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Comment by boringg | Hacker News Reader

The thing about cycling which is nice is it allows for your brain to decompress and wander into deep thought (assuming a solo ride) while tour body is physically working. Whereas mountain biking is more action and coordinated and quite fun but doesnt get me into a deep state if mind. Powerlifting builds muscle and does provide benefits (structural integrity especially for the end years of my life) but i don't feel rejuvenated more just tired after working out. I find that im not as sharp during the hour or two after from tiredness (for an intense workout). To be fair both cycling and mountain biking im totally cooked for something equivalently intense.

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for me it's complicated. sometimes i do get into those deep thoughts on long solo rides, but i found that i couldn't really concentrate on complicated issues enough without neglecting my concentration on the road. i did have a couple of good ideas from time to time, but it wasn't a regular experience and highly dependend on the type of riding. moreover, i run the risk of forgetting about the good ideas if the ride goes on for several more hours and i fall into other deep thought mind traps.

if i do structured training i try to stay concentrated on the task at hand, i.e. pedalling technique, breathing, recovery (heart rate), keeping watts constant, controlling cadence and so on. i do long virtual endurance rides with the ERG on but tend to watch entertaining movies.

i don't seem to get into deep though states much during weightlifting, as the lifts require me to be concentrated and fully focussed and the pauses are too short to get lost on the one hand and require active recovery on the other.

the big difference here is that most people who want to use training time for intellectual improvement just listen to podcasts, but that's not really an option for me as i'm hearing impaired and barely understand anything.

Fair - i think my point is that there is some value getting into those deep thought spaces for benefit cognitive function in addition to the physical exercise. Not scientifically proven but i suspect it has a benefit.

Swimming as well is good for a deeper state of thoughtfulness. Just you and the water, watching the lane marker, approach the T, make the turn, repeat

But not before you have reached a rather high level of technique. Before that, it feels like a sustained fight against drowning that fills your entire attention like few other things do. I'd say the threshold to mentally let go is lower in almost every other sport. That state of a background task that keeps the kind from dozing off, it's leaving plenty of attention to the mind wandering? I rarely hear that mentioned by swimmers, the state of mind trope frequently occurring is "counting tiles", which rather sounds like as if even those with perfect technique and routine don't disconnect mind from physical activity all that much.

That must be why i dont love swimming. Ive never made it to that relaxed autopilot mode.

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