Corrective exercise: my personal, and happy, experience

mikenetic

There’s been a bit of discussion about core & conditioning exercise on the forum, this is my personal experience. I’ve recently started a corrective exercise program to address some problems I’ve been having on, and as a result, off, the bike.

This is a bit of a long post, but I wanted to write it up as I think this kind of service could help quite a few riders out there.

My assessment and exercise program were done with Jo McRae, http://www.trainingforcyclists.co.uk/ who works with Mal of Le Beau Velo http://www.lebeauvelo.co.uk/ in London. To be clear at this point, I’ve got no vested interest; I’m just a very happy customer.

I’m in my late-thirties, rode MTBs in my youth and then entered a period of relative inactivity, apart from a bit of golf (more on that later). Several years ago I got a bike for commuting and rediscovered my love of cycling in a big way. I thought of myself as reasonably fit and healthy, having gone on to do sportives, centuries, an unsupported JOGLE and a little bit of CX racing. I'm no aspiring pro, but I like to get out there, ride hard, and have fun.

However, I felt like I was constantly chasing minor injuries; sore Achilles, inner thigh strains, and soreness in the back of the left knee. And then, I started to get a bad back. I couldn’t push hard on the bike without the right side of my back grumbling. It was starting to hurt walking and lying in bed too. Basically, it was really starting to take the fun out of it for me.

Finally, my saddle height was never comfortable when raised up at “calculated” heights, so all in all I suspected something was up with my body, but I wasn’t sure what.

I had an initial consultation with Jo in mid-December, where she made an assessment of my range of movement and strength, after a chat about my background and goals.

The summary was that my hamstrings were very (“chronically”, in Jo’s words) tight, my core abdominal and back strength were poor, my lower back was inflexible and to top it off the right side of my back was tighter than the left, possibly as a result of my foolish dalliance with golfing. Desk jobs and golf are not happy bedfellows with bikes, it would seem.

Since then I’ve been following a plan that has a range of very targeted stretches to address the problems, plus strength work for my core and back. The way I think about it is I’m trying to improve things that my day job and cycling leave weak so that they can better balance the areas that cycling makes (overly) strong.

It’s been a reasonable amount of work, I do the stretches every day and other parts of the program twice a week, but already I’m very happy with the results. I’m more flexible than I can every remember being, and I got on the bike on New Year’s day went for a ride and the pains had gone. For the first time in months only the right stuff hurt when I pressed on.

Having been back for the second half of the exercise program I also got a simple check on my bike fit. As a result my saddle height is up, bars are down, but I’m still comfortable and I can now bring other muscle groups more into use. There's no way I could have ridden this kind of position before starting the program, well at least not for very long.

So, for me, the long and the short of it is don’t assume that just riding your bike is going to make you fit to ride your bike. You need to think about how your body is reacting to the requirements of cycling, and make sure that things aren’t drifting out of balance.

After all, you can’t buy new back from Wiggle, can you?

NJK

It sounds like golf, desk jobs contributed to your initial problem when returning to the bike? Most people who do desk jobs will have tight hamstrings, which will contribute to not a particularly fluid pedal stroke shall we say and then possibly contribute to overloading other muscles.

Bike fit is the key combined with an average amount of flexibility.

mikenetic

You could well be right. I can't say objectively as I didn't do measures back in the day, but I suspect I may not have been flexible enough to take a correct position when I started out. But then I suspect most people returning to cycling don't know about proper bike fits when they start out

Then, as you say, overloading certain muscles might have started to make existing issues worse. I think the biggest surprise for me is how one or two issues can start to spread around if not caught in time.

daniel_b

Hello Mike,

rather interested in your write up - my age, and cycling life sounds pretty similar to yours, with the exception of the golf ;-)

Additionially, my core, and lower back issues, all sound rather similar to your own, and are still ongoing.

Mine were not caused by cycling, in fact by poor use of exercise equipment or freeweights I am fairly sure, and that was 10 years ago - I have tried, Osteopath, Chiropractor (Very costly), masseur, NHS, and finally The Alexander technique.
The Chiro was the only one that yielded some success, and that took me to a still chronic but bearable level of background pain shall we say.

Fortunately it hasn't generally affeceted my riding, which is quite a relief.

Might be better if you PM me, but looking on the website, it sounds to me like you went for the Personal exercise program in the 'Core' format - am I correct?

I will drop Jo an e-mail, but I just wondered if you would give me a brief run down on how it worked, where you went, ie Croydon or London, and how many sessions you attended - it looks like it might be 4 for the core one?

The only downside for me is that I am based in Newbury, so it's a fair old journey over there, but I'm willing to consider it for sure.

Many thanks

Dan

ShutUpLegs

Froomes Edgar

Alex_Simmons/RST

So in essence, you started with a poorly fitted bike and had injurys/niggles but after a period of riding a better fitting bike, you got better, had fewer injury/niggles and adapted to riding more and then made bike fit adjustments as you adapted.

That sounds about right, it's entirely normal for people's correct bike fit (as opposed to what they might actually have done) to progress from a "relaxed" position to a "racing" position over time as they start out and train more. You also did some off the bike exercise which may or may not have contributed to this change.

Nice work on taking the time to spot the fit problem and correct it. Many don't, ride with discomfort and stop altogether thinking that it is normal, when it's not.

mikenetic

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Rule 14. Nothing to see here.

mikenetic

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

So in essence, you started with a poorly fitted bike and had injurys/niggles but after a period of riding a better fitting bike, you got better, had fewer injury/niggles and adapted to riding more and then made bike fit adjustments as you adapted.

That sounds about right, it's entirely normal for people's correct bike fit (as opposed to what they might actually have done) to progress from a "relaxed" position to a "racing" position over time as they start out and train more. You also did some off the bike exercise which may or may not have contributed to this change.

Nice work on taking the time to spot the fit problem and correct it. Many don't, ride with discomfort and stop altogether thinking that it is normal, when it's not.

Thanks Alex, I'd tried various things but felt that I wasn't get anywhere on my own when it came to addressing the problems.

Ironically, they became more noticeable as I got "fitter". My increased CV fitness meant I was going further and faster, and that started to highlight there were some other problems which I struggled to get my head around.

I feel like I'm set on a clearer route now; I have some specific things to work on alongside the turbo and getting out on the road.

At the end of the day I want to be able to go out, ride fast, feel comfy and enjoy myself. The longer I can do that for, the better.