Originally Posted by
Syscrush
Well, we plan, covid19 laughs... Through some combination of time, careful use, and the covid-mandated changes in my routine, my rotator cuffs are feeling almost 100% better. It took longer than what the physio guessed, but I also think that what she and the surgeon said was a bunch of BS. It all just sounded like bro science. The idea that severe pain in a joint is because one weird supporting muscle is somehow too weak just makes zero sense to me. Why would it be unbalanced? It's not like I'm a bodybuilder hitting the Nautilus machines to hyper-isolate specific shoulder muscles and ignoring others. Everything I do with my arms is natural compound movements - functional stuff like loading kids into and out of various conveyances, etc. It's an overuse injury, and probably related to my hypermobile shoulder joints.
The pandemic has completely disrupted life for me and my family - the need to care for young kids and try to balance that against work commitments was all-consuming and anything like training just got shoved out of my life. I also did a poor job of managing all of the stresses and self-medicated with food. I didn't gain significant weight, but didn't lose anything, either. On the other hand, I've stayed on the wagon - zero cheating on the injuction against booze. Back on disruptions, there's no way that we're gonna be in a position to hop on a plane to Hawaii in Jan 2021. I would love to be wrong about this, but I'm assuming that HI in the next 12 months is probably a no-go. I'm on the fence about whether to keep the same goal and just defer it, or to come up with a new goal. I have time to think about it.
As the work-kids tension was too much out of balance for our family, I'm taking leave now to focus on caring for the kids. To get some training in, I've decided to finally do what I joked about for a long time - the power meter pedals and the bike computer are on the cargo bike, and I've started doing HIIT-type training rides of up to an hour with both kids loaded up and the e-assist disabled. The weight of everything as we're rolling down the road is right around 400 lbs right now. It's quite a workout even at modest speeds and the relatively gentle hills around here.
I'm still weighing options for how best to review and analyze the data from my Assioma Duo power pedals, and how to set good goals and track progress.
My guess about the shoulders is that you're right and they're wrong. Unless you had a hard fall or a weight lifting injury, impingement is the more usual cause of shoulder pain.
https://www.sports-health.com/sports...er-impingement
The problem is that we used to spend a lot of time hanging from our hands - remember monkey bars in school play yards? Now that we're adults, our arms have gradually drug our
acromion down, reshaping that bone and making the space beneath it smaller. The fix is very simple: hang by your hands from an overhead bar for say, two 1-minute hangs every day. That's it. If that's the issue, it'll fix the pain inside a month. If it isn't, well hanging from your hands is good for you anyway. After the pain goes away, maybe once a week will keep it gone. Been there, experienced that, fixed it.
I use a Garmin Edge 800, now many years old, to acquire power and all other data. I upload it to TrainingPeaks for storage and analysis. I have a Premium account, totally worth the $119/year or whatever it is. It takes some experience, reading, and a bit of research to figure out what the data means and how to optimize one's training, or indeed how to "train" at all and see the sort of improvement you're looking for. My guess is that just lots of riding is what you need to do right now. lots, like 2-3 hour steady rides, gradually working up to 10-12 hours/week. I'd put the HIIT way on a back burner. I know it's very hip, but unlikely to do what you need to do, which is build a huge amount of endurance. The only way to build endurance is to endure, which means lots of riding.
Yes, I think you need several intermediate goals. The usual progression is 60k, 100k, imperial century, 200k, 300k, double Imperial century. You probably don't need more continuous distance than that, though amount of climbing is another story. That's not going to happen in a few months. Depending on where you live, all this can be done solo in the Time of Covid.