Struggling for power after crashes

gotwood25

I was wondering if any of you have experienced something similar to what I am currently going through.

Since November I have been training to a Trainer Road program which has returned some pretty decent improvements with the aim of starting racing at the turn of the year which I did. Unfortunately however I have had two crashes in successive weeks (one during race, one on a reccy of a road race I was due to do) which seems to have had a detrimental affect on my performance.

Hahaha reading that last bit back does sound a bit obvious (of course it will :-) !!) but my question is a bit more specific. The crashes themselves weren't too bad, first left me with a bit of 'slap foot' which is nearly right and the second banged up my wrist pretty bad which is still a bit of a mess to be honest but legs are fine.

Now down to the question. I can ride pretty normally to around tempo pace, but anything higher I can't seem to produce anything. Lungs are fine, HR (lower if anything) is fine just a strange emptiness in the legs. Has anyone experienced anything similar after an off? If so how much time was the recovery period before things started getting back to normal? Could the issue be down to coming to the end of the Trainer Road program and my body is just sick (I am a bit sick) of doing intervals all the bloody time :-)

I have decided to keep riding through it albeit endurance pace or below but wondering if total rest would be better? As I say my body feels fine other than the wrist so would like to know, what to do for the best.

Cheers for reading.

bigmat

I'm in a similar position - crashed a week last Saturday banging up my right hip and knee and worst of all my right elbow. Took it easy on Monday morning and was feeling fine by Monday evening but then crashed again in almost identical way, landing on same side and affecting the same three areas - really hurt! Seemed to slowly improve and I was able to race last Saturday, but then had a busy couple of days with the kids and the combination of picking them up, pushing swings etc seems to have put my arm back to square one. Now suspect it will be a long drawn out soft tissue injury and getting a bit stressed about Paris Roubaix...

Anyway, back on point, I think that any kind of injury can affect the "balance" of how you use your body on the bike, a bad knee for example you might start pedalling a bity differently, more stress on the other leg, more/less likely to get out of the saddle, changes in cadence, may start to affect your core, when you add all these things up they can have a real impact on the power you are able to put out. Simply riding in pain is likely to inhibit most of us.

jgsi

It will get better... if you can still train then do it.. Do those races you may pre entered ..dont expect miracles... but you may be pleasantly surprised by June time.
Stay upright!!!

Do a few tests, to get confidence back as well.

DeVlaeminck

Could be coincidence - you've picked up a bit of a virus or as you say you have done too much high intensity work and you need to back off from that rather than the crashes. That would be my guess anyway.

BrandonA

I broke my neck in October. I wasn't able to do any exercise until January. Before the crash I could drop 285 watts for 20 minutes. When I started back on the turbo in January I couldn't sustain 220 watts for many minutes. It's been a tough couple of months but I've trained hard and last night I averaged 272 watts.

The point of my post is that you are bound to lose fitness and therefore power if you have a crash, especially if the part of your body that got damaged is used to generate power. If you put I the effort though you will give it back.

My next goal is to increase by hill repeats as they have been neglected.