Vacman,
Just turned 65 today and thought I'd add my 2 cents. A few years back my 87 year old mother called me to wish me a happy birthday and asked how I was feeling. I told her things were fine except that I woke up a bit stiff and sore. Much to my chagrin she told me to "Toughen up! Old age isn't for sissies." I was speechless. Here was my mother telling me to get used to it.
So much for "stiff and sore".
Anyhow a year later I was diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes and was freaking depressed. Shit, what was next I thought? My sister is a endocrinologist (diabetes doctor for those of you in Rio Linda) and she pretty much gave me the bottom line as to how I was going to have to get to work on my body. Now I've never been a couch potato, I cycled, ran and raced sailboats in SF bay for 25 years so I was a little put off by her comment. However to be honest I hadn't done any of those for a few years.
She suggested that I get my cheeks to a gym and also might not hurt to spend a few bucks and get some advice from a trainer. I did as she suggested and the results, although not amazing, were pretty good. I found that if I got to the gym at least 3 times a week and put in a good 2 hour workout with a steam bath or jacuzzi bath that not only did the stiff and sore mornings go away, but I was able to develop some body strength which made my motorcyle riding a lot more enjoyable. Just doing some light sit-ups for my abs made my riding less painful.
Now I know there's a lot to "how" we ride, what position we have when we ride. I read the post on the Yoga position on this site and found that it really helped, pelvis tilted forward like folks in Asia squat and hands flat on the grips with the wrists slightly bent. I know that I have to "correct" this position every now and then as I have a tendency to "slump" when riding. The thing that I find which helps is to remember not to put too much weight on my hands. I should be able to sit on the bike, grip the tank with my legs and not have much weight on the bars. Putting weight on my arms and hands definitely will transfer that to my shoulders and back and will of course cause pain in my upper back after a while.
I have seen comments here on numb hands as well. I had the same problem and asked a riding instructor how to avoid this. he had me ride around with just the flat palms of my hand resting lightly on the grips. The numbness of course never appeared when I was conscious of how tense I was gripping the bars. I can actually feel the numbness coming on and have to consciously relax my grip and then of course the numbness disappears.
I have also used a chiropractor and with the caveat ("warning" for those of you in Houston) that there are good and bad ones, I found that it helped to have my back adjusted every now and then. But there's a better method if you have some more dedication and that's some yoga classes. I went to those for about a year to learn the "positions" and found that I could almost self-adjust my back and also add a lot of flexibility to my body which in turn also helped my riding comfort.
Advil, Tylenol etc can also help and what would riding be without caffiene?
Sorry about the length of this post, but there's a more to fun riding than just adding farkles and twisting the throttle.\ :blink:
AZ
