How long to recover after 6 weeks of injury?

topcattim

I've had an enforced 6 weeks off the bike after some sort of Achilles/ankle pain. Physio and consultant couldn't get to the bottom of it, but long and short of it is that I'm back riding after 6 weeks off, and gradually building effort. After discussing with my remote coach (ooh, get me!), after last week of gradually testing the ankle (which seems to be able to tolerate efforts again), I'm going to spend a couple of weeks on the turbo riding tempo just to try to build strength again, with a ramp rate of 4 a week. Slowly slowly catchy monkey.

Looking at my data (in particular my Efficiency Factor, the ratio of my heart rate to normalised power), he reckons that my FTP has dropped from 280 to 220. Pretty depressing, but that's life.

My question is, does anybody have any predictions for how long it might take to recover to something approximating my previous FTP? I have a race that I had been targeting at the end of March, and I'm wondering how competitive I might be by then.

If it's relevant, I'm 49 and ride about 6 or 7 hours a week.

Thanks.

Flâneur

your base fitness (HR/breating/cardio) will come back within a solid few weeks of riding. The FTP is a different story and will depend on far more details than listed but expect it be a few months. Could be doable by March but perhaps consider where to focus (what type of race)

I'll go find some information regarding injury losses then recovery I read/heard recently.

topcattim

Flâneur wrote:

your base fitness (HR/breating/cardio) will come back within a solid few weeks of riding. The FTP is a different story and will depend on far more details than listed but expect it be a few months. Could be doable by March but perhaps consider where to focus (what type of race)

I'll go find some information regarding injury losses then recovery I read/heard recently.

Thanks, that chimes with what I'd been thinking. One day at a time, but looks as though it will be tight. Thanks also for the offer to look out more information.

Flâneur

Quick summary from some old notes (guess who had an injury). Please appreciate the numbers are ball park and are from a cyclist who trains as much as they ride (not just the one Sunday cafe ride a week person)

1-7 days negligible
10 – 14 days, noticeable impact 5/6%
3 weeks 12%
4 weeks 20% then an increasing severity
Specialised fitness sees a great decline, especially in sweet spot – and steeper decline gradient in sprint

Can't find the stuff I noted regarding coming back. I suspect I went through a sweet spot job for 4-6 weeks before starting to focus.

topcattim

Flâneur wrote:

Quick summary from some old notes (guess who had an injury). Please appreciate the numbers are ball park and are from a cyclist who trains as much as they ride (not just the one Sunday cafe ride a week person)

1-7 days negligible
10 – 14 days, noticeable impact 5/6%
3 weeks 12%
4 weeks 20% then an increasing severity
Specialised fitness sees a great decline, especially in sweet spot – and steeper decline gradient in sprint

Can't find the stuff I noted regarding coming back. I suspect I went through a sweet spot job for 4-6 weeks before starting to focus.

Thanks. That helps me know what I've got ahead of me!

harry-s

For a rule of thumb, I've always reckoned that if I've had time out, it would usually take the same amount of time to get back to where I was before the interruption. That's with fairly focussed training. So 6 weeks downtime would equal 6 weeks recovery time (for me).

sloppyschleckonds

topcattim wrote:

FTP has dropped from 280 to 220. Pretty depressing, but that's life.

That seems a lot in 6 weeks.

topcattim

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

topcattim wrote:

FTP has dropped from 280 to 220. Pretty depressing, but that's life.

That seems a lot in 6 weeks.

Yes, that’s what I thought. It’s not a tested value, just his estimate to try to set some levels while my ankle is still gaining strength so I’m hoping it’s an underestimate and that I’ll get a pleasant surprise when I do my next test. Part of me wonders whether he, quite reasonably, wants to hedge me in so that I don’t overdo it. I’m doing 60 minute “tempo” rides at 200w at the moment and, while they’re very boring, I don’t feel as though I’m getting close to my FTP, which makes me think that they’re not actually tempo because my current max is higher. Will do a test in about 10 days time and be able to reset properly.

topcattim

Harry-S wrote:

So 6 weeks downtime would equal 6 weeks recovery time (for me).

Hope that’s the case for me too!

supermurph09

Why not just do an actual test? You seem to have loosened things back off, you'll be fresh so go for it. Whilst aiming for a certain power is not always best it could work in your case. So you could aim for something below what you had before, if you feel like you had loads left, try again a few days later. If you blow up that'll still give you an indicator.

An FTP test is still a good workout on it's own.

SalfordBoys

Muscle memory etc etc I just can't see anyway that there would be such a massive drop in ftp.

My guess fwiw is this, that a 20 min ftp test would be around 250..... Whilst the proper method of 1 hour would be around 235.

So fitness yes, but power there wouldn't be such a drop. Surely?

topcattim

Supermurph09 wrote:

Why not just do an actual test? .......

An FTP test is still a good workout on it's own.

Yup, I'm planning to do one in about 5 days or so. I've been a bit wary of doing anything too soon just in case I overstress the ankle, but it seems to be bearing up ok. Ironically, it doesn't seem to hurt on the bike, but it gave me a lot of hassle last night when I was Christmas shopping!

SalfordBoys wrote:

Muscle memory etc etc I just can't see anyway that there would be such a massive drop in ftp.

My guess fwiw is this, that a 20 min ftp test would be around 250..... Whilst the proper method of 1 hour would be around 235.

So fitness yes, but power there wouldn't be such a drop. Surely?

Yes, it does seem like a huge estimated drop. I'll get some proper figures in five days or so, and will post them here for interest. Of course, that won't represent the amount I dropped after 6 weeks, but instead the amount I dropped after 6 weeks off and then 10 days beginning recovery.

topcattim

So the good news for me is that the FTP hadn't dropped as much as I'd feared. I tested yesterday, aiming for an overall FTP somewhere half way between my previous rate and the new estimated post-injury rate. I set a fairly conservative pace of for the first 10 minutes and soon realised that I could hold that easily enough and then started to raise it, but I still finished the test with quite a bit left in the tank. Looks like I lost about 20 watts in the 6 weeks of inactivity, followed by 2 weeks of gentle recovery. Quite encouraging - I hope that anybody else who has a similar injury can draw comfort from this.

diy

I had 8 weeks off last summer and it took about 6 months to get to the point where I was consistently hitting my previous upper limits in terms of cardio and endurance.

There are lots of useful things you can still do.
- upper body training
- lots of stretching to avoid the rested muscles shortening

muscle takes about 4-6 weeks, tendons 3-4 months

topcattim

Just in case anyone else ever experiences the same, I thought I'd post an update. I'm now 16 weeks post injury, 10 weeks post gentle re-introduction to riding, 8 weeks since started structured training again. I'm at about 265W which is about 92% of my pre-injury power. While I'd never want to have to have the injury, it's actually been quite encouraging to see the power come back to there or thereabouts and I'm hoping it will be only about 6 more weeks until I match my previous levels. So, there's hope.

joe2008

topcattim wrote:

Just in case anyone else ever experiences the same, I thought I'd post an update. I'm now 16 weeks post injury, 10 weeks post gentle re-introduction to riding, 8 weeks since started structured training again. I'm at about 265W which is about 92% of my pre-injury power. While I'd never want to have to have the injury, it's actually been quite encouraging to see the power come back to there or thereabouts and I'm hoping it will be only about 6 more weeks until I match my previous levels. So, there's hope.

The enforced rest probably did you good.

I know some very good riders who always take at least 4 weeks off as a post season break.

The mistake most of us make is never taking any lengthy rest for fear of losing fitness.