Too Sore To Ride!

Riding Advice
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Dang! I wanted to ride today, but my legs are too sore to ride! :frowning: This is day 2 now. Does anyone know how long it takes for that to go away?

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Some of it you can push through. Most of it actually. Depends on age and how long practice sessions were. And what you did. Some soreness actually goes away after a few minutes of activity. I will probably sound harsh, but if you can get out of bed and do a few weight body squats and walk around the track once or twice - you can ride. And itā€™ll help soreness go away, too.

First principles of exercise tell us that soreness is from doing something we arenā€™t used to doing. Using muscles in fairly new ways and new combinations. Unless its extreme, push through it with moderate and regular sessions. Itā€™ll diminish quickly.

Sore in what way exactly? That can also be useful information. Like, if it is your quads burning - thats usually from not sitting in the seat enough as a beginner. Things like that.

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In all the sports I have played over the years, the second day after a new or especially hard workout is the worst. After that, get back on the horse and fight through the soreness to beat it.

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Well, I was sore the next day. Everything is fine until I squat down to get something. Itā€™s in the quads. I thought I could ride just fine, because it was doing better today. I can sit and balance, but I couldnā€™t peddle.

@NewCreature, well this is day 2. Good, then I should be a powerhouse tomorrow.

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You know. I am not sure how to describe itā€¦ Almost like a stiff frozen feeling. No, not cold frozen.

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Just push through it. Its normal. Be moderate.

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To frozen to push through. Maybe an essential oil will speed up the recovery process.

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If you have an essential oil that works for you, it may help with comfort. It may help the speed of healing. But, you are a brand new rider. You are pushing backward almost as hard as you are pushing forward, and you will until you get more efficient in your riding.

Keep it up! The soreness will start to dissipate quicker and quicker, and at some point you will realize that your legs arenā€™t shaky when you quit riding.

This soreness is part of it.

Good for you, and congratulations!

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Do what works for you, it often gets better once you are warmed up. (For beginners, Iā€™d recommend warming up before getting on the uni, to avoid taking a fall.)

I had great fun at Elsbet watching people struggling to get down the stairs in our accomodation after one or two days of riding. I think the intermediate riders suffered most, since they went on longer tours but a lot of them are not quite as skilled with the brake yet and ended up having very sore quads. But after taking minutes to get down a set of 10 stairs to get to breakfast, most of them still somehow managed to ride for the day.

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How to you warm up? :confused:

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Walk a few laps around the track. Do a few bodyweight squats. Some light stretching. Jogging a lap is probably overkill.

When I go to practice the uni, to be honest my warmup is actually doing a chill ride for about a mile. Then Iā€™ll do more strenuous stuff.

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My warm-up is basically riding, must of the time I try to start ā€œslowlyā€, and after a km, I end up at 22-23 kph

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Just get your blood flowing a bit. Walking briskly, slow jogs, jumping jacks, a few squats, high knees, whatever you like that gets you through the motions.
When I used to train beginner unicycle groups for kids, I used to just have them play some kind of simple ball or other group game to get them moving. Iā€™ve never been a big fan of stretching before exercise, unless you are planning on maxing out your range of motion (if you are doing high kicks in martial arts, probably makes sense to stretch, for unicycling, usually not IMO).
Of course, if you are riding at a level where you are not falling of a lot (even when you are tired), just riding around gently is a perfectly fine warmup too.

When I took a course to get a trainers license, they had us do a simple exercise to show how effective warming up can be: we did 3 standing long jumps (on foot) and measured that distance. Then a 15 minute warmup (mostly just jogging), do the same standing long jumps and measured that distance again. The difference was quite significant, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20%.

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I do gentle squats to warm up the knees, and head movements for the neck, and arm rotations. And do some stretches once Iā€™m done.

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I will try these suggestions then. Thanks everyone for your help. :blush: