and to lift them, albeit briefly, twice a week before or after she does whatever she decides to do outdoors. And with the weather warming up and your riding time amping up, it’s a plan, you might want to consider as well, so here’s the thought behind it.
Unless your preferred form of outside exercise isn’t cycling but rock climbing, boat rowing, or kayak paddling, doing only exercise outdoors means you’re forsaking the muscle-building element inherent in any well-constructed gym-going plan. And one of your health and fitness goals should always be (unless, maybe, you’re a former bodybuilder who’s become infatuated with riding ultra-distances or hill climbing) to maintain your current amount of muscle. To do so without going to the gym, go instead to wherever you decide to keep a couple pairs of dumbbells and do a brief weightlifting workout — even when the weather’s nice and you’d rather spend all your exercise time outside.
How brief can it be? If you create a sensible routine, devoting 15 minutes to lifting dumbbells twice a week will maintain the muscle you have.
But what’s sensible for you may not be sensible for me, my aforementioned acquaintance, or any of yours, so it makes little sense to now create two 15-minute workouts and list specific exercises and numbers of reps and sets for all to follow. What makes more sense is to cite some of the good that comes from lifting the piece of weightlifting equipment I don’t want that acquaintance to become.
Some of the Good That Comes From Lifting Dumbbells
The greatest good, quite possibly, is the strength you maintain or gain by lifting dumbbells can be, if done correctly, more than “gym strength.” It can have real-world and bike-riding application, as well as reduce the incidence of real-world and bike-riding injuries.
If you’ve spent any time in a health club, I’m sure you’ve seen gym goers who struggle to keep the bar level during the upward phase of the barbell bench press. That’s because virtually all of us to some degree have an arm-strength discrepancy. The same is true for your legs as well.
Keep bench pressing this way and the difference in both the strength and size between the arms (and to some degree both sides of the upper body) will continue to grow. But if you do your bench pressing with dumbbells, significantly lessen the weight, and make your number-one goal that the dumbbells and the workload stay level, there’s a good chance you’ll rectify the muscle imbalance. And even if you don’t do so totally, you’ll certainly lessen it, thereby lessening your chance of injury when you’re out of the gym and living life and lifting and moving stuff. The same is true for your legs and the time you spend riding.
Another real-world reason to do your lifting with dumbbells is your posture. If yours is poor —whether it’s from hunching over a keyboard or handlebars — it’s no surprise when you feel beat at the end of the workday. Muscle weakness leads to this, but it’s not a weakness in the bigger prime-moving muscles, but the smaller stabilizing-muscles, like the ones found in your neck and lower back.
Gain Some Stability
But who goes to the gym to work the stabilizing muscles? Instead, you’re far more likely to go to the gym and use a lat pulldown machine to work the latissimus dorsi, aka the lats, the biggest muscle in the body in terms of surface area. Do just that and the aforementioned stabilizing muscles receive little stimulus. However, if you perform similar back exercises with a barbell to work the lats, like the row and the deadlift, and the stabilizers aid in the effort.
No, the use of “barbell” is not a typo, and yes, this is an article about the benefits of lifting dumbbells. Which is exactly why using barbells to do these two rather effective yet potentially dangerous compound movements is mentioned, especially for cyclists. The degree of danger goes down when these same motions are done with dumbbells, something that’s just as true for the most effective compound movement for working your legs, the squat.
Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.
A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.