Ebikes Are Perfect for Injury Recovery Exercise

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For those of us getting a bit older, exercise can be a challenge. You exercise a lot because you are supposed to in order to be healthy and because you love it … but then you end up exercising too much or too hard and get injured. It has happened to me too many times.

One key after recovering from one injury is to not push it too hard as you start exercising again, not just because of the specific injury you are overcoming, but also because other parts of your body are not accustomed to exercising and you may also be compensating in some ways to avoid using the injured area of your body.

Electric bikes (ebikes)* are a super helpful tool for returning to exercising and getting your body ready to exercise more and more in other ways. And here’s the key: normal bikes are also great for that, but on a normal bike, if you start feeling something (again, in the original injury area of your body or another), instead of having to complete your bike ride with your muscles from wherever you are, you can increase the assistance from the electric motor. Say you just need a few minutes to rest, then you can get back to biking — great, you don’t have to end the exercise completely and can rely on the electric motor for that little break.

Once your body really feels back to normal and “100%,” of course, you can still keep biking to keep your fitness up, build strength, get the cardiovascular exercise we all need, and get out in the sun and fresh air.

Naturally, you can also exercise in other ways — I love playing tennis, soccer, and basketball — but those are sports provide more injury risk. And, again, it can be hard to slow down and take a break in the middle of playing compared to just increasing the electric assistance during an ebike ride, especially since you’re playing with other people and don’t want to let them down by dropping the level.

So, yeah, aside from all of the things I and others already love about electric bikes, this is another big reason to get behind the transformative technology or market segment.

The funny thing is — someone was making some of these arguments to me 18 years ago. I was the director of a nonprofit organization promoting clean transportation solutions and sustainable development, ebikes starting popping on to the scene, and one of our board members was super passionate about them. He was an “older guy” and appreciated the support they could provide for reasons like the one I’ve described above and for making biking and exercise more accessible to older people. I didn’t quite get it at the time — I mean, I did superficially and logically, but I was skeptical about how much of an impact they would have. Now I’m one of those “older” people and the market is much further along, with much more affordable and high-quality bikes, and I really do get it.

*This article was kindly supported by Lectric eBikes.