Racingboo

If you want to say I did a stupid thing, please get in line behind me. I've told myself this to distraction over the last 2 days

After maintaining adequate fitness for cycling days (once a week, usually on a Sunday) on my Globe Sport Hybrid (do not say anything bad about my bike, I love him to pieces and he's served me wonderfully) to be 100km - that's 60miles - or longer trips to be satisfying, or shorter but then with as much climbing as possible, I let my riding lapse. There were many personal challenges this year, and for about five months my cycling record was relatively dismal. I was still pretty fit and am very active in my normal daily life, though.

As my personal life righted itself the last month or two, I've been going out cycling again. Bliss! Wonder! I'm back where I belong, on the road! I worked up to a 46km outing, very hilly, and the next week (this last Sunday) I decided to push for that 100km barrier again as I desperately needed that, mentally. I realised it would be a bit of a risk, but there's a route nearby which is flat as a pancake, and I thought if I took it easy it would be fine.

On the day, I turned around at the 45km mark as I was feeling incredibly good and thought I'd fit in a bit of hills on the way back, taking a small detour home. At the point where I'd have to go either the short way home, over the mountains home or the loooong way round home, I still felt on top of the world and made a snap decision to take the long way, which has a few small climbs but isn't a very difficult route and is very pleasant cycling.

Too far into it to turn back, I became AWARE of my upper right tendon, the one that lies just below the hard bony bit of my hip. I'd hurt it before and had to go on anti-inflammatories and stick to the most boring flat cycling in the world for two weeks. It didn't hurt yet, and I did my best to favour that leg, but it was unavoidable: the tendon left me no doubt that it's seriously unhappy about the abuse I put it through by the time I got back home. I'm too ashamed to admit how far I'd cycled.

I went straight to the doctor Monday, am on 600mg 3x a day anti-inflammatories (I think it's something related to Ibuprofen) and have been very careful to take it as easy as possible. Using the car for everything, and paying for parking instead of parking far and walking a km or so to get where I want to be (yes, I'm the world's greatest cheapskate ).

The doctor said, as I expected, tendon overuse injury, surprised me a bit by adding 'possibly even a mild bursitis'. I want to cry my eyes out because I know I now have to be very careful not to go cycling again too soon. But I had just made up my mind last week to start doing triathlons, and was all set to start adding running to my weekly routine in preparation for a small duathlon end January 2010. I'd have just managed to fit the 8-week training schedule in if I started this week. That's out the window now.

I have four questions:
1. Are there any supplements/boosters I can take to help healing over and above the anti-inflammatories? I take Glucosamine Sulphate and a multivitamin every day.
2. How long do I wait before I can get back on the saddle? The dr said I must wait until it has stopped hurting, and then go for about 20km over easy ground, and build it up very slowly from there. He's a great guy and probably right, but he's not a cyclist. I thought I'd ask from people who do a lot of cycling for confirmation, or if you think I should possibly wait even longer, or if perhaps I can just do some swimming even before the pain is completely gone? And will I be okay to then maybe do three slow, easy 20km trips in a week instead of one 100km trip once in the week to start back up, or will that be taking too great a risk? I'm just devastated over losing fitness again when I've just got it back.
3. Prevention: while I realise I'd been a big idiot this week, the fact is this same tendon got hurt before (June last year), when I was at peak fitness, on an easy ride (though I concede it's possible the injury had been building up over weeks and just happened to reach pain point at that time). Is there anything I can do to stop this happening again?
4. I'd stopped for an hour's rest before setting out again, and it's after this that the tendon started becoming sore. It was a cold day, too. Is it possible that was the mistake, rather than overdoing it? I'm not trying to find an out here from the fact that I was really stupid, but I do want to take whatever steps needed to avoid this happening again.

Not being able to even cycle the kids to school is agony. I hate it. Please help if you can with advice that can help me back in the saddle, without the problem recurring, as soon as possible. Thanks for reading this far.

enfilade

First off, let me say you're not alone. So many of us are in the same boat. You can find literally hundreds of examples just by doing a search on this forum. I picked up an injury myself 10 weeks ago (knees), and I haven't used my bike since. The upside, if I can say that, is that it's winter here (UK) so riding conditions aren't brilliant anyway.

