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.

Rollers

No longer do I have to obsessively check weather.wrong, because my rollers have arrived! I placed an order with my favorite shop, Bicycle Therapy, about three weeks ago but their distributor was out of stock. Finally it came in, and being car-free meant some ingenuity on my part on how to get it home.

Strapping the massive 4 foot by 2 foot by 8 inch box to my back and riding home from the shop was a feat; I tied two tubes around the box's width, and intertwined the straps on the back of my backpack with them. Then, four or five wraps of string across the length of the box and through my backpacks handle secured it vertically. Aside from a tendency to shifty to the left, the ride home went well with plenty of odd looks from pedestrians and drivers.

I was very pleased with myself and my bag until I realized how easy disassembly is; I didn't need to go through all that, as all the individual pieces would have easily fit in my bag. So much for out of the box thinking.... Sorry, bad joke.

I gave the rollers a try, but today is a rest day after two hard rides and a "recovery ride" over the weekend after a week of off-the-bike. It's hard for me to mount, so I use a chair to stand on to get on initially. After a few minutes and one minor fall I didn't have to lean against the wall as much and started to get the hang of it. I'm now looking forward to the first rainy day, and can plan my training schedule with relative weather impunity.

Also, the first 200km is less than a month away. Despite the 11,250 feet of elevation gain, I feel close to prepared, but set a goal weight of 145 lbs from my current 155. Even though I'm at a very healthy weight right now, trimming down will help the climbing come easier and get me fitter in general. This week is finals and next is spring break, so I'll have the time for some serious miles. The plan is to dial down the intensity and increase the length of the rides to burn more fat and get my back and neck a little tougher. I've also been having some minor issues with my achilles, but found some good exercises here to strengthen them up.

Gym and New Orleans

Sadly, I have to be forcibly removed from my bike for four and a half days to go to a conference in New Orleans on Sunday.

Fortunately, it's all expenses paid, I'm going with friends and I can still do core workouts in the hotel.

The first step is to do a hard workout at the gym today, so I'll be sore for two or three days anyway. I plan on hitting the hamstrings especially hard; like most cyclists, they're underdeveloped in comparison to my quadriceps. That difference in strength can lead to knee issues when the quad's pull the knee harder than the hamstrings, so balancing the two prevents injury. I'll also do some core and back work, including the rowing machine.

If I'm lucky, the hotel will have a gym worth using and I can hit that on Tuesday, leave Wednesday as a recovery day, and possibly go for a ride after I get back on Thursday.

Sprints

A long ride, long being relative to the individuals capabilities, requires nutrition, hydration, motivation but most importantly good pacing. Putter along too slowly and miss the chance to beat a personal record, charge up the hills and risk burning out before the end. Clearly, for a very long, non-competitive ride, where the goal is to complete within a certain time, sprinting is out of the picture. So why then, do I practice sprints?

Part of it is the old montage "If you want to ride faster, ride faster" which holds more truth than one might think. By going anaerobic for short periods, you deprive the muscles of oxygen and stimulate the growth of more mitochondria in the muscles' cells. Mitochrondria being the "power house" of the cell, responsible for doing the work involved in muscular contractions. You know you're stimulating growth when your legs burn with lactic acid, and feel almost useless hours after a hard ride.

These anaerobic periods can vary anywhere from one to sixty minutes. On 2-3 hour rides I try to include periods of hard effort to go anaerobic and really push myself. These periods last between ten and thirty minutes, but are never structured. The idea is to feel completely wasted at the end of a ride, to deplete your muscles of glycogen so they rebuild themselves stronger than they were, with more glycogen capacity.

Often I don't have time for a 2 hour or longer ride, but can still make progress through a sprint workout in an hour. To do sprints, you need a long, fairly flat or mildly sloping uninterrupted road with light traffic. This is a difficult thing to find when you live in the middle of a sprawling city, especially when it takes about twenty minutes to get into the suburbs for good roads. Fortunately for me, Memorial Hall is only a ten minute ride away, sits in front of a long straight, flat road and makes for painfully scenic sprint workouts. Especially when this is the finish line:

The road is about eight tenths of a mile long, from a traffic light to the Civil War Memorial situated in a fairly decrepit neighborhood in north west Philadelphia. There are three parallel roads and for whatever reason, the one closest to Memorial Hall - "North Concourse Drive" gets the fewest cars, so that's where I do my sprints. The road is a slight grade up from the traffic light at Belmont and about 2/3 of the way to the end is a slight downgrade, where I hit my maximum speed and try to hold it for as long as I can. I'd like a little more room for these, but at least the scenery is nice.

Sprinting is also a way to track fitness. Increasing aerobic and anaerobic ability will allow for longer, more powerful sprints and translate to general riding. By increasing the mitochrondria in your legs, you increase your aerobic power, effectively increasing the pace you feel comfortable cruising at for very long periods, such as in a Brevet. Not only that, but your recovery time for hard efforts such as steep climbs are reduced and the stores of glycogen in your muscles increase, allowing you to do more anaerobic work until your legs are totally shot and the dreaded "death march" begins.

So, sprints do carry over to Brevets.

Post Century Recovery

After Saturdays 103 mile wind-fest, I took an easy hour long ride up the Kelly bike path to the falls bridge and back. I kept my heart rate below 75% and averaged around 65%. I rarely do this and was surprised I was able to keep a 15 mph average at such a low perceived exertion and heart rate level even with the wind common to the path. The legs felt weak and I doubt I could have made any hard efforts, but it was a definite confidence booster. I wonder if this is the result of all the aerobic work I've been doing? I'm taking it as a sign to return to intervals and hard 90-95% Max HR for a while. I've also been reading some links from bike forums about the need for deprieving your muscles of oxygen by going anaerobic, or above your VO2 max in order to increase the mitochondria density and produce more power aerobically.

On Saturday I also planned on going to a new yoga class with a friend, but she bailed because of school work so I went alone. Going somewhere new alone is something I need to do more of, so I decided it was the best decision, especially given my only experience with yoga at my school's gym, which were very relaxing with lots of slow, steady stretches in positions that stretched things I'd never stretched before. Given my past experience, I just assumed more of the same and didn't check the schedule for what type of class it would be.

Turned out it was some sort of power yoga, with fast poses that changed frequently in a hot room preceded and followed by meditation. This, most definitely, was not what my body wanted after Saturdays ride and it may have aggravated my upper back, which is still stiff. Judging by Mondays new sore spots, it did seem to work my core out a bit, which isn't a bad thing but I would have been better off at a much slower pace with long easy stretches. No serious damage though, but it's Tuesday morning and my back is still stiff.

I took it very easy yesterday and may do the same today, I'll see how I feel on the ride to school and go from there. I'd rather wait until tomorrow morning to do hard intervals than overdue it before I'm fully recovered today. A two day break from cycling aside from my 5 mile commute is a little longer than I'd like, but I have to go by how I feel and not by what I expect of myself. The former is easier in terms of satisfying an addiction but a good way to promote injury while the latter takes a lot of willpower and by including rest will actually make me stronger than over-training.