It's been two weeks now since our shot of snow here in Tennessee, but still some snow remains on the ground. This is probably the longest I ever remember snow staying on the ground here. The only other time we approached two weeks was way back in 1994 when we had a massive ice storm. The storm took down many trees and power lines, leaving us without power for two full weeks. As a kid, I thought it was so fun. I got to stay home from school, play in the snow and cut trees with my Dad. Our backyard had at least 10 trees down in it, so we were busy cutting for several days. In one of the trees, we found four baby squirrels that had been abandoned by their mother. We took them in for several weeks, feeding them first with an eyedropper full of milk, then later with corn and nuts. Later in the Spring, they were big enough to fend for themselves and we released them into the woods. They were fun, but very crazy. There is no playing with a squirrel. Even when raised with people from their earliest days they are still a bundle of nervous energy. They're too skittish to handle and won't think twice about biting you.
With no electricity we had no refrigerator. But that was fine because it was cold enough to sit all your fridge items outside and they would keep just fine. My Dad brought home dry ice from work to help with the freezer items. We were building a bedroom onto the end of the house at that time. The bare floors were the perfect spot for our old kerosene heater to sit. It was like camping to me. I slept on the floor in front of the heater every night and my Mom made me Spaghetti-Os on top of the stove for lunch every day. It really was a fun time, though I hope to never see ice that bad again.
Training continues to go well. I've had some weird sensations in the lateral gastroc at times with longer rides, but it never gets worse or becomes painful. I'm so aware of that area now that I feel every little thing. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish what is fatigue and what is the muscle attempting to spasm again. I finished up my block of base training this week and had no soreness whatsoever so I'm thinking all these sensations are just fatigue. The muscle is still weak with longer rides and intensity. I really expected length to be more of an issue than intensity, but now I am easily handling four hour rides. The only time I feel the leg any at all is when I start going harder. I kept everything limited to 80% effort until the last two workouts when I gave it 100% just to test the water. Everything felt good. Actually, I put up some of the best heart rate numbers I have ever seen on the trainer.
This base period was 22 days long and it was the worst 22 days of weather I have seen in a long time. Still, I got in my ride time. Of the 19 rides I did during that period, 16 of them were spent on the trainer. Those three outside rides came in the first five days of the block. So, I've now been on the trainer 14 straight rides. I'm just now getting tired of it. I have found plenty of races and TV shows to watch to keep me entertained. I accepted that the trainer was my only option and it made things a lot easier. I actually like it because I can control all the variables and place the exact amount of stress on my leg muscles that I need right now. I knocked out many three hour rides and even two rides over four hours last week. That's a lot of inside ride time. If nothing else my bum will be ready for the season!
It feels like I have not been training that much, but when looking back at the past two years, I actually put in more ride time this February. My training has been much more specific and I feel more complete now that I have addressed some of my muscular deficits with off-the-bike workouts. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm getting close. I've actually put on a little muscle in the past two months. I'm good with adding weight as long as that transitions into improved power on the bike. My goal this period was to drop four pounds, but I only managed to lose one. I know some of that is muscle, but it is hard to tell. Everybody wants to think that their weight gain is muscle, but it rarely is. Still, I am well ahead of last year's mark at this time.
Even with the recent positive swings in training, I am delaying the start of my season until later in March. I was planning to begin with the Smashville Criterium in Nashville this Saturday, but I am nowhere near ready for that kind of intensity. I would rather skip it and prepare more so that my first race does not get my gastroc irritated again. Besides, I don't think I can afford the race. It has a $50 entry fee and no payout. While the entry fee does include a ticket to the Nashville Predators hockey game that night, it still does not help me out. I would want to take Shannon to the game and that means buying another ticket in the promotional section, which is an additional $60. I would love to support the Predators and race downtown around Bridgestone Arena, but we just can't afford to start our season off that way. Instead, I plan to kick of my season in Columbia, TN at the Chickasaw Trace Classic mountain bike race on March 22. I am excited to get back on the dirt.
When my injury was at its worst, I was quite frustrated by my friends and colleagues. Nobody would take the time to help me narrow down the source of my pain. With lots of studying, diligent observation of my symptoms and plenty of prayers, Shannon and I finally found the source. Now that I have things worked out and am rolling down the path to recovery, everybody wants to put in their two cents. It really is amazing how so many of my fellow therapists have no idea how to train an athlete, especially an endurance athlete. I'm not saying I am an expert, but some of the theories I hear from people with doctorate degrees have been frightening at times. Of course, I am doing things all wrong. I have found that when I start getting a lot of opposition from people around me then it means I'm doing something right and good things tend to follow when I stick to my guns.
