One thing I’m doing is sitting here at my desk I have my legs out straight on a step stool under my desk. Sitting too long is one thing that leads to PTS. From time to time I pull my knee caps up and/or twist feet towards each other, like trying to make my toes touch. I can feel that hitting the hip adductors.
One thing I found on my last ride is if I pull my knees in SLIGHTLY (adduction) that lesson the feeling of friction in my knee. I call it friction because it’s really past the pain phase but I can still feel that the joint is not completely ‘happy’. There is a perfect amount of tension where it feels ‘right’. I’m sure with time I will develop muscle memory and that will just be normal riding.
Last time I got to this point I blew it and added in hills too soon and paid for it with backsliding on my progress. Im going to keep my rides to flat 40-60minute rides and continue with my stretching and exercises. I’m riding every third day, but hope to move that to every other day soon and add idling practice back in.
That’s not your “core” that’s the side you hold onto the handle with and pull while hopping… it would probably help your development quite a bit to try and switch hands and start hopping on your off-side a lot more.
Yes, McConnell taping or Kinesiotape. You’re intuitively contracting your adductors by pulling in your knees, the adductors are an important muscle in the whole “core” concept. Also, by contracting them, you will have better fine control of your uni. Do you have brakes… I would say, at this point, they’re going to be important for you on any side of a hill to help take some of the strain off your knees.
Is it both knees? My knee pain is predominantly my left knee (my dominant foot).
Why would I joke about this stuff?
You are safer blaming your horoscope or your astronomer for your lack of uni balance than a chiro. They actually twist and crack your spine and do damage. Google is your friend.
Check out chiropractic - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com or if you want to see how someone got paralized by a chiro, check out http://sandynette.com/ .
Uni may not be the smartest sport of choice from a spinal injury point of view, but you are still much safer than any chiro patient is.
That’s pretty dumb stuff… every health care treatment has a risk. Here’s a link to a site with real stats on causes of deaths in the US. If you notice, almost 40,000 people die every year from prescription drugs and NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofen… I bet no one on this board would have a problem recommending a little ibuprofen for soreness here and there.
Most of the anti-chiropractic stuff out there refers to an almost ancient paradigm that most chiropractors have evolved away from. This kind of info is analogous to stating that medical doctors are quacks because some docs commonly thought lobotomies are great for people, others extolled the benefits of smoking or barbiturates for house wives…
You obviously have beef with chiropractors so I really don’t expect a constructive conversation on this topic but I’m open to one…
And… actually unicycling is a great choice for spinal stability if the continuum of tissue repair, improved mobility, foundational stability and dynamic stability is properly addressed. Unicycling would lie on the dynamic stability end of the spectrum and therefore would not be prudent until someone reached that stage.
In a healthy individual with good uni technique, it’ll help to strengthen the “core” and potentially keep the spine in good shape; “potentially” because there’s really no data on unicycling and spinal health
In my experience/opinion chiropractic is that the techniques can benefit muscular-skeletal problems and improve posture, but the more substantial theories behind it are pretty bunk. Practitioners also vary greatly in their level of devotedness to the theory. Things get absurd when people combine it with ideas of chakras etc…
Chiro was thought up by a grocer from Iowa in 1895 and is based om some thought up the idea that alligning the spine is the cure all to all illness. One of his biggest successes was curing the deaf, and the theory was explained by sublaxions and other made up words.
If it had any substance, it would have become mainstream medicine/ science decades ago.
I admit that most chiro’s don’t end up killing their patients and tends to be as ineffective or effective as any good placebo or homeopathy cure.
I’m in South Africa where we recently had a minister of Medicine telling people that unions and garlic cures aids, our ex-president preached in does not exist, and our current president had sex with an Aids carrier (cheating on his 9 wifes) and explained he took a shower afterwards so he should be ok. I can go to hundreds of Muti shops within a 150km radius where they sell anything from plant roots to body parts of children (genitalia is very popular) as cures thought up by their ancestors around the time Iowa’s grocer pinned his speculative theory.
So when confronted with these miracle cures, I tend to ask obvious questions like “where’s the evidence?”, “does it work?” and I tend to evaluate western medicine with the same criteria. Chiro’s like Homeopathy, Magnetherapy and many others end up lacking substance.
The same medical science that brought us lobotomy’s figured out when the data came in, that there is better treatment which they provided, and admitted their ignorance.
Not so with quack science, where the knowledge of the elders is untestable, and no progress is made since no new knowledge can replace the ancient wisdom.
2 Years ago I suffered from severe gout attacks. A friend went through the same thing and referred me to a muti doctor who cured him.
I havn’t had a gout attack since. Only thing is I never went to this doctor. If I have, I would have most likely attributed the fact that I have not had gout since to this shaman and prophetized his treatments since.
Chiro’s are at best deluded, at worst right out fraudsters, and i “have beef” with them, but for obvious and justified reasons.
You decide where to spend your money.
I’d rather invest it in a KH29’’ or a geared hub.
