Fitness questions and answers for February 13, 2005

Form & Fitness Q & A

Got a question about fitness, training, recovery from injury or a related subject? Drop us a line at fitness@cyclingnews.com. Please include as much information about yourself as possible, including your age, sex, and type of racing or riding. Due to the volume of questions we receive, we regret that we are unable to answer them all.

Carrie Cheadle, MA (www.carriecheadle.com) is a Sports Psychology consultant who has dedicated her career to helping athletes of all ages and abilities perform to their potential. Carrie specialises in working with cyclists, in disciplines ranging from track racing to mountain biking. She holds a bachelors degree in Psychology from Sonoma State University as well as a masters degree in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University.

Kelby Bethards, MD received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University (1994) before obtaining an M.D. from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 2000. Has been a racing cyclist 'on and off' for 20 years, and when time allows, he races Cat 3 and 35+. He is a team physician for two local Ft Collins, CO, teams, and currently works Family Practice in multiple settings: rural, urgent care, inpatient and the like.

Fiona Lockhart (www.trainright.com) is a USA Cycling Expert Coach, and holds certifications from USA Weightlifting (Sports Performance Coach), the National Strength and Conditioning Association (Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach), and the National Academy for Sports Nutrition (Primary Sports Nutritionist). She is the Sports Science Editor for Carmichael Training Systems, and has been working in the strength and conditioning and endurance sports fields for over 10 years; she's also a competitive mountain biker.

David Fleckenstein, MPT (www.physiopt.com) is a physical therapist practicing in Boise, ID. His clients have included World and U.S. champions, Olympic athletes and numerous professional athletes. He received his B.S. in Biology/Genetics from Penn State and his Master's degree in Physical Therapy from Emory University. He specializes in manual medicine treatment and specific retraining of spine and joint stabilization musculature. He is a former Cat I road racer and Expert mountain biker.

Since 1986 Steve Hogg (www.cyclefitcentre.com) has owned and operated Pedal Pushers, a cycle shop specialising in rider positioning and custom bicycles. In that time he has positioned riders from all cycling disciplines and of all levels of ability with every concievable cycling problem.They include World and National champions at one end of the performance spectrum to amputees and people with disabilities at the other end.

Pamela Hinton has a bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology and a doctoral degree in Nutritional Sciences, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She did postdoctoral training at Cornell University and is now an assistant professor of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia where she studies the effects of iron deficiency on adaptations to endurance training and the consequences of exercise-associated changes in menstrual function on bone health.

Steve Owens (www.coloradopremiertraining.com) is a USA Cycling certified coach, exercise physiologist and owner of Colorado Premier Training. Steve has worked with both the United States Olympic Committee and Guatemalan Olympic Committee as an Exercise Physiologist. He holds a B.S. in Exercise & Sports Science and currently works with multiple national champions, professionals and World Cup level cyclists.

Richard Stern (www.cyclecoach.com) is Head Coach of Richard Stern Training, a Level 3 Coach with the Association of British Cycling Coaches, a Sports Scientist, and a writer. He has been professionally coaching cyclists and triathletes since 1998 at all levels from professional to recreational. He is a leading expert in coaching with power output and all power meters. Richard has been a competitive cyclist for 20 years

Andy Bloomer (www.cyclecoach.com) is an Associate Coach and sport scientist with Richard Stern Training. He is a member of the Association of British Cycling Coaches (ABCC) and a member of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES). In his role as Exercise Physiologist at Staffordshire University Sports Performance Centre, he has conducted physiological testing and offered training and coaching advice to athletes from all sports for the past 4 years. Andy has been a competitive cyclist for many years.

I am currently self-coached, and use a Power Tap to aid my training (I've worked with coaches in the past, but still experienced the same type of problem - not feeling completely recovered after a rest period). I've got the work portion of my workout schedule down, but I have trouble with my rest weeks. What should I do? I feel I lose my edge if I cut back the intensity drastically, and I'm afraid of gaining weight if I lose the volume. But I never feel fully recovered after a rest week. A typical rest week right now might look like this:

Monday: Easy 20 min spin on rollers,
Tuesday: 3 or 4 hill sprints (cut back from about 8), about 1 hour ride time,
Wednesday: One 20 minute AT interval, or just below AT (rather than 2 or 3), 1-1.5 hour ride time
Thursday: Endurance, 2-3 hours (cut back from 3-4hrs).
Friday: Easy 20 min spin on rollers,
Weekends are always intense group rides, at least 60 miles on Sat, and either mountain biking or a road ride of about 45 miles on Sunday.

I have gone through knee and hip pain over the past few years. Finally this last year, I purchased some cycling orthotics. They feel great but after about half an hour riding my right hip starts to ache. I broke my right leg over 20 years ago and have been told that the right leg is slightly longer than the left. Could it be I need to shim up the left leg? I have been wearing down the right side of all my saddles so something seems to not be right. I am using Look pedals with the floating cleat set at 9 degrees.

I am a 20-year-old rider on an U23 squad. I am experiencing unbelievable frustration. I cannot figure out why my back always hurts!!! I have been racing competitively for about 3 years now. I do not know what it is like to ride without lower back pain. My lower back ONLY hurts when I am on the bike. Over the course of the past 3 years I have tried many things. I tried core exercises, but that did not help at all. I have been to several chiropractors. The one chiropractor just cracks my spine and sets me off. This has actually helped to hold off the pain and make my rides a little more comfortable when I first started getting adjustments, but then the pain has come back even though I get adjusted regularly.

Another chiropractor looked at my x-rays and pointed out a pelvic tilt. The x-rays showed my pelvis is tilted to the right side. So I started yoga to re-align it, and have been doing that everyday now for two months. The yoga seems to help a little, and it almost seems that the pain is starting to happen a little later on in my rides than in the past. The pain generally starts after an hour of riding, but will start hurting within minutes if I do a climb early in the ride and then stay with me until the ride is over. Sometimes it will just start to hurt right off the bat even when riding only dead flat roads. I always have the feeling that I am fighting my bike trying to get comfortable.

My right leg always seems to be sloppy and I always have the involuntary tendency to want to swing my right leg out while I am pedaling because it just doesn't feel right. NOTE: Under my LEFT inner thigh up towards my crotch (around where that area contacts the saddle) seems to be tight and will start to hurt as I start pedaling, but will go away after I get out of the saddle a couple times. The pressure on the saddle on the muscle combined with pedaling makes it very tight and tender until it is warmed up. Example: I cannot just hop on my trainer and start pedaling for an hour. I have to do about 10 minutes pedaling, alternating sitting and standing up and getting off to stretch the area until it goes away, then I can start my workout.

Continuing with doctors; I then went to an orthopaedic doctor who also looked at my x-rays, and did not think much of the pelvic tilt (but he, doesn't know anything about cycling). The ortho told me to get a bone scan to see if I have spondylolysthesis, because there could be a 10% chance it is being missed on my x-rays. My father had spondylolythesis then he was around my age...hmm. SO I do not know what to do now. I feel as though I have pushed all the buttons. As far at bike positioning goes, I have lost count of how many different times it was checked, changed and re-checked. I currently put 2.5 mm of shims under my right cleat. That is all I have done as far at trying to compensate some obvious imbalances I have. At first I thought all of this info would help me get to the bottom of this. Now I am buried under too much information and I don't know what to do. Please, help me!!!

I was wondering how much lung damage and decrease in physical ability I could have if I'm exposed to second hand smoke and live in it non-stop. My downstairs neighbours smoke and whenever I walk into my house, it smells like a bar room. Also, I've been getting upper respiratory sicknesses more frequently than before they moved in a year ago and wake up with a sore throat every morning. I've been really worried about this and was just wondering how far off I am from what I could be. Thanks.