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As a general rule you are better off, for overall mental wellbeing, doing sports rather than not. I personally think that programming is a pastime that contrib

by buro9 11y ago

As a general rule you are better off, for overall mental wellbeing, doing sports rather than not. I personally think that programming is a pastime that contributes more to depression than any cycle sport does.

MaxfordAndSons 11y ago
This is not relevant to the parent comment. Being active, or even playing most sports, can be mutually exclusive with putting yourself at risk for CTE.
duaneb 11y ago
This is a poor general rule. Sports can have hugely different profiles of health effects: running is almost certainly better for you than boxing or football. In any case, brain damage is bad and you should avoid it if at all possible.
- collyw 11y ago
  I don't think it is so poor if you consider the benefits of cycling outweigh the risks. Most sports aren't done in traffic, so I imagine that cycling is relatively high risk. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/
  - brianwawok 11y ago
    80% of my cycling is in my basement. Many ways to train.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    Cycling typically doesn't lead to brain damage. I suspect it is lower risk than sports with high rates of CTE. Also, the Netherlands is unusual in being so cycling-friendly. I suspect risk is much higher almost everywhere else on the planet.
SwellJoe 11y ago
While I agree that people should get on their bikes more, this is not mere "cycle sport". I bought a BMX bike at about 35, after a decade or more of "only" riding mountain bikes, mostly on streets and well-maintained trails but occasionally going off-road. Within a week of getting back into doing the old freestyle tricks I used to do regularly, I took a fall and damned near broke my ass; and we're definitely not talking about tricks on the scale or level of someone like Mirra, here. It was weeks before I could sit comfortably again. I had to work lying down or standing for at least two weeks. The type and magnitude of injury one can sustain from BMX freestyle riding, particularly vert riding, is just not in the same category as the kinds of injury you'd sustain cycling in the traditional sense (short of getting hit by a car, which is also probably more likely for freestyle riders). So, yes, get on your bike (or kayak, or running shoes, or whatever) and get daily exercise. That's a great idea. But, "extreme" sports are called that for a reason, and they do subject your body to much more significant risk of injury, possibly even serious injury. There is already good science linking repeated concussions to depression and other mental illness; and it's not crazy to suggest these folks are getting more concussions than the general populace (when I was involved in these kinds of sports, I had friends who joked about how many concussions they'd had while skating or biking). I'm agreeing with everybody in this thread, I think, but the notion that "doing sports" is what Mirra was doing is sort of like saying a hurricane is "some wind", and that it's a healthy lifestyle is misleading. He was fit, obviously, but had also suffered numerous major injuries throughout his life, many of which likely still caused him pain and reduced mobility, even years after they'd healed. Concussions were almost certainly among the injuries he sustained.
- matwood 11y ago
  Completely agree with you. I used to wakeboard a lot and tore my ACL coming out of an invert. After 9 months of physical therapy I went back to wakeboarding, but not long after decided it simply was not worth it. Falls really hurt, and bad ones can take months to recover from while stopping me from enjoying every other sporting thing I liked to do. If I'm not getting paid to do something, at some point the life impact risk is not worth it.

by buro9 11y ago

MaxfordAndSons 11y ago

This is not relevant to the parent comment. Being active, or even playing most sports, can be mutually exclusive with putting yourself at risk for CTE.

duaneb 11y ago

This is a poor general rule. Sports can have hugely different profiles of health effects: running is almost certainly better for you than boxing or football. In any case, brain damage is bad and you should avoid it if at all possible.

collyw 11y ago
I don't think it is so poor if you consider the benefits of cycling outweigh the risks. Most sports aren't done in traffic, so I imagine that cycling is relatively high risk. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/
- brianwawok 11y ago
  80% of my cycling is in my basement. Many ways to train.
- duaneb 11y ago
  Cycling typically doesn't lead to brain damage. I suspect it is lower risk than sports with high rates of CTE. Also, the Netherlands is unusual in being so cycling-friendly. I suspect risk is much higher almost everywhere else on the planet.

SwellJoe 11y ago

While I agree that people should get on their bikes more, this is not mere "cycle sport". I bought a BMX bike at about 35, after a decade or more of "only" riding mountain bikes, mostly on streets and well-maintained trails but occasionally going off-road. Within a week of getting back into doing the old freestyle tricks I used to do regularly, I took a fall and damned near broke my ass; and we're definitely not talking about tricks on the scale or level of someone like Mirra, here. It was weeks before I could sit comfortably again. I had to work lying down or standing for at least two weeks. The type and magnitude of injury one can sustain from BMX freestyle riding, particularly vert riding, is just not in the same category as the kinds of injury you'd sustain cycling in the traditional sense (short of getting hit by a car, which is also probably more likely for freestyle riders). So, yes, get on your bike (or kayak, or running shoes, or whatever) and get daily exercise. That's a great idea. But, "extreme" sports are called that for a reason, and they do subject your body to much more significant risk of injury, possibly even serious injury. There is already good science linking repeated concussions to depression and other mental illness; and it's not crazy to suggest these folks are getting more concussions than the general populace (when I was involved in these kinds of sports, I had friends who joked about how many concussions they'd had while skating or biking). I'm agreeing with everybody in this thread, I think, but the notion that "doing sports" is what Mirra was doing is sort of like saying a hurricane is "some wind", and that it's a healthy lifestyle is misleading. He was fit, obviously, but had also suffered numerous major injuries throughout his life, many of which likely still caused him pain and reduced mobility, even years after they'd healed. Concussions were almost certainly among the injuries he sustained.

matwood 11y ago
Completely agree with you. I used to wakeboard a lot and tore my ACL coming out of an invert. After 9 months of physical therapy I went back to wakeboarding, but not long after decided it simply was not worth it. Falls really hurt, and bad ones can take months to recover from while stopping me from enjoying every other sporting thing I liked to do. If I'm not getting paid to do something, at some point the life impact risk is not worth it.