2009: Year of the bike

[RoadRaven]

Statistically though, runners have less arthritis in the lower extremities and spine than non-runners.

I do agree with this Oak, however I would be interested to see stats of impact injuries/stress injuries between cyclists and runners... do you know where those stats/ that type of research might be found?

I was telling my partner about my post and he reminded me that his training buddy had to give up running because of hip stress and cycling gives him his athletic freedom again...

[ms pepperpot]

The Guardian newspaper also had articles about cylcling today - more sport and training focused, including by Nicole Cooke and Victoria Pendleton. It's part of a general series they've been doing on getting fit and taking part in sports.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...es/getting-fit

[OakLeaf]

I just ran across another mention of the most recent arthritis study, so I'm posting a link here. The abstract is public, the full text is subscription only and I don't have library access to Am. J. Preventive Med. If anyone else does, I'd be interested to see - from the abstract, it appears that the one thing they didn't control for is total cardio.

It's interesting that there was actually considerably less arthritis among the "long distance runners" than among the control group (the abstract doesn't define long distance, either), but the numbers were not statistically significant.

Again, I don't doubt that there are individuals whose joint condition prevents them from running, even with the best body mechanics. But whether running caused that is a whole 'nother question; and even if it had, it begs the question of what their body mechanics were like when they did run. If someone had, say, worked in the basket factory all their life and had five or six carpal tunnel surgeries, they probably wouldn't be able to bicycle, either.