How are your knees stronger. I definitely damaged my knee joints with unicycling and specifically with riding and pushing too hard with Ultimate Wheel riding. I have to be very careful nowadays to not overdo it. Riding normal uni for 20kms doesn’t hurt my knees generally, but sometimes my right leg feels somewhat twisted on the uni. I haven’t pinpointed why. Sometimes that feeling goes away again, but running is out of the question for me. I have gained some weight, which is not good on the knees either, I am aware. But my knees would have been better had I not learned to ride Ultimate Wheel. Im sure of it.
For me it is the combination of different training without overdoing it: consistent with variety while avoiding overtraining.
In my 30s and 40s I frequently overtrained (knee pain from lots of running, shoulder pain from volleyball, back/knee from distance cycling). I now do lots of different training with an emphasis on consistently building strength: mostly muni and freestyle with some weight training every week. Actually I think freestyle unicycling has helped the most to build up and correct small balance muscle deficiencies in my leg and back: e.g. learning drag seat in the last 2 years has been a great experience.
I haven’t tried ultimate wheel in months now, but I was surprised that drag seat did not transfer as much as I thought it would :-(. But I think gradual training is important. But my calves and hamstrings, although strong in the past from jumping sports, are now so much more all-rounded and I think gradually learning drag seat has helped a lot. My calves burn so hard during and after drag seat training! After Unicon I’ll maybe give the UW another try.
Evidence for me: last weekend I did a mountain hike (unusual without the muni) with my daughters with 900m vertical. At the top, my teenager suggests, “let’s run down fast!” Anytime in the last 20 years up until this year, would have said, “no way! Any you crazy, that will hurt my knees and back” but I ran down with controlled strength without pounding either my back or knees. Yes, the next 2-3 days my hamstring muscles were so sore but only the muscle and not the joints! That was such a great feeling after 3 ACL surgeries and many years when I dreaded downhill hiking (although it’d still nicer to ride the muni downhill and will mostly do in the future).
However, it’s easy to overdo it: last fall I overdid it a bit while learning stand walk. Or maybe combined with the high load of a unicycle trial competition, after which it started. I apparently strained my lower back slightly and it hurt while standing on the frame and holding my balance while pushing and took almost 6 months to fully get over that (I have now gained so much control in my lower back and even though I fall a lot, I have basically learned stand walk! See my other thread for my progress).
I’m doing a 6k company “fun” run next week, so see if it also holds true for that (I don’t run/jog very much).
I love muni, but honestly i think freestyle provides the most benefit.
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Concerning freestyle and maybe readers on this thread will understand: I’m getting so much better and have learned so much freestyle in the last 3 years, almost all after I turned 50 (before I only did muni/trial), but I’m still a little nervous about my freestyle routine at Unicon in a few weeks: Even though I have improved so much and can do free-handed stand hopping, wheel walk, drag seat, stand walk, cross hopping, crank idle, 1-ft extrnded and 1-ft wheel walk (tricks in my 3 minute routine), my level is still so far below that of the young riders. I think the next oldest competitor is under 30, and I will still have the lowest performance and technical scores of anyone at Unicon. My goal is that most tricks work, and I don’t fall too much, so I can show what I have learned.
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wow sounds very advanced. Good luck at Unicon.
I agree 100% in my opinion balanced training is the most efficient way to avoid injuries.
I do strength training and streching. Especially strength training for me is mostly torture. But i am convinced that well balanced trained muscles build a solid protection against injuries.
That is my worst nightmare. Hang in there and get well soon.
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There’s a Judo dojo here in Atlanta that offers classes for older folks on how to fall safely. I did one of the sessions with my partner (at ages 64/62) and we both learned a few things, despite being already pretty good at it. Plus got some practice in, which is important.
Obviously that’s a local thing to me, but if there’s anything like it near you, you might give it a try.
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Aîkido falls are better because you learn to “roll” smoothly.
(this said my M.D. tells me to avoid this kind of training because of a very strange thing that happens to me -my advice: don’t get old!-)
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I’ve had some bad “breaks” in my time. One was similar to yours, only it was the radius. A team of 3 doctors put it back in place in the emergency room. I chose to be awake for that one. Later, the orthopedist took a look and said I wouldn’t have much use of it the way it was. So, it was surgery and a titanium plate to fix it properly (out for that one). The plate is uncomfortable, but I’ve got good use of my arm.
I think I already know the answer, but just sort of looking for confirmation.
I’m trying to learn to roll over things, and it is hard to work up the nerve. I can roll over 2"x4" boards most of the time, but I can’t yet work up the nerve to roll down a curb.
I’m also sort of stuck idling. I’ve done it so much in stationary that it just frustrates me to think about it, so I started rolling forward and stopping that motion and rolling backwards. I can do fwd 3, back 1/2 fwd 1/2 pretty regularly. I am really struggling with fwd 3, back 1, fwd 1 … does that just get better with practice? I’ve probably been at it 4 days a week, 30 mins a day for 2 weeks.
I am getting great respect for those of you I see doing that and more impressive things.
I so know what you mean. It takes a lot of mental push to do it and then when I do manage, it isn’t really as hard as I thought it would be, but then I don’t get near any curves and a month later I’m chicken again
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“but I can’t yet work up the nerve to roll down a curb.” I haven’t tried to get too aggressive but curbs come in all different height so I start around 2" high and slowly try for a little higher. I dropped a 4" the other day when a car cut me off for the crosswalk and I had to stay on the sidewalk past the ramp.
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before riding off a kerb, you need to see if any cars are coming. 
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Yeah, there’s a couple of sidewalk ramps near the tennis courts I ride on. I try to go up and down them a bit, but I find that my “aim” (?) with my unicycle - my fine directional control - is very lacking, especially at slow speeds in tight quarters. I was trying figure-8’s and the like to improve that, but that is a slow process for me. “Skinnies” are not quite in my capabilities yet, and hills are often UPDs.
I don’t mind the slowness of the progress most of the time, I realize that I’m not a kid anymore, and sometimes coordination takes some time to develop on a new thing like a uni.
I’m almost 67. My birthday is in September and I will become officially “old” as in “old age pensioner”. Been riding unicycles since I was 54.
Hadn’t ridden much for the past two years while my wife was fighting cancer but been out a few times since she passed away in February. Unfortunately it has been raining here most of the time since then so not as much as I wanted.
I’ve been really struggling to get fluid with it, especially freemounting. My last ride two nights ago showed me why and it was a big surprise.
During my grief, my intellect me met the other me that lives in my autonomous nervous system. We have been having a tough time getting along lately as the other me is not happy about the lack of oxytocin hormone which it had been receiving regularly for the past four decades.
The other me decided that something had to be done and insisted it would be staging a coup if I didn’t start taking notice of women again. It had already given me a taste of what it could do and assured me that much worse awaited if I didn’t comply.
So I acquiesced and assured it the intellectual me would start seriously looking for someone to help satisfy its hormonal needs.
The change in my unicycle experience was profound and immediate. I had felt like I had lost my proprioception for unicycling but suddenly I was back to my old self, hitting mounts instantly almost every time and staying on while traversing awkward terrain.
Apparently it had been on strike, withholding its cooperation that I needed for competent unicycling until I started listening.
You think I’m joking of course but I’ve leant a lot about myself in the past five months and I assure you that we are not just a brain in a meat suit.
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