I have learned a lot from my self-rehab. For instance, it takes much less intensity, resistance and reps to improve strength and stability than I ever thought. I have always destroyed myself with weights. I give it 100% effort all the time and go until I'm exhausted. That's the way we are taught. If you don't lift heavy weight, you won't make gains. I took a different approach this time due to the injury. It forced me to start light and gradually increase both resistance and volume. While I feel like I am doing 25% of the work I did before, I am seeing better results and am more motivated. No longer am I so fatigued after weights that I don't want to ride. No longer am I overly sore. Yet I continue to see huge gains in the strength of every muscle I am working. I feel consistency has made the difference. I have been dedicated and not missed a single workout. I listen to my body more and have recovered better between workouts to maximize gains. I have found the sweet spot with my volume and can see a big difference in the efficiency of my workouts. I am accomplishing more with less time and less effort.
In therapy, we see so many injuries from CrossFit and Boot Camp. I don't think there is anything wrong with their workouts. The problem is with the people doing the workout. Basic exercises have totally kicked my butt and I am a Pro-level athlete. Take some Joe off the couch and put him in CrossFit doing power cleans, jump lunges and push ups in rings and you can see how he is setting himself up for an injury. You have to build yourself up to those more difficult exercises and it takes time. You body has to adapt and you have to learn proper form. But most people will never take that time because flipping heavy tires and swinging thick ropes is "cool." I'll see the "cool" people in therapy very soon.
Besides the intensity issue, I want to discuss the biggest criticism that has been around my whole life. If you are an endurance athlete, I'm sure you have heard this too. "You need to put on muscle mass." Why? What good is hauling extra pounds up a mountain if it is doing nothing to help you pedal faster? Every single one of my colleagues still treats every athlete like a football player. You don't have to be a big gargantuan to be a Pro athlete, but that stereotype is still going strong. I have one friend that will argue with me on this issue until he is blue in the face. Mass is only good if it serves a purpose. For football, size can be a good thing because you get hit all day. You can use it as sort of a cushion. We don't tackle in cycling...at least not on purpose. Neither do runners or swimmers. Strength is good for football, but only if it comes with speed. A huge offensive lineman that can bench 600 pounds is useless if he can't produce that strength quickly. That is called power. A defensive back half his size who can only bench 300 pounds, but can produce his 300 pounds of force in half the time, will run the big lineman over every time. Strength does not always translate to power. You have to produce your strength quickly, especially in a sport with quick bursts like football. So, size and strength are not automatically an advantage.
I always ask those people that say I need bigger muscles if they have ever watched any endurance event on TV. Do you ever see giant runners, cyclists or triathletes at the Olympics? No. We all look the same. And there is a reason for this. Aerobic endurance events stress Type I muscle fibers more than Type II. Type I do not hypertrophy as much as Type II, so the muscle fibers have less cross-sectional area. Serious weightlifting stresses more of the Type II fibers, which respond with greater size gains. It's two different kinds of training. You will only see gains in your sport if you train specifically for your sport. For some reason, the bench press remains a "gold standard" for how strong someone is. There are many coaches and trainers out there that believe the bench press helps every athlete. But the bench press is only specific to pushing with you arms. If your sport does not require pushing with your arms, then you are wasting your training time.
Endurance athletes also tend to burn more fat for fuel, leading to lower body fat percentages. People get caught up in the notion that a skinny person has no muscle. That is not true. Often the skinny endurance athletes have plenty of muscle, just not much fat around those muscles to give the perception of size. Pound for pound, many endurance athletes probably have more muscle on their body than a lot of non-endurance athletes.
In endurance events, it all boils down to your power:weight ratio. Basically, how strong are you compared to how much mass you are carrying. Therefore, adding muscle is slowing you down unless that added muscle increases your power output in your sport. It doesn't seem like rocket science to me, but everyone around me seems to struggle with this. I think that if bigger muscles were better, we would see big muscleheads winning the Tour de France...and we don't. Most of my colleagues think little of my CSCS certification, especially when compared to their doctorate, but at least I learned that there is a difference between training for football and cycling. You can't use a cookie-cutter approach to train every type of athlete.
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