Enjoying New Schedule – BionicOldGuy

I mentioned in my last post that I decided to cut back my amount of exercise to what my Cardiologist actually thinks I’m doing. This works out to 90 minutes a day on average biking, with 3 upper body strength session of 30 minutes each per week. This still allows me to get in a few longer cruises of 2 to 2 1/2 hours. What’s mostly changed is that my longest days don;t exceed 2 1/2 hours, and hard days are a shorter than they were. This has felt great so far after a few days worth. And it’s much easier to fit it all in.

Last Tuesday My group and I rode to the Southeast of Morgan Hill up in the hills, ending up at the Gilroy Sports Complex and then looping back on Santa Teresa Blvd to our lunch stop. This was on my upright and felt great. I am now tolerating longer upright rides well, including standing pedaling, with no SI joint or sciatica. I think all the back-related PT I’ve been doing is paying off.

Wednesday I did my first hard ride on the new schedule, which was shorter than in the past at 90 minutes. This meant a 40 minute cruise followed by some intervals. To avoid getting too out of breath which I’m not sure is good for my aortic valve, I didn’t do any longer intervals, instead opting for shorter sprint intervals as well as on-bike strength training. I tried something new which is standing in a high gear while going uphill. With my “standing bar” set up that I mentioned here, I can do this very upright. Doing this while pulling up on the bars loads the back nicely so it’s good for the spine as well as the legs. This was enjoyable so I’ll add it to the repertoire. Yesterday was upper-body hard day, which was 30 minutes of arm-cycling plus isometric training with resistance bands, followed by a 45 minute recovery ride.