Woah, time for a chill pill, or at least go out for a ride or something. If you don’t like Chiros, don’t go to them. But they make plenty of people feel better. To each their own, live and let live, etc.
Yikes.
You are so off base here. Chiro is one modality of treatment among many.
There is a continuum line of care. Masseuse and herbalists are at one end and I would say surgeons are at the other end. In between you have acupuncture, physical therapists, Chiros. On the other end working down from Surgeons you have your cardiologists, Oncologists, Endocrinologist, and other specialists and working down to GP’s.
We can take this further.
In case of traumatic/emergency injury, the ‘top’ in care giving is Paramedics, does that make EMT’s quacks? How about 1st Responders?
Each has there place and usefulness.
Surgeons have cut off wrong limbs and left instruments in people after operations, Does that make all surgeons quacks?
I know Chiros have a bad rap, and to some extent they have brought it on themselves. I’m miffed when I hear of Chiros who don’t give any kind of ‘homework’ to patients. Some type of stretching and/or or position to lie/sit in to relieve discomfort. Some Chiros seem content to have the patient come in twice a week for adjustments till the end of time. But that doesn’t mean Chiro as a whole is misguided.
Chiros are one part of a system that functions on success by how many are treated, rather than by how many are kept well. Broken people mean money. Convincing people they are broken equals more money. More than a few women have been given C-sections they really didn’t need:
I was seeing a cardiologist once every two weeks for atypical pericarditis (they could hear a ‘rub’ and see it on ECG but could find no cause). And one day after many months I realized he had zero idea of what do with me. Perhaps it was when he said “what are we going to do with you?” That borders on quackery to me.
My point is your blanket condemnation really could be pointed just about anywhere in health care.
You want to worry about something, worry about Nurse to Patient ratios in ER’s.
I find very rooty, rocky, pitted trails fatigue my lower back. I guess the constant balance corrections does it. Hill climbing does it too.
I don’t know how many muscles are in the lower back, but two vertically oriented muscles on either side of my spine are the ones that get sore/tired.
But I’ve never felt like my abs have gotten particularly sore from riding.
It’s cool when something you like to do is generally good for you, at least when it’s done correctly.
I find that when I have to twist to the left or right, for an extended period of time, to compensate for road crown, this hurts my lower back.
When I was just learning, practicing out in front of the house felt like a great workout for the core and legs. The better I got, the more I had to ride to get the same workout. Now off road riding gives me the best workout. I suspect when I get my Schlumpf I will find another source for a great workout.
I think that as we get better we may not feel the ride as much of a core workout as we once did. I believe we do, at least, maintain the core strength we’ve developed. I also believe in cross training and would be happy to do that if I weren’t so lazy :p.
As far as chiros go, I have no personal experience. I have watched people at work go to them repeatedly for years. They seem to get temporary relief but continue to spend a lot of money month after month. It seems like a racket to me, but my coworkers swear by them. Whatever it takes to feel better.
Those muscles are your paraspinal and erector spinae groups and are actually 6 muscles layered and grouped together. Now, I’m not giving you any medical advice but in my clinical experience, if your paraspinals and erectors are fatiguing early, it means there’s probably some sort of gluteal (butt muscle) lag or weakness. This isn’t always the case but if your glutes (a big muscle group with great blood supply) are not doing the majority of your low back extension then your paraspinals and erectors have to not only keep your posture on the uni but also respond to EVERY root and rock on the trail.
If your glutes DO support your low back properly then all the back muscles can be there to respond appropriately to every rock and root without getting too fatigued.
I never intended this thread to discuss the +/- of chiropractics.
Sounds like the answer to my question is a fair bit more complex than I expected. What I’m reading seems to be that as skill level increases, the gains taper off due to improved efficiency unless you’re forcing yourself to make tons of adjustments by doing muni or working hard climbing hills. This makes sense, as I’ve already noticed my amount of work drop as I learn to sit on the seat and lean forward. I can’t wait until I’m comfortable enough to hit the trails. The crappy sidewalks where I live are tough enough, maybe worse than some trails now that I think about it.
This comment reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw recently, edited slightly below:
Life is all about ASS. Kissing it, kicking it, covering it, trying to get it, and working it to avoid lower back pain.
I recently had a doctor friend note that in general exercise is a very good thing. There may be different benefits and risks of particular activities, but there’s no question that an active person is more likely to be healthy than an inactive person.
I also note that unicycling tends to make us happy. I believe that happiness improves healthiness, although I’ll admit I can’t prove it.
The only thing I have to say about the chiro thing. Google is not your friend for something scientific or specific… or actual truth. I just typed in dihydrogen monoxide …anybody??.. the first thing that popped up http://www.dhmo.org/ check it out. That stuff is bad. watch out for it.
As for core muscles.. I think that the uni does make them stronger but not that much stronger. I would say if you work out and specifically make your core stronger you could benefit your unicycling. Its a real workout on the legs, but the core… eh.. kinda.
