Cycling Forums › Forums › Bikes › Cycling Training › Body not recovering
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Body not recovering

post #1 of 12
7/18/09 at 10:06pm
Thread Starter 
I need help. I have been riding for a couple of months now and I am having a problem with recovery. After my rides my thighs are shot for days. When i go up steps my legs are burning on the second step. Some how they don't really hurt when I ride but everything else I do they hurt constantly. I am over weight and understand muscle soreness but I'm just not sure if this is normal or not. I think it isn't normal cause my wife isn't sore at all. I usually do around 20-25 miles and avg 16mph I know its not much but for me I about full out. Any advice would be appreciated.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 12
7/19/09 at 3:24pm

Re: Body not recovering

Not recovering is a sign that you're pushing too hard, too fast. Don't go by what others say they ride on forums. Take it easy and ride comfortably. It's not a race. You will gradually work up to longer, faster rides.

Another factor could be saddle placement -- too low perhaps.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 12
7/27/09 at 8:37pm

Re: Body not recovering

Quote:
Originally Posted by coateshaaf1 View Post
I need help. I have been riding for a couple of months now and I am having a problem with recovery. After my rides my thighs are shot for days. When i go up steps my legs are burning on the second step. Some how they don't really hurt when I ride but everything else I do they hurt constantly. I am over weight and understand muscle soreness but I'm just not sure if this is normal or not. I think it isn't normal cause my wife isn't sore at all. I usually do around 20-25 miles and avg 16mph I know its not much but for me I about full out. Any advice would be appreciated.
Spinning in a lower gear should help prevent soreness in your legs.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 12
7/31/09 at 1:33am

Re: Body not recovering

It sounds to me like you are overtraining your body. Everytime you exercise you actually do small ammounts of damage to your muscles. If you work out too much and dont allow enough time to recover eventually it will catch up to you. You will feel tired during your workouts and afterwards you will feel like you worked out about 5 times harder than you actually did.

I would recommend giving yourself 4 days off, then going out for a light ride. Dont allow yourself to push it and stay in your small ring. Take a day off and repeat. After one more day off go out for a tougher ride and see how you feel.

And make sure your keeping your nutrition up.

I know its tough to take time off in summer but if you dont it could kill the whole summer.

Hope this helps!
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 12
4/23/10 at 7:17am

Re: Body not recovering

There are many cyclists who overtraining their body and at the same time they do not provide enough rest to it. This will result into decrease in the level of your natural ability. Response of your body to training is complex. Everything from when and how hormones are released from your body to blood cell adaptations, heart, lungs, bones, veins and muscles is alerted when your body adapts to training.

coateshaaf1, appropriate amounts of recovery along with correct training stress will result into improvement of your performance. You should avoid a situation where there is limited recovery and excessive training as it will lead to negative reactions from your body parts. One of the biggest factors that you need to take care of is the hormone levels in your body.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 12
4/23/10 at 10:11am

Re: Body not recovering

Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnMarks View Post
There are many cyclists who overtraining their body and at the same time they do not provide enough rest to it. This will result into decrease in the level of your natural ability. Response of your body to training is complex. Everything from when and how hormones are released from your body to blood cell adaptations, heart, lungs, bones, veins and muscles is alerted when your body adapts to training.

coateshaaf1, appropriate amounts of recovery along with correct training stress will result into improvement of your performance. You should avoid a situation where there is limited recovery and excessive training as it will lead to negative reactions from your body parts. One of the biggest factors that you need to take care of is the hormone levels in your body.
I agree with one of the responses above that said that you are probably turning too big a gear. Most new riders do this and it is part due to inexperience, part to not yet having developed a strong aerobic engine, and part to not having developed the neuromuscular coordination required for a high cadence in easier gears.

Regardless of the reasons, turning a big gear slowly requires your quads to do a lot of work and is essentially the same a weightlifting, where you would take a couple of days off to let your legs recover.

Once you recover and are ready to ride again, I would try very hard to use easier gears and spin faster. See if that helps. You will probably find that it makes for more of a cardio workout and you might not be quite ready for that either, but don't ride until you are falling over exhausted. Build slowly and you will see big improvements.

Finally, you said that you were going "all out." Going all out huts. Period. It hurts everyone. And all out for 30mi is something that veteran cyclists may do in a race or a TT, and then nearly collapse and need to take a couple days off completely or with just easy riding. So don't beat yourself up for hurting after a hard ride :-) Just give yourself time to recover.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 12
4/25/10 at 9:39am

Re: Body not recovering

Agree with others who say you need to slow down. A 16 mph average is fast for a new rider. Even pro riders with many seasons and 100K miles in their legs rarely go "all out" in training. When they do, it's generally for a specific reason under monitored conditions.

You can limit your intensity by using a heart rate monitor, or by "rate of perceived exertion", a numerical scale describing how hard you're working. To simplify, all you need to do is monitor your breathing. If your gasping for breath and can't talk in full sentences, you need to slow down. When you first become aware of your breathing, that's roughly the right level for the great majority of your training. You'll progress just as fast this way, and may even find you enjoy the sport of cycling
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 12
4/25/10 at 10:49am

Re: Body not recovering

Quote:
Originally Posted by dhk2 View Post
Agree with others who say you need to slow down. A 16 mph average is fast for a new rider. Even pro riders with many seasons and 100K miles in their legs rarely go "all out" in training. When they do, it's generally for a specific reason under monitored conditions.

You can limit your intensity by using a heart rate monitor, or by "rate of perceived exertion", a numerical scale describing how hard you're working. To simplify, all you need to do is monitor your breathing. If your gasping for breath and can't talk in full sentences, you need to slow down. When you first become aware of your breathing, that's roughly the right level for the great majority of your training. You'll progress just as fast this way, and may even find you enjoy the sport of cycling
Good advice.

And if this is any help, I got the burning thighs sensation during March this year.

With the thousands of miles in my legs, I missed a lot of training in Jan/Feb this year because we had terrible weather conditions.
In March, I started training and for the first time ever I experienced cramped thighs.
Cramp when pedalling, cramp when walking.
Dreadful sensation.
My body didn't seem to be recovering at all.

My mistake?
Pushing too hard, too soon.
Even experienced cyclists make these mistakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The good news is that this sensation goes away, as your body becomes accustomed to riding again.
My advice like others have suggested, is to use a lighter gear and pedal at a steady cadence.
Slowly build up the stamina.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 12
4/29/10 at 9:39am

Re: Body not recovering

Next week do a couple of long rides (long for you) where you can talk with your riding partner while riding the whole way... lots of rest in between and stretching and massage on the rest days...
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 12
4/29/10 at 9:50am

Re: Body not recovering

First, muscle soreness is okay as long as you can live with it. The main issue is whether it mentally breaks you down to the point that you stop exercising. You might want to back off a little, and perhaps even throw in an easier week here and there to give yourself a rest. However, that said, there's nothing wrong with it if you can handle it so I wouldn't necessarily back off too much. As you get fitter it will recede a bit but you can always make yourself sore by going hard enough.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 12
4/30/10 at 11:14pm

Re: Body not recovering

I would recommend getting a simple CBC blood test. You may be anemic or have something else far worse that is affecting you. Don't delay, get a blood test.

Over training is NOT the result of riding a bunch, but it is a result of not taking enough rest.

Take care!
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 12
5/1/10 at 12:46am

Re: Body not recovering

FWIW the OP is from July 2009...

Quote:
Originally Posted by choffman View Post
Don't delay, get a blood test.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Cycling Training
Cycling Forums › Forums › Bikes › Cycling Training › Body not recovering