Cycling during hormone therapy

Hi Minnesota,

Your cycling will stand you in very good stead and you should keep it up. I always say to regard exercise as mandatory when on hormone therapy - it has a beneficial impact on several of the side effects. You should also add some exercise to stress/shock bones, which cycling doesn't do.

I did buy myself a noseless saddle, although being noseless wasn't the main property of it, it was having a hole under the perineum and making sure you are sitting on your sit bones (pelvis) and not your perineum.

Both the hormone therapy and the radiotherapy will tend to reduce your hemoglobin level, but as a cyclist, you will have plenty in reserve, and you may not notice (unless you're racing or time trialing). Those without much in reserve get very fatigued at the end of radiotherapy. There's no research to show why this is, but I strongly suspect it's because their hemoglobin levels dropped below normal at that point.

You describe neoadjuvant hormone therapy (before treatment) which is usually 3-6 months, and concurrent hormone therapy (during treatment). However, it usually continues after radiotherapy (adjuvant hormone therapy), to make up a total of 1-3 years hormone therapy. You will need to exercise to maintain muscle (for which cycling is good), and to maintain bone calcium (which needs an exercise which stresses/shocks bones).

The only place I've seen six months mentioned is on these forums. Having a vested interest in the subject, I researched it last year while I was in my post-op walking period. The standard prostatectomy discharge instructions from Oxford state "no cycling or horseriding for 6 weeks".

Santis Healthcare says you can start cycling after 6 weeks if you have a perineal cutout on your saddle.

I think the important thing is to take advice from your own doctors, based on your own circumstances. I started riding after 6 weeks and ramped up gradually over a month. No continence or erectile issues here.

Incidentally, one of the reasons I chose surgery (apart from being strongly advised it was likely the best route due to my age (50)) was that I hated the idea of hormones having a negative impact on my fitness. (It was also why I declined bicalutamide when surgery was delayed "indefinitely" due to COVID. That turned out to be about 2 months delay.)

This is the one I bought, two of them actually for two bikes.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07R61NZ4V/

This one isn't available at the moment, but you'll see several identical ones which probably come out of the same factory.

It takes a few rides to get use to and get it adjusted right.

I now find them really comfortable, although I don't need them anymore, I've left them on both bikes. I like that I'm sitting only on my sit bones (pelvis) and not any sensitive structures. I wasn't expecting them to last long, but after nearly 2 years, they both still look brand new.

Also, they have occasionally sparked a prostate awareness conversation, so I always have a few of the PCUK or Tackle Z-cards on me.