Wyoguy

Confession, this is a skiing injury caused by not biking enough leading up to ski season. I started riding regularly towards the end of summer until it got too cold and the road icy. I then took an RV trip and had to leave the bike behind for fear of getting my bike stolen off the rack.

So to begin ski season my legs are not ready. I skied 5 runs hard and quit when my legs began to give out. My legs have been sore for a few days with deep ache in my quads. I am taking a few days off from skiing to let them recover. I plan on setting up a bike trainer and Zwift this winter. Would some light spinning on my bike trainer help my quads recover or prolong the number of days till I can ski again?

Carbonfiberboy 

Spinning usually helps. Say, 30', once a day. Besides the recovery aspect, light pedal pressure and high cadence will help build in some resistance to future muscle failure.

But what you really needed was gym work and cycling. Barbell squats, one-legged leg presses, stiff-legged deadlifts, dumbbell deadlifts, Roman chair, one-legged calf raises. Cycling does build leg strength if one does enough of it, especially long max effort climbs and hill sprints. I sure notice the difference when I've also been in the gym twice a week for a couple months before ski season.

But all that's now that I'm old. When I was young, I'd just keep skiing no matter what my legs felt like. I'd be over that in 3 days of skiing

rumrunn6

magnesium is a natural muscle relaxer. you can take it as a supplement in small doses, assuming you have hydrated with sodium potassium & calcium. you can also soak in an epsom bath. I'll bet massaging the legs in a hot tub would feel good too

streetsurfer

A good safe stretch for one muscle, is to work the opposing muscle on the other side of the bone. Stretch quads by working hamstrings. Per Bob Gajda, triple crown bodybuilder. The work causing a bone to bend to the worked side stretches the opposite. Less risk of a stretching injury this way.

You can use a tool such as a crafting/paper folding b o n e r, a flat-ish stone, etc., (I use a horse towel made of white oak), and massage toward the heart to move lymph fluid. Rebounding will also improve lymph flow.

If soaking in magnesium sulphate, don’t use soap. It can inhibit absorption.

good luck. This too shall pass.

BTinNYC 

A massage gun works wonders for my muscle pain. I use it for 30-40 minutes in the evenings after a hard workout. Makes the next day's work a lot easier.

Heck yes, Zwift and working out will help your ski legs!

blacknbluebikes 

1. arnica montana - dunno why, but it works 2. foam roller massage therapy. 3. consistent delivery of ibuprofen
I find there is some cross-over between cycling and skiing, but there are quite a few muscles/tendons used in skiing that cycling doesn't help, especially hip ab/aductors. Skiing still demands some other toning beyond the bike, but the bike does help a lot.

rumrunn6

I try not to use ibuprophen for muscle soreness after hearing about:

The effects of ibuprofen on muscle hypertrophy, strength, and soreness during resistance training
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1846...nce%20exercise.

Why Popping Too Much Ibuprofen Can Mess With Your Muscle Gains
https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a...muscle-growth/

The Effects of NSAIDs on Muscle Adaption to Exercise
https://franklinsquarept.com/nsaids-...le-adaptation/

canklecat

An easy spin on the indoor trainer works best for me. Which reminds me, I need to set up the trainer again in the living room so I can watch TV or movies. More relaxing for long easy spins, no temptation to turn it into a workout session.

I rarely get sore muscles from cycling anymore but often do from running when I do occasional interval sessions. Including this week. Quads, calves, even my right heel is sore, which is probably referred pain from a strained achilles tendon. But I neglected to take my own advice and set up the trainer to spin as soon as I got home. Instead I took a long nap, possibly the worst thing to do after that kind of workout. Woke up stiff and achy, been that way all week.

Or just time and rest. I have a hunch most miracle cures for soreness, aches and pains related to exercise are actually a way of passing the time while waiting for rest to heal the injuries. I've been taking alpha lipoic acid for a few weeks for cervical spine nerve pain, on advice from several folks. At first I thought it was helping, but realized it wasn't doing a thing for chronic lower back and hip pain. So I suspect the real reason for the neck pain easing up was because I was spending less time on the bike and more time running. All I managed to accomplish was giving the neck time to rest and heal, while transferring the burden elsewhere on the body.

I've tried GABA, HMD, magnesium, pretty much every supplement available. Can't say any of them actually works. When the advice claims we need to give it time to work -- two to eight weeks -- such as with alpha lipoic acid, there's a pretty good chance the advisers are conflating time and rest with the presumed efficacy of the supplement.

It's not like taking an NSAID or acetaminophen and feeling relief within an hour. But, as noted above, ibuprofen and other NSAIDs may not be the best thing to take after a workout if the goal is adaptation. At my age I'm not really adapting to anything anymore, just maintaining fitness and delaying the inevitable. If I'm still in pain from inflammation a day later, I'm taking a couple of ibuprofen. But I try to keep it to a minimum. Due to an auto-immune disorder, if I take ibuprofen longer than two or three days I'll develop psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis symptoms (recently confirmed by published studies). So I try to take Vitamin I only on occasions when nothing else helps: rest, cold packs, soaks in a hot bath with Epsom salts, massage, TENS unit, etc.

I also like my heavy marble rolling pin. It's mostly a kitchen decorative item that actually gets used once a year for baking. But it gets more use for massaging my quads, hips and calves. The cool marble and weight make it easy, less muscle involved than other methods. I also use it before running, rather than stretching. Seems to work for me, especially if I'm still a bit stiff and sore from the previous day's workout.