Eccentric Loading for Tendons

It's about a month since "it" happened, and my mileage has plummeted from ~140 miles per week to closer to 5-10. I would give my leg time off, generally three to four days of only light walking and then try to reintroduce my fifteen minute bicycle ride to school only to be answered with a very mild discomfort. I hesitate to describe it as pain, but something telling you that things are going wrong. If I were to increase the mileage, pain would start, but that telling feeling of something being wrong in the tendon was always the precursor.

So, last Friday I saw the physical therapist, Kevin, who showed me a way to eccentrically loading my quad. As an engineering student, eccentric to me means off-center, such as a column loaded to one side of it's centerline. Apparently no one told this to physical therapists, because to them it means differential loading; twice the weight on muscle expansion as on contraction. You start out in the typical gym quadricep machine, the one where you lift both of your feet up to raise the weight. This time, instead of lowering normally you only use the injured leg to lower the weight, making it work twice as hard on the way down as it did on the way up. This type of exercise has had great success with chronic tendon injuries in runners, though Kevin didn't know of many experience with cyclists and quad tendons or with injuries less than 4 weeks old. Still, the principal is the same and CT scans in test subjects show a re-organization of tendon fibers in their normal direction, from the injured chaotic state of many directions.

Kevin warned that my leg would be extremely sore for two to three days, which I sort of brushed off with a sense of pride in my once chiseled leg. However, today is Sunday and it remains as sore as yesterday so something is clearly working. Surprisingly, the heavy lifting didn't seem to hurt the tendon and it hasn't complained all weekend; though I haven't been very active either.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to ride to school and get another session in. I'll keep updating on my progress.

Quadricep tendonitis

The verdict is in, that's my problem but it's fairly mild. My flexibility isn't affected and the Physical Therapist (PT) says it doesn't sound like a long term injury. He recommended direct ice to the spot for 8-10 minutes several times a day to reduce inflammation, and commented that I didn't need to worry about swelling so no more elevated legs and anti-inflammation pills. I'm headed to Seattle today until Monday, so that should give me enough time. I'm just worried about walking too much and irritating it, but we'll see what happens.

Injured

So my last post I thought of easing off the intensity and increasing the distance. Well I didn't quite do that as a limited schedule only had room for more intensity, and now my right quad tendon is giving me trouble. After 15 miles of a planned 50 mile trip, it started hurting. I decided to keep going for a bit and see what happened, but it only got worse. I turned around at mile 20 and had 20 more to pedal back in pain, so the following day it I woke up and it was hurting. I followed RICE - Rest Ice Compression and Elevation for the next three days pretty solidly. Then, thinking it was back to normal I attempted an 18 mile ride with a friend, but the last 3 miles were in pain. I'm not sure what's causing this, my guess is either over use from the intensity work I've been doing all winter or a muscle imbalance. I'll find out tomorrow with the PT.

Even though I already registered and paid for my first 200 km, I decided not to go. 126 miles with over 11,000' of climbing will do nothing but serious damage to my knee.

In fact, all my Brevet plans are up in the air now. I'm seeing a physical therapist Wednesday, so I'll see what he says and keep off the bike until then. I'm taking a trip out to Seattle Thursday, so that will give me 5 days off the bike. I'll most likely try riding the rollers when I get back next Tuesday.

Not riding a Brevet is no big deal, and I have no problem accepting that I won't get to ride most of the Brevets I want to, if any. However, I want to be problem free for a 4,000 mile trip cross country with my brother and two friends that starts mid-June, so that's what I need to concentrate on.

Unfortunately it seems like my long distance blog is turning into a recovery blog, but I hope it will be short and I can get in the New York 300k.