I don't know how bad your injury is, but I'd wait atleast several months before doing any cycling, then get back into it slowly. Allow your body time to heal fully before going on a ride again. If it's tendonitis or bursitis, each day you rest now reduces the chances of re-injury.

Do you stretch enough? Hows your flexibility? Mines always been poor so I've started stretching daily. I think that will help me avoid injury in the future. Also, Yoga and Pilates might help in that area.

My injury came on in similar circumstances to yours. I'd increased my mileage, it was a cold night (knees were bare), and I was taking frequent breaks, because I'd really overworked my muscles in the month before injury. If I knew then what I know now, I would've seen this injury coming. I wasn't training properly at all.

Here's a list of things I'm going to change in 2010.

Stretch daily
Warm up for 10-15 minutes before rides
Start slowly, gradually increase pace
Buy clipless pedals
Learn to spin (I was a big masher before)
Start off with very short rides. Increase frequency of rides, then increase milage. Never increase both in the same week.
Allow body time to heal
Get professional massage fortnightly
Self massage every few days (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSYOQEzIugo)
Fit bike properly. Shoe inserts?
Buy proper bike trousers and use them on all chilly rides. Knee warmers underneath trousers on really cold rides.


(If I do all these things and my injury persists, I'll be PISSED )

Being injured sucks, but if you do everything right I think there's a pretty good chance you can beat it for good. Put in the time, stretch, stretch, stretch.

Good luck!

Carbonfiberboy 

I'd say, try this: Let it rest completely 4 days. While you're resting, you might think about buying a cheap trainer. My guess is that the worst of the pain should be over by then. So then try cycling for just 30 minutes, at a slow enough pace that you wouldn't sweat much on a summer day. Or you could figure to cut your normal riding speed by about a third. See how you feel the next day. Worse? Better? Same? If better or same, do it again, no more than 30 minutes. If worse, wait longer and try again. I mentioned the trainer because it's easier to do short, easy rides on a trainer, away from the tempations and vagaries of the outdoors. What you want to do is to do a short ride like that every day if possible. IME, that's the quickest and best way to rehab an injury like that. When that feels OK, try riding more normally, gradually increasing distance and intensity. No big jumps. But keep the riding frequent, at least 4 times/week.

I don't know of any supplements that will help. Your probably right about the break being the problem. I don't like to break for over 20 minutes, 10 is better. Prevention is mostly the rule of don't do a weekend ride that's more than 3 times longer than your usual weekday training ride. So if you commonly ride 20 miles during the week, 60 miles on the weekend will be fine. Or better, make it hours instead of miles. Extending that, to ride a double century, you'll want to be putting in one or two 60 mile rides during the week, plus some shorter, harder rides, and have worked up to longer rides on weekends.

Racingboo

Enfilade:

Thanks so much for your reply. Your list of what you're going to change this year gave me a lot of food for thought, and I'm going to look into making a similar list. The words 'months to recover' of course are not nice to hear, but really, rather that than now not handling the whole thing properly and ending up taking years to recover instead!

Re stretching, no, I don't do any at all. I usually just start out riding slowly, and build up speed as I get warmer. The more I think about it, the more I think it might have been a big contributing factor that I'd got quite cold as I rested and then set off again.

Flexibility - I've always had a relatively high level of natural flexibility, but I haven't been doing any exercise specifically aimed at increasing this. I just looked into joining a really good gym close to here and getting the well trained staff's help in addressing the shortcomings in my exercise routine.

Being injured sucks indeed. Big time. I'll be thinking of you and hope you recover fully, and in time for summer (if we get one this year - we've had more than our share of rain in Ireland recently).

Racingboo

Carbonfiberboy:

Thanks for the reply, and I'll see what I can do. There's a fantastic gym just around the corner with affordable membership, and I could go there and use one of their trainers.

I'm glad you feel the same as I do, that the break was probably the problem. Thanks also for the one-to-three rule. It's that kind of stuff I need to learn, as I think my riding aspirations have moved beyond being no more than a weekend warrior. I have to find a place where I can learn how to progress to a higher level without killing myself. This seems to me to confirm that I need to join a decent gym, and a tri club, otherwise where am I going to find out this stuff?

