Dear Cyclists, This Wednesday, I am breaking with tradition, and promoting someone other than myself. In the place of my words, I would like to present an up-and-coming professional bike racer, and blogger, Ms Ashley James. All who have ridden with Ashley know that it is not a surprise that she won the 2009 US […]
Category: Cycling Stuff
Cycling-related topics of the DrJohnM blog.
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A weekend of life…
There were no books read, no MacBooks tapped, and not even one medical link looked at this weekend. Out-of-town bike racing was on the docket. And this was no ordinary local showdown; it was a humdinger—Cincinnati’s UCI CX festival. There were professional racers, their entourages and trailers, multiple emcees, serious-faced officials and of course, the […]
All is well. It is a great day. You are riding smoothly with friends along a rolling hillside road. It is a peaceful spring morning; there is steam floating off the farmer’s pond, the warmth of the sun warms your body. For the moment life is just right. Then it is not. Suddenly, without warning […]
Sudden death in a young athlete is surely a tragic event. Sadly, many of the afflicted had an underlying undiagnosed heart anomaly that might have been detected with a screening ECG. On the surface, the idea seems so simple: just add an ECG to the routine pre-sport’s history and physical exam. ECGs are painless, non-invasive […]
Hey cyclists, You are fit bunch. Near perfect. You eat right, exercise bunches and surely do not smoke. The “side effects” of such a focused lifestyle is good blood pressure, low cholesterol and smooth arteries. Congratulations. Unfortunately, there is one component of health you cannot control–your parents, your DNA. In heart disease and many cancers […]
“Be the bike.” “Picture the win.” “Visualize success.” In maximizing one’s chance of success in sports (or any of life’s endeavors) such axioms are the conventional wisdom. At least, it is what I have read, been coached on, and overheard from those in the know. But is such optimism the only path to success? Is […]
Dear Cyclists (or other endurance athletes), Since your heart—a muscle, like any other muscle in your body—is at the crux of cycling performance, I thought a story on a common heart condition might be helpful. The story involves a common cardiac condition called “tachycardia-mediated cardiomyopathy.” Now hold on a minute; don’t click away yet. Let […]
It is Wednesday. Time to write on a cycling topic. My home town, Louisville, KY, on the northern side of America’s obesity belt has shown some flickers of enlightenment these days. Labor day, we had the Mayor’s hike and bike. This drew 7500 cyclists and walkers. These twice yearly (Memorial and Labor Day) cycling events […]
For bike racers, the end of summer marks the beginnings of cyclocross season. Cyclocross? Yes, think motocross, only the motor is the heart, lungs, legs and cerebellum. Here is my 2010 primer on the discipline of cyclocross. Cyclocross (CX) originated in Western Europe and is extremely popular there, however, it is rapidly gaining popularity in […]
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Dutch Cardiology…
There is always one, or at most a handful of crazies that would consider such folly. But in the Netherlands, 27 cardiologists have decided to ride (a charitable ride) to the European Society of Cardiology meeting. Amsterdam to Stockholm…and the answer is: 1000 miles. They even have a legendary Dutch cyclist as a coach, and […]
This Wednesday it will be easy to combine cycling and medicine. So it was when I saw this prescient story that linked antagonistic personality traits and cardiovascular risk. It was simply impossible to ignore, especially on a Wednesday. Low hanging fruit, no doubt. It was an NIH sponsored study which looked at the effects of antagonistic […]