@finnspin Thanks for your feedback and suggestions. I very much appreciate it! I am definitely going to learn about these single leg squats, including the one you mentioned, and then start doing them. If this thread motivates you to do more focused strength training then we’ll have both benefitted from it! Let me know what exercises you do, if you move forward with focused strength training. Thanks!
Since you’ve mentioned lunges, do you think it would be good for me to start fencing again? I was a Junior Olympian and also competed in the nationals in Sabre Fencing eons ago when I was a teenager. More recently, I fenced against guys half my age or less about seven or eight years ago at a club in California, which was my first time fencing since high school, and I did surprisingly well. I’d like to get back into fencing and if it is good for my knees, then I will surely return to the sport. It’s great exercise! Thanks, again! Getting into the best shape I can for my upcoming endeavor is very important to me, so I am very grateful to you and the other members who posted in this thread.
UPDATE:
I retrieved my 5 foot giraffe from storage today and after a long, tiring day, I went out at around 11:30pm (to avoid heavy car/foot traffic and being laughed at by lots of people) to see if I would have any luck free mounting it. I didn’t. The last time I rode a giraffe was around the same timeframe my video was made, so it’s been over 15 years. I figured learning how to free mount my giraffe again would be good training for falling and that it was! I didn’t count but I’d estimate I had 15 attempts. I started remembering that I think it’s easier to push the frame in front of myself a bit and then as I stepped from the tire on to the lower pedal, I pulled it back under me. That seemed to work better. Out of about 15 attempts, I got on to the seat and started to pedal (or idle) about four times, but immediately fell off. I think my brain is tuned to the 36er, so pedaling a 20" wheel after such a long time was making things tricky for me. But falling and landing on my feet helped build my confidence even though being unsuccessful at mounting was a bummer. In hindsight, I think I would have been much better off just getting on the thing with whatever assistance I could figure out and then riding the giraffe again before jumping right into free mounting. That way I would have known that the seat height was set properly (I think it is, but I’m not certain) and I would have acclimated myself to riding a 20" wheel unicycle before going right to trying to climb up the thing. Also, since I am attempting not to push myself too hard too fast, I think I will limit myself to 10 attempts per day, no more than every other day. In any case, this whole process of getting back into unicycling again is great fun and I am really enjoying being able to have discussions about it with fellow one-wheelers from all over the world and to learn about what other riders are doing.
Since this update is semi off-topic, I am going to copy it over to a separate thread on my attempts at mounting a giraffe and add a few additional thoughts. Actually, “mounting a giraffe” doesn’t sound right to me, lol, so let’s just say “climbing on to a giraffe!”
Here’s the link to the discussion regarding my attempts at getting back in the saddle of my giraffe: