The two stories that follow do not come from Jack Webb. They are not culled from an old transcript of “Dragnet.”

This health and fitness article, however, begins as if they do, for it begins as Webb wrote and “Dragnet” began. “The stories you are about to hear are true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

So a guy we’ll call Sir Edmund Hillary asked me to meet him early one July morning at a convenience store near the mountain local cyclists see as their Mount Everest. That we ascended it six times before riding on surprised me.

That I managed to ride aside Sir Edmund except for the 10-to-15-percent pitches on both sides surprised me even more. But the real surprise occurred later after he requested we stop at the aforementioned convenience store so he could slug some Gatorade and scarf down a Snickers Bar.

Between gulps and bites, Sir Edmund complained about his wife — and he went on and on well after his food and drink were gone. Nothing too terrible, just typical stuff, including her nagging him about spending too much time cycling.

Still, I was surprised a guy knighted by the Queen was confiding in me, particularly since we had discussed racing strategy primarily, the weather occasionally, and little more prior to this. Yet that surprise was surpassed tenfold when another cycling associate decided to confide in me about 14 months later.

This one had me feeling more like Chandler Bing on “Friends” than a sherpa assisting Sir Edmund Hillary.

For it came from a bicycling teammate we’ll call Ross Geller, whom I got to know much better when he developed a passion for one of mine, time trialing. Even so, only a few of our chats had ever been about anything other than how to go faster in what’s known as the race of truth.

So when he made his first-ever phone call to me one September night while I was babysitting my three-year-old niece, I expected him to tell me he finally bought those expensive, light-weight aero bars he had been coveting.

Instead, he said that his common-law wife was leaving him for his best friend.

That as we speak, they were dining together to decide how to break the news to him. How he knew of this ahead of time I didn’t think to ask, but I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking right now.

What’s the intention behind the telling of these two stories?

To illustrate something about the nature of exercising and exercisers. Because we share all sorts of experiences while doing the former — some good, some bad, some life-affirming — we feel such a bond that we sometimes share things with the latter about ourselves we wouldn’t normally share.

I’ll leave the reasons behind this for the psychologists. I just know I do it at times while bike riding with a buddy, and occasionally in this column for I’ve come to see you as the same.

But when I’m penning a column and not pedaling a bike, the intention is not so much to unburden my soul but help you get a little better. And now that you know my intentions, it’s time to reveal the “simple thing” mentioned in the title.

It’s called implementation intentions and is nothing more than an approach to use in order to achieve an exercise-related goal or any goal at all.

In his second paper about the topic, published in 1997 by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Dr. Peter M. Gollwitzer makes a distinction between a “goal intention” and an “implementation intention.” While the first is merely having a general aim or plan, the second is performing a specific behavior to achieve that plan when you encounter a specific situation at a specific time.

In a podcast hosted by Boston University’s Sergeant College, “The Theory of Planned Behavior and Implementation Intentions,” doctor and registered dietitian Michelle DeBiasse explains you can do this by simply constructing a sentence using the if-then format. Such as “If it is breakfast time and I am at my breakfast table, then I will eat an apple.”

DeBiasse also stresses implementation intentions are not habits formed through repeated behaviors, but are “a deliberate plan to act ... not a general one-size-fits-all plan,” and “person-specific.” Which brings us back to one specific person.

You.

While it’s true that talking about your problems with an exercise buddy is a smart move, that it serves as an emotional release and provides temporary relief — and that countless studies have shown it to boost mental health, what’s even better is to find a way for the problem being discussed to end. So be aware that a number of studies besides Gollwitzer’s have found creating if-then statements to be an effective way to make that happen.

And that they work in just about any situation.

For instance, I used to have a bad habit of letting my bikes get so dirty that the components were aging prematurely, but that I don’t have that problem anymore.

Because instead of bending my buddy’s ear about that, I speak to myself and say, “If there’s any type of precipitation and I’m outdoors and cycling, then I will clean the wheels, chain, and cassette immediately afterwards.”