Everything hurts when you are 45!

A quote that I picked up recently: when you older than 40, your focus should be on injury prevention first and performance second. This is a hard pill to swallow if you are trying to maximize your performance for the Cape Epic. Although cycling is not the most demanding sport on your joints, tendons and muscular system, if there is itch at the beginning of the ride, that itch becomes a unbearable pain after 4 hours on your bike. An issue most cyclist have experienced at least once on a long ride. Let me take you through my struggles the last 3 years and how I'm carefully optimistic I may have found the problem and solution to my pain problems.

Sitting is deadlier than smoking!

I'm not sure if this the exact quote you see flying around in the media and internet, but there is definite truth to sitting all day being a problem for a variety of illnesses and pain problems. I wont focus on the higher risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity here, but purely on the muscle weakness and back pain.

Yale medicine says: "Sitting can lead to overall deconditioning, early muscle fatigue, weakened core stabilizers, and tightening of the hip flexors, resulting in increased stress on your low back and reduced spine flexibility. It also affects the gluteal buttock muscles over time, leading to deactivation and weakening of these muscles"

So what does that have to do with me? I'm a pretty active person with at least exercising twice a week, but most of the time a lot more. I'm sitting most of my workday at a desk, making very long days if I'm busy. And even with a good office chair and everything setup correctly, my lower back is most of the time in a relaxed in a rounded position, weakening my core muscles and pressuring my gluteal muscles. When I'm done working, I get my bike to go for a ride, and what do I do? Yes, I'm sitting down again for hours, again with the rounded back, not strengthening my core muscle. Do this for 6/7 years in a row, without any other type of exercise and the pain will start! At least in my case.

What didn't work!

After visiting some doctors regarding my pain in my hamstring, gluteal area and lower back and not making any real progress, I decided to diagnose it myself as: "Too old and weak". The solution would be to start doing a lot more exercise to get stronger and everything would be ok again. The results? Having pain with exercise I was doing (Basketball, Bootcamp, HITT training, Cycling). Sometimes during the effort, sometimes after. After some days I needed pain killers to sleep and sleep with a stretch left leg to prevent pain in my gluteal muscles. After a couple of months this approach led to no exercise at all. I know, it doesn't sound like a very smart move, but when I was a younger this approach would definitely work for me. So accepting that you are 45 and you need an injury prevention approach was the hardest part.

The new plan

First thing I did was moving from the group Bootcamp and HITT training to a personal trainer (Han) at Club Hardwerk, to focus only on quality of the exercise. Only doing stuff I could do and without my hart rate being on my max while trying to keep stability. This first change was already paying off, because cycling was a possibility again as pain was manageable while riding.

Still not a very scientific approach. So I decided to return a physiotherapist again, but this time one that was recommended to me by my family doctor. A very knowledgeable guy that made his first diagnose after asking the right questions in my opinion. The diagnoses as I understand it is: neurodynamic dysfunction. AI says it is this: "a restriction in the normal movement, sliding, and gliding of nerves within the body, leading to increased mechanical tension and strain on the neural tissues".

So, I'm currently doing 2 exercises to see if we can solve some of that restriction. Below I'm doing the Jefferson curl. An extended stretch and strength exercise for back, gluteal area and hamstring.

So what does your week look like now?

Maybe you missed it, but Ingmar and I are fully committed to get the best out of the time we have. So no excuses. We train every day except for rest days in our training program. My coming week looks like this:

• Monday:
  • Rest day after 3 training days on the bike.
  • 1 hr of personal training.
  • 30 min of back exercises
• Tuesday:
  • 2 hours of riding
  • 30 min of back exercises
• Wednesday
  • 2 hours of riding
  • 1 hr of strength in the gym
  • 30 min of back exercises
• Thursday:
  • 2 hours of riding
  • 30 min of back exercises
• Friday
  • Rest day after 3 training days on the bike.
  • 1 hr of strength in the gym
  • 30 min of back exercises
• Saturday:
  • 2 hours of riding
  • 30 min of back exercises
• Sunday:
  • 3 hours of riding
  • 30 min of back exercises

It looks like a lot (it is). But rest days are very strict every 4th day and I track my HRV every morning to see how im recovered (more on that later), to see if im not over training.

Expected results?

On my pain problems I can be honest. That may take some time to fix, but im very optimistic about the approach. After 3 days im able to touch my toes when stretching after maybe 15 year of being very stiff in the lower back and hamstrings. So that's a good sign I think.

But of course we will keep you posted on every result or disappointment here. The only thing I can say after a month of training is that feel stronger and fitter already and we have just started!

Keep Chasing!