Legless...

eddiec said:

No, not that sort, but moreso wondering where the heck my legs have gone
in terms of strength, energy, response, etc... Allow me to elaborate:

Been cycle commuting pretty regular for about 10 years now, with some
periods off the bike for various reasons. With my work recently moving
to North Melbourne (and hence worse traffic and worse parking than
Richmond was) I'm getting back on the bike for the commute from Box
Hill more regularly - which I'm pleased about. Nothing worse than an
easy drive/park situation..

The first few 'getting back into the flow' rides were tough, what with
the slightly longer route and that I chose to do so in the middle of
summer. But for the last couple of weeks I've been baffled that my legs
seem to have disappeared on me. I'm used to the occasional lethargic,
no-legs feeling at the end of a full week of riding, but every day last
week it was there, and even after a 3 day break the legs were still a
no-show this morning - and that's not just on the bike, but even in
getting up to go to the other end of the office, etc... Just feeling
heavy, no energy, slow, etc... No pain or discomfort, just no get up 'n
go.

Quick google has shown too much general fitness info so I'm curious as
to whether anybody here has experienced this or might suggest potential
approaches to getting around this - Or is this just an inevitable thingy
that has to be worked through?

Do you have any way to measure the intensity of your riding? Without
knowing anything about how hard you're working, it could be that you're
riding too hard (there be hills enroute!). A cheap heartrate monitor
may be useful to keep track of your workrate if this sounds plausible.
You may be overtrained. Don't scoff, it's suprisingly common amongst
recreational cyclists. Box Hill to North Melb and back each day after
a long layoff is quite a jump in workload, and the ride home is all
uphill. It's not impossible that you're overtrained.

It could also be some virus or something too - glandular fever has a
habit of making one rather lethargic. Might be worth checking out.
Also, look at your diet. If you're doing some low-carb thing, bend
over, I'll put my size 10 into your backside! You must eat to ride!

The above is educated guesswork.

On 2006-01-23, eddiec (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Quick google has shown too much general fitness info so I'm curious as
to whether anybody here has experienced this or might suggest potential
approaches to getting around this - Or is this just an inevitable thingy
that has to be worked through?

It hits me all the time. Nope, not found a solution yet 🙁

Yesterday, while walking from the beach, I developed a pretty large
cramp in my quads. Then this morning, I had to take the train to get
to work for the first time in a long time. In the meantime, I found
myself cycling one-legged to get to that station. But that's a
different problem 🙂

--
TimC

Quoted message said:

So, what do *you* do for a living?

I sit in a chair, pressing small plastic rectangles with my fingers
while peering at many tiny, colored dots. -- Peter Manders

On 2006-01-23, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

eddiec said:

Quick google has shown too much general fitness info so I'm curious as
to whether anybody here has experienced this or might suggest potential
approaches to getting around this - Or is this just an inevitable thingy
that has to be worked through?

....

Quoted message said:

It could also be some virus or something too - glandular fever has a
habit of making one rather lethargic. Might be worth checking out.
Also, look at your diet. If you're doing some low-carb thing, bend
over, I'll put my size 10 into your backside! You must eat to ride!

Size 10 what?

--
TimC
Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you
only have to climb it once. -- unknown

Bleve said:

You may be overtrained. Don't scoff, it's suprisingly common amongst
recreational cyclists. Box Hill to North Melb and back each day after

Always wondered about this. Have a read of the overtraining doc by Joe
Friel here :

http://www.ultrafit.com/librarypub.asp?p=library&s=Other

He suggests it's very very hard to become overtrained. What's your take?

dtmeister said:

Bleve said:

You may be overtrained. Don't scoff, it's suprisingly common amongst
recreational cyclists. Box Hill to North Melb and back each day after

Always wondered about this. Have a read of the overtraining doc by Joe
Friel here :

http://www.ultrafit.com/librarypub.asp?p=library&s=Other

He suggests it's very very hard to become overtrained. What's your take?

I just had a quick read through it, and I think he's right in his
descriptions of the causes and effects, but is discounting how it can
happen to non-elite athletes. It could be that what Joe calls
overreaching I'd call overtraining 🙂

Bleve said:

Do you have any way to measure the intensity of your riding? Without
knowing anything about how hard you're working, it could be that you're
riding too hard (there be hills enroute!). A cheap heartrate monitor
may be useful to keep track of your workrate if this sounds plausible.
You may be overtrained. Don't scoff, it's suprisingly common amongst
recreational cyclists. Box Hill to North Melb and back each day after
a long layoff is quite a jump in workload, and the ride home is all
uphill. It's not impossible that you're overtrained.

It could also be some virus or something too - glandular fever has a
habit of making one rather lethargic. Might be worth checking out.
Also, look at your diet. If you're doing some low-carb thing, bend
over, I'll put my size 10 into your backside! You must eat to ride!

The above is educated guesswork.

Thanks - appreciate that fitness advice is probably the hardest area to give advice when there could be so many factors at play..

I'd wondered about the possibility of overtraining - but then I never feel like I'm particularly pushing it when I commute (which explains the multitudes passing me 🙂 ). Have an old Polar HR monitor in the cupboard which I might shake the dust off of and see... I'll try a 'normal' feeling ride tomorrow and see what it says.

Diet? No low-carb thing here (although I'll have to watch that given our diet is potentially heading that way with my gestationally diabetic wife and her requirements), but eating more is probably something I don't pay enough attention to, and being a scrawny beanpole it probably shows!

Thanks again....

Eddie(Thin Man)c

TimC said:

On 2006-01-23, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

eddiec said:

Quick google has shown too much general fitness info so I'm curious as
to whether anybody here has experienced this or might suggest potential
approaches to getting around this - Or is this just an inevitable thingy
that has to be worked through?

...

Quoted message said:

It could also be some virus or something too - glandular fever has a
habit of making one rather lethargic. Might be worth checking out.
Also, look at your diet. If you're doing some low-carb thing, bend
over, I'll put my size 10 into your backside! You must eat to ride!

Size 10 what?

ROFLMAO

Tam

Bleve said:

dtmeister said:

Bleve said:

You may be overtrained. Don't scoff, it's suprisingly common amongst
recreational cyclists. Box Hill to North Melb and back each day after

Always wondered about this. Have a read of the overtraining doc by Joe
Friel here :

http://www.ultrafit.com/librarypub.asp?p=library&s=Other

He suggests it's very very hard to become overtrained. What's your take?

I just had a quick read through it, and I think he's right in his
descriptions of the causes and effects, but is discounting how it can
happen to non-elite athletes. It could be that what Joe calls
overreaching I'd call overtraining 🙂

Non-elites can overtrain. Look at me in '04 for the definition. It
affected every aspect of my life too. Pro athletes train more, but they
get to sleep between sessions. The rest of us have [censored] to do.

Tam

eddiec said:

Bleve said:

Do you have any way to measure the intensity of your riding? Without
knowing anything about how hard you're working, it could be that
you're
riding too hard (there be hills enroute!). A cheap heartrate monitor
may be useful to keep track of your workrate if this sounds plausible.
You may be overtrained. Don't scoff, it's suprisingly common amongst
recreational cyclists. Box Hill to North Melb and back each day after
a long layoff is quite a jump in workload, and the ride home is all
uphill. It's not impossible that you're overtrained.

It could also be some virus or something too - glandular fever has a
habit of making one rather lethargic. Might be worth checking out.
Also, look at your diet. If you're doing some low-carb thing, bend
over, I'll put my size 10 into your backside! You must eat to ride!

The above is educated guesswork.

Thanks - appreciate that fitness advice is probably the hardest area to
give advice when there could be so many factors at play..

I'd wondered about the possibility of overtraining - but then I never
feel like I'm particularly pushing it when I commute (which explains
the multitudes passing me 🙂 ). Have an old Polar HR monitor in the
cupboard which I might shake the dust off of and see... I'll try a
'normal' feeling ride tomorrow and see what it says.

Diet? No low-carb thing here (although I'll have to watch that given
our diet is potentially heading