Back Training

Friday morning's swim went well, and I decided to do the club's velodrome session on Saturday morning with Elaine, rather than the Cycling Obsession group ride. You can stop any time on the velodrome, so if my knee or back starting playing up I could immediately finish the session without the worry still of having to ride home. My bike speed was relatively good. I only did 3 of the 4 sets on offer, but I felt no discomfort from my knee or back. The main reason I stopped was due to saddle sores (I was riding my Triathlon bike) and I was also starting to get fairly fatigued.

Today is a rest day with no training.  Despite my contrary views in my previous post, I plan to do the hilly Dandenongs ride tomorrow morning (Queen's birthday public holiday). This morning I did another 3 sets of 20 single leg squats on each leg. There was very minimal signs of discomfort and I can feel my balance during the squats getting better, which means the stabilising muscles are getting stronger - all good signs.

On Thursday and Friday I did feel soreness in my knee (I skipped doing the squats on Fri & Sat morning), but I now think this is all due to the fall I suffered during the infamous basketball game. I landed heavily on my knee and I believe the trauma suffered to the knee cap has resulted in small lesions (or other medical sounding words) in the patella. When the patella tendon rubs against these lesions (ie. when running), it causes irritation to the patella tendon resulting in the minor pain I experience.  The new injury is often termed 'Runner's Knee', whereas my previous injury was termed 'Jumper's Knee'. I believe my previous Jumper's Knee injury is 99% (or even 100%) healed. This is not a professional opinion, rather simply a result a lots of amateur Googling.

While my back improved in the latter part of last week, it has flared up a bit today. I don't believe it is from yesterday's ride (I did get a very sore neck from the ride), instead I think biggest factor in my sore back is when I sleep in like I did this morning. The same thing happened last week when I didn't train over the weekend, so I slept in both mornings (last Saturday was bad, last Sunday was worse). Tomorrow morning I'll be up early to get to the ride start by 7am, so hopefully my back will be improved.

I been trialling some of the new Rocket Science products I received as part of the Ambassador Program and so far have been extremely happy with them. Hopefully I'll get time in the near future to write some reviews of each product.