....you get to the health club for some off-season cross training and realize that you packed your bag the way a half-awake sleey person would (and did). No matter, mismatched shoes won't stop this girl! At least I had one for each foot!
massages and muscles
“Cycling is a unique sport in that it fundamentally relies on power from the abdominals and lower back, but does virtually nothing to build or maintain it. In fact, cycling can sap your core strength and actually create problems, says Patty Tomlin, an exercise physiologist certified in Pilates at Colorado’s Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. Many of the cyclists she sees have overdeveloped quadriceps muscles and weak hamstrings, a classic problem that is a result of pedaling. Even off the bike, those powerful quads pull the hips forward and down, and the weaker hamstrings can’t pull back enough. This leads to poor posture and weak lower-back and abdominal muscles, says Tomlin.”
Muscles used in cycling. Artwork from the tenth volume (second period of 1892) of the French popular science weekly 'La Science Illustree'.
My physician gave me a massage therapy referral. I can’t just lay down and get a massage though, with a medical massage half the time is spent trying to figure out what is wrong. I am asked to rank how difficult the tasks of daily life are. This process fills me with guilt, making me feel like I am not qualified to be getting massage. I remember those times the arthritis in my lower back acted up, sending lightning bolts of pain through all corners of my body with every movement. I remember swollen throbbings of my wrists waking me up in the middle of the night; an immobilizing dull ache that dominated my hands for years after repetitive fishery work. I remember when the tension in my neck immobilized my entire jaw, rendering the simple act of eating a slice of bread physically impossible. The pain I am dealing with now doesn’t come close to comparing to those. I wish with longing I had the amazing insurance benefits then that I have now. I assume the pain I have is to be expected. I assume it’s the pain of being alive and working and commuting to work every day and not having a robust fitness routine to keep me balanced and limber. The pain wanders. One week, my knees take all the attention. The next week it’s my elbows, then the back, then the neck, and on in on in some sort of rotation.
However, I think the massage therapists might be on to something. I might have a legitimate issue that can be treated. It all started when a therapist pointed out that my quads are “ripped”. Another said they were “incredibly overdeveloped.” Before I could feel pride, however, they pointed out that the rest of me is “underdeveloped, especially by comparison. My health club recently offered a free fitness test. I knocked the squats out like nobody’s business. The personal trainer said I was a top performer. But, the rest of me performed at below average. How can any part of me be…below average? I bike every day! I belong to a health club! I should at least be average! But, it’s all coming together.
The massage therapists explained that, because muscles work in pairs, my knee is taking on significant pressures due to the severe unbalancing of my hamstrings and quadriceps. A brief web search gave it a name: patellofemoral pain.
“The pedaling movement puts more stress on the fronts of your thighs than the backs, which can lead to powerful quads and lesser developed hamstrings and glutes. If your quads overpower your hamstrings, they’ll drag your hips forward and down. Your hamstrings are unable to counteract that tug, resulting in compromised posture and weakened core muscles. You’ll tire more quickly on the bike as well as face an increased risk of back strain and injury.
In Brian Halpern’s book “The Knee Crisis Handbook,” a seasoned amateur cyclist complained of patellofemoral pain, or pain in the front of and around his kneecap. The pain stemmed from an imbalance in the strength of his inner thighs in comparison to his outer thighs. Although his quads were well developed, his outer thighs were overpowering his inner thighs and pulling his kneecaps toward the sides of his legs. The muscular imbalance between his abductors and adductors was planting the seeds for a knee-related injury.”
It is coming clear to me that I may soon be developing a medical reason to start the strengthening program I’ve been waiting to start for years. I have been trying to find something convenient, easy to commit to. The more the massage therapists treat me, the more I think that convenience may no longer be relevant.
Does Eating the "Right" Combination of Macronutrients Improve Cycling?
Recommended daily allowances for protein in America have been a loaded topic for years. It seems obvious that the federal recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein is bloated to support America's bloated beef agriculture, fast food industry, and the midwestern "meat and potato" diet. For that reason, I ate a significantly lower amount of protein than "recommended" for years. If you eat a balanced 2000-calorie diet where your main source of protein is low-fat, sustainable nuts, beans and plants, you will never reach the recommended 46 grams of protein. At the same time, the current cultural hate on carbs stemming from the fad-love of the Atkins Diet has further bloated the American idea of protein consumption. However, as a physically active adult prone to falling asleep after eating, I've found that eating more protein, especially for my first meal, helps sustain my energy and level of wakefulness throughout the day. It goes without saying that my protein needs would be decreased when I am less physically active. I found it easier to loose weight under the Weight Watchers plan by cutting out exercise. It is much easier to stay within the Weight Watchers point system, which depends on eating large amounts of fiber, by eating 15 or less grams of protein a day.
Now that I'm focusing on athletic training and not weight loss, I am not sure how much protein to eat. You can find as many different recommendations as you can sources. So when the Cycle Oregon spring training handbook came out with it's 60-20-20 recommendation, I decided to follow that. I started tracking my food intake on MyFittnessPal, a much simpler, faster, and more comprehensive tracking software than the WeightWatchers tracker. I manually adjusted my macronutrient goals to match Cycle Oregon's 60-20-20 recommendation. Over the past couple of weeks, I've gotten closer to meeting my goal, but have yet to reach it. A great sale on avocados stymied my goal, as eating a half cup of avocado every day for a couple of weeks always shot my fat consumption up too high. However, even in my first avocado-free week (see above), I still haven't reached the 20% protein goal. It continues to go up every day, and there are several days I meet my protein goal in grams, but I haven't reached the ratio quite right. I'll keep trying, just to see if eating at this ration does improve my training and energy level. We shall see.
Achievements?
mapmyride
The other day, I decided to track my morning commute on my my ride. I've never done this before. The following day, I was sent an email displaying "New Course Achievements". What does this all mean? I wasn't sprinting. I wasn't competing against anyone? I looked on the stats, and the people who ranked behind me were not necessarily slower than me, and they weren't necessarily female, although the "queen" is supposed to be a female. MapMyRide, you are odd!
My body fat percentage
I took a body fat test with a trainer at my health club. The club used a clever ploy of trying to ring members into paying top dollar for personal training by handing out free hour-long fitness tests. Much to my shock, I actually scored right smack in the middle of the "ideal" range for females of my age. I scored at 24.8 percent body fat, which is in the "average" category for women overall, but is a bit better for women my age, cause, I guess I'm getting older. I'm pleased to discover that my body fat percentage has largely stayed the same over the years, even though I used to be stronger (and fatter!). Now that I'm older, I am actually scoring "healthier" as I guess most people gain a few pounds of fat here and there just as part of the aging process.I have a body fat scale at home, but am skeptical as to it's accuracy. Somehow I take the measurement at the club more seriously, even though the technology used is pretty much the same. This gave me a clear opportunity to set a goal. If I'd like to qualify as "athlete" I should reduce my body fat to 21.8%. If I excursive at the rate I intend to, I can do this by April 11 of this year. Can I do it? Will I do it?
As an aside, I found photos of women of different body fat percentages online, in trying to figure out what my goal should be. The heavier women appealed to me more. I would like my body to be more defined, but I don't have interest in being skinnier. I told my trainer my goal was to stay the same weight, but increase my lean muscle mass. If I do this, I will get skinnier as a result. I think actually, my goal should be to increase my lean muscle mass while improving my percentage to the point that I am actually at 20%, but weigh more than I do. I could do the exact math to figure out how many pounds of muscle I'd need to not really be much skinnier, but that seems a bit over zealous, considering I haven't actually succeeded in increasing muscle mass in some time. So here goes. I'm putting my goal out there.