Thanks again for your advice.

enfilade

Yeah, best to take it easy for a while. I'll second what Carbonfiberboy said about taking a few days break now, from everything. I made the mistake of trying to rehab my knees immediately. I started doing muscle building exercises daily without giving the legs the time to heal. Don't think that helped at all.

I've just seen my physio today, she's told me to stop all strength exercises for a month and just focus on flexibility. Mine's very poor for a 21 year old. Also, the bodies like a chain, one part affects another. My knee problems could stem from a tight back or tight glutes, for example, so I've got to work on everything now. It's kind of a pain, she said I'll have to put in loads of time if I want to see improvements. Fortunately I've not got much on my plate at the moment.. got lots of time off work over the next month or two so I'm really gonna hit it and hope it's worth it.

Let us know how you get on with your rehab.

Racingboo

Enfilade, Carbonfiberboy, thanks again for your input. It seems the injury wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I think personally that after hurting it before, I knew what it felt like when the tendon just started getting unhappy and acted fast enough to prevent it becoming a real pain to try and get rid of.

Been taking the anti-inflammatory drugs religiously and I did NOTHING even remotely strenuous for a full week, not even walked if I could help it. I went for a sedate and easy ride of only 26km on Sunday morning (yesterday) and was sure to ride at a snail's pace for a full km before putting the speed up a little so as to warm up. No pain or discomfort, so I'm going to go for an equally easy run tomorrow (but with thorough warm-up exercises beforehand) and see how things go.

Thought I'd let you know, thanks again for the advice. Enfilade, I'm thinking of you through your recovery and just feel lucky that so far it looks as if I'm not as badly affected as you are. I'll probably also go to a local acupuncturist whom I trust for a few treatments, just to back up the meds and rest.

Good luck with your recovery, and hope you're back on the bike soon.

gypz

dont let it get to this point, rest is best for tendons, over use leads to tears or worse. my trouble started about mid october, i continued to ride on it with the help of anti-inflammatory drugs and rest for 2 weeks, foot felt better, back on the bike. The pain came and went, so the Dr. says I have damaged it further. now this......................................see attached, i guess the doctor found a way to force me to let it heal. The problem now is I cant even drive.
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...2-foot-problem

enfilade

Thanks for your words Racingboo. Glad you're feeling better, keep it up!

koffee brown

Dood, I'm not even going to answer your questions. They're insane.

Can I just give you some unsolicited tough love? IF YOU HAVE AN OVERUSE INJURY, THEN YOU ARE OVERDOING IT!!!! It's only December, and you are already hurt? Then instead of listening to your body, you want to take some supplements?

Get a grip on your workouts! Get control over your body! Listen to what your body and your doctor is telling you! You need some time off the bike. If you were my client, I'd make you swim, do some yoga/pilates, work with light weights/high reps/multiple sets, and get some regular massage set up. You seriously are trying to rush things and take the easy way out, and if you continue down this path, you won't be in any triathlon come time for triathlon season.

So many people want to "train like the pros". Pros don't train like this. Pros are smart and getting stronger in the off season with a gradual, periodized training program and working on base building and increasing aerobic capacity. Pros are cross training because they know that it'll help increase their endurance and take the stress off the muscles they normally use. I'm not saying you're exactly trying to emulate the pros, but maybe you should. Train smarter, not harder... there is absolutely no reason why you should have placed yourself into this situation, and I promise you- if you don't get yourself that time off and focus on other types of training, you'll be back in bikeforums asking for the same advice come June, only the next time, maybe you won't recover at all, and you'll miss the whole season. How's that for a big ole run on sentence, btw?

Rest rest REST! Start cross training. Get a good, knowledgeable coach/trainer. You want to be strong for the triathlons? Do what the doctor said, get rest, and start back slow!

I wish you luck. Really.

koffee

Racingboo

Hey, Koffee, thanks for the input, I appreciate it.

I am indeed off the bike, went for acupuncture with a guy who also is knowledgable about massage (and fully qualified in both disciplines) and I'm following his instructions - no exercise whatsoever except easy walking until the pain is completely gone (even if that means little or no activity for several weeks), after that some easy biking and swimming to start with.

Everything you said there were points I realised myself over the last week, and confirm what I felt was at the bottom of my problem. The acupuncturist said exactly the same: "Listen to your body, it's telling you you're doing things wrong." I felt as if my body was out of my control, and am only starting to feel as if I'm wrestling things back into my own hands today. The acupuncturist said another thing which made me understand better where I was messing up: "It's like a bank balance, and you were making withdrawals without having made deposits. Injury is like going into overdraft."

We have a gym nearby with a specialist triathlon trainer working with them, but there's not much I can do about joining until around half way through January. Until then, I'll rather be safe than sorry where exercise is concerned.

I'm still not sure tri is what I want to do, and should maybe just scrape together the courage to ask questions about it on the forums. As for rushing, it certainly wasn't my intention. The injury resulted from one day of being stupid and going on "But I feel great, sure I can go another few miles!" instead of "Look, I've come the distance I'd planned to do, let me go home now even though I'm really enjoying myself." I think my planned training programme in general is not too harsh. Even so, there are a few changes I want to make to it to take things even easier, and there are long reasons for that which I'm sure will bore you silly so I won't go into it here.

*blushes* I wasn't exactly training, in my view. I was doing my normal happy cycling and was planning to start a 'proper' training programme in the week following my folly. That has obviously not happened. I went for a short cycle after just more than a week's rest, it went well, so next I did a very short and easy run, but had some pain again and stopped immediately.

I wouldn't dream of even in my wildest fantasies aspiring to do anything like a pro. Pro and me don't really feel comfortable on the same page, never mind in the same sentence. I'm going to stop now and spill my angst on this subject elsewhere, as it would be going off topic.

Koffee, thanks from the bottom of my heart for your input. A lot of what you said resonated with and confirmed conclusions I'd reached independently, and I needed that confirmation.

Racingboo

koffee brown

Dood, it's all about tough love... tough luv. I hope that you'll find someone that can help you to pinpoint your goals and then help you get there sensibly and in one piece!

koffee

Racingboo

This is just the weirdest injury I've ever had to deal with (not that I've had to deal with many, in fact it's only the second second time in my life something like this has happened to me). I've been very good with resting and no excercise, I've even avoided walking where possible. I had to stop the anti-inflammatories, as I started getting serious heartburn. I realise it will take a lot of time, but I did think over a week one would at least notice a tiny difference. Instead I thought it was getting worse!

One suggestion given to me was to do some very careful stretching, so yesterday I went for a ten minute slow walk to warm up, then stretched. It felt so good. And what really blew me away was that after stretching, the tendon felt much, much, much better. Last night, though, after sitting still for a long time, I got up to find the leg more painful than even the day I hurt it. What the hell? But last night I also chatted to a friend of mine who is a doctor who encouraged me to continue the stretching. So I did the stretches again this morning, this time after a hot bath to warm the body - maybe the walk had been too much?

It was absolutely amazing, I'm still just shaking my head. After stretching, I had NO PAIN. I'm not exaggerating, and I kept moving the leg to make sure it's not my imagination. There was no pain whatsoever, not even a little bit. As time passed, the pain slowly returned, but now I'm sitting at the PC with a hot beanbag draped over the area. I've decided to restart the anti-inflammatory drugs, taking the maximum allowed dose, and once the beanbag has cooled down I'm going to put an ice pack on the leg. I'll give it as long as I can stand it, then apply heat again.

I'm a bit on my own with this, because of the time of year and a strained pocket after buying all the kids' Christmas gifts I can't see a specialist trainer for advice right now. I'm planning to do that around middle January if all goes according to plan. In the meantime, if any of you see something here that makes you go: "Oh, f*ck, no!" please let me know.

I'm not getting back on the bike or doing any other kind of training until I've seen the specialist trainer at the gym I plan to join. Until then I'm rather doing nothing than taking the chance of messing this tendon up more, even if it feels as if it's completely healed.

StanSeven

I've had the same thing before. It's usually caused by tight hip flexors. Hills or sprinting makes it worse.

Stretching really helps. Do a google search of hip flexor (iliopsoas) stretches. The thing to watch out for is overstretching by doing it too hard.

Carbonfiberboy 

I find that exercise heals me quicker than not doing anything. Nothing that makes my legs feel loaded, just a fair good bit of moderate. Which makes sense, to me anyway. If I want to teach my body to do something - teaching is a active verb. Get that circulation up, loosen up, get fluid to those damaged tissues. Always worked for me.

Racingboo

Very excited about that, thanks Stan. I googled it and will add the demonstrated exercises to the next stretch session.

Carbonfiberboy, thanks for that, and I must concur. Just resting didn't seem to do the job for me, though resting from activities which can make things worse seems vital. I was very happy this morning with how much better I felt. Will be repeating yesterday's regime of maximum dose anti-inflammatories, gentle and careful stretches, alternating application of heat and cold.

Racingboo

Another reply, for the sake of those perhaps finding this thread when looking for info on similar injuries in the future:

The regime of stretching and maximum dose anti-inflammatories seems to have worked. I decreased the dose after four days, and stopped taking them after a week. Though I can still feel the tendon in certain movements, and the hip still pops (like when you crack your knuckles) when I start up the stairs, it's not hurting any more. I'm still taking a herb in capsule form called Comfrey, which people in South Africa might be familiar with, and also rubbing Comfrey ointment directly onto the area where I had pain twice a day. In addition to this, I take cod liver oil (in capsule form) with my daily multivitamin. This alone can't fix things, but I believe every little helps.

I started cycling again this week, but only 6km on Monday, 8km on Tuesday, and 10km today. I'll probably stick to 10km tomorrow and Friday as well. Next week, I'm going to start running, but will be sticking carefully to a walk/run routine, then gradually eliminate the walking parts. I will cut back immediately if there's any pain. Stretching is now part of my daily routine, and I'm convinced it helped a lot with recovery.

Carbonfiberboy 

Comfrey tea is pretty good, too. I sometimes drink it. Should be able to find it in bulk at a heath foods store or co-op. FDA says it can cause liver damage when taken internally. Probably depends on quantity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfrey

koffee brown

Try Arnica gel. You can find it at Whole Foods. A lot of athletes swear by it.

Recently, I found I had a mild groin strain. I've had it much worse before, but this was excrutiating. I just bit my lip every time I had to move and had tears in my eyes if I had any sudden movements. It took me five minutes just to get out of bed every morning. But the arnica gel helped quite a bit. I've nearly recovered from the pain, but I'm still taking it easy for the next few weeks until I know I'm totally healed. No anti-inflammatories for me, but I do like to ice the area and treat with the arnica gel. No exercise either, but I'm hoping next week, I can resume some extremely light exercise and build up over the next six weeks.

koffee

Racingboo

Ah, Arnica, I've used that before. It is indeed great stuff, and if my mom hadn't sent the Comfrey I'd have gone looking for some of that. Koffee, I so appreciate that you described your approach to recovering from the groin strain, because it really helps me to hear how careful someone who knows his stuff is when dealing with injury. It makes me feel a bit less stupid to be doing so little.

The running went well this week, 15 minutes of a run one minute, walk one minute approach. Monday's run brought a little pain and stiffness in the hip AFTER the exercise. Tuesday's cycle (again 10km, should mention there was a lot of wind) went very well with less pain than the day before, I was again tempted to do more but I am so sticking to the training programme I have this time. Wednesday, through circumstances beyond my control, I couldn't train. Thursday I swam, only 200m as per training programme, and again no pain. At this point I started wondering if I might have to accept running is not for me, but yesterday I did my run on a treadmill as opposed to road. I had not the tiniest twitch of pain, either during the run or after. I think I'll do the majority of my running on a treadmill, and save whatever capacity I build up to take the hard pounding of the road for events I want to participate in.

I'm going to go for a 'long cycle' tomorrow, unless the weather is terrible (wind, really, or if it rains buckets: any other bad weather is not a big deal for cycling). Sadly, when I say long, I mean I'll do 30km. Pathetic, but there you go. I let this happen to myself, and I now just have to do what needs to be done - or rather, not do what needs to be refrained from - until I have completely recovered.

$ick3nin.vend3t

Although people will not agree with me but I have NEVER let strains, minor tears, aches, pains etc recover 100%, never. As I write this I have a tear of the triceps brachii. I know of the exercise which has constantly made this injury reoccur for the past 2 months (Barbell rows), but I still performed them because the other strength exercises I was doing went onto curing it & making it feel better, Push Ups, Rowing etc.

So now its out with the barbell rows & in with one arm dumbell rows instead & see how that goes, hopefully it will take some of the back strain out of the movement.

Its like when you go out for your first ride & its strenuous. You get back home & your legs are hurting. I'm not going to hang around for a week for my legs recover 100%, I'm out 2 days later, yeah it aches but they subside over a week or two.

What I would suggest you do is to strengthen the injury area with a non impact strengthening exercise, this will put you in good stead. Your not going to do the exercise to failure, just strengthen that particular weak point. Start out light weight, see how it goes, then increase but listen to your body. Any slight feeling of it reoccuring, STOP, come back tommorrow, lighten the weight, go on small rides build up the tolerance for that muscle.

You can drown your body in supplements, the problem won't go away. You need to build up the muscles tolerance, in regards to the volume of effort your putting into it.

koffee brown

As an update to you, the groin strain is soooooooo much better! I am recovering a lot more quickly than the last time I had a groin strain, though it has really shot my hamstring flexibility and is creating all kinds of havoc on my lower back- I'm having some real pain issues in my low back. DEEP DEEP DEEP tissue massage with an aggressive massage therapist who really tears up my lower back, legs, groin and shoulders once a week is doing wonders for me. I've budgeted for my massages indefinitely. I've also incorporated pilates reformer once a week into my therapy so I can work to increase my range of motion, and though it hurts, it is helping me quite a bit. I still have a lot of pain with sudden movements, and I am not doing much exercise when teaching classes, but I can do something, which is pretty good going into my third week of having my injury.

Baby steps.

koffee

deep_sky

Hope you enjoy being eventually crippled. Clearly you don't even know the difference between a muscle and a tendon, and as such should not be giving any sort of advice.

Racingboo

Koffee, really glad to hear you're on the mend. I seem to have a more deep-lying problem with the upper right thigh area, which is probably related to my lower back. No more injury type pain, but whenever I do feel a bit tender it's always there, and when I'm stretching I feel pain in that area which is apparently not normal to feel (on my back in foetal postion, pulling the knees gently towards the chest). However, I'm addressing all the possible causes, and am taking care not to re-injure.

*****3nin.vend3t , you're brave to post an opinion which you're aware would be unpopular. Kudos to you for that. I'd point out that in something like training and exercise, conventional wisdom with regards to injury and recovery has been learned through trial and error over many years. I found it interesting that even the adage 'no pain no gain', when interpreted to mean 'no suffering no advancing', is being questioned. This is from random reading on the web, so most likely someone on here could enlighten us on this principle with more solid knowledge than I possess. It seems gradual build-up is ever more favoured as the better way to train, rather than the gruelling self-punishment that used to be advocated as the only way to advance.

I think you're awesome to have such great self-discipline that you can stick to training in spite of pain, but please do perhaps reconsider, as I think you do risk long-term damage to your body if you force it to comply with your considerable willpower this way.

koffee brown

Oh dear.

Racingboo, I haven't been around to update.

What started as a groin pull seemed like a miracle that I recovered so quickly. Then, I started with the deep glute pain the last time I posted here. The groin pain was gone, but this glute pain was just excrutiating. So I was rehabbing for that. Then the REAL problem manifested itself- turns out I injured my SI Joint (sacral-illiac joint). Apparently, when the SI Joint is injured, other symptoms that can appear includes pain in the groin and lower back pain (sciatic nerve). *sigh* I'm back at square one trying to get myself back together and going stir crazy because I can't do any real exercise that's strenuous- and I'm gaining weight! Well, I can get the weight loss back down, but the healing process is soooooooooooooooooo slooooooooooooooooowwwwww. :-/

koffee