CYCLING strengthens your legs, lungs, heart and all its accompanying circulatory plumbing——but NOT, apparently, your psyche. Elevated HDLs, you bet. Upgraded VO2 Mac, check. Mood boost, uh-uh. So says a team of Dutch researchers. Reporting in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, the Netherlands nay sayers detected "NO DIFFERENCES IN DEPRESSION, SELF-ESTEEM, OR OTHER ‘PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASURES” between the 62 sedentary, mentally healthy adults who participated in either 4- or 8-month exercise programs and the no-exercise-at-all, TV remote-as-6th-appendage, fat-ass control group. Though the cyclists undeniably did look hotter in spandex.
But.
If you’re one of the large group of Velo-ites prone to performance-anxiety neurosis (which, on Saturday, is nearly everyone from the 17s on up), there is still good news because the Bad News Boers did concede that exercise such as cycling may prove “psychologically helpful” to depressed or anxious people.
Weekly Fit Bits are the product of the mind of...well...we're still not saying...
About Carlo Delumpa
When Carlo is not on his bike, he is usually thinking about his bike - or biking, bike accessories, this web site and the cute chick that shares his tandem. Carlo is a native of the SF Bay Area, where the weather is warm and the climbs go on forever. He's slowly winning the NW rain game with other sports, like skiing and hockey. And the climbing in Portland can go on forever if you don't mind going downhill a few times in the opposite direction.
Carlo is a co-founder and director of this illustrious cycling club, and the lead designer of pretty much anything Velo you see out there (with the possible exception of the race team swag). It lets him get out his creative yah-yah's and now that he's got a new iMac, watch out - you may see Portland Velo logo tattoos in the not-so-distant future.
Ever-so-approachable, Carlo is always open to ideas, suggestions and even criticism if it means making this an even better community. You can reach him at carlo@portlandvelo.net. Please keep the criticism limited to 25 characters or less, please.