TMonk

Quick update on my knee - I'm feeling some progress and optimism! I was able to ride for 3 hrs on Saturday with some solid climbing.

Spent the weekend with a buddy (his bday) up in Big Bear to ride MTB and drink beers with him, with the disclaimer that I might not be riding a whole lot and doing some strengthening/stretching work. I did quite a bit of glute activation pre-ride and tried the Kinesio Tape for the first time, with a general "full knee support" taping strategy to keep my knee in place.

It seems like it worked! I'm excited that I may have a temporary "band aid" that can let me put in a halfway decent ride here and there while I work on the underlying problems. I had planned on dropping out of the Skyline Loop at the top of Snow Summit resort and taking one of the green or blue lines back into the village, which is like 1/3 - 1/2 the whole route. But I felt great and wasn't feeling and perceptible symptoms, which I did not expect.

For a week or so, I had been looking into the glute thing and focusing on activation exercise every day. A week ago I couldn't really contract my left glute in an isolated fashion like I could my right. That took some brain//neuro training but now I can do that much more readily. Over the next couple weeks, I'd like to do some light body weight stuff and eventually get to a point where I can do some focused weighted work targeting my glutes and lower stabilization muscles.

I'm not going to let this short term success derail my long term plans of having a balanced, strong lower body and then building up volume from a more healthy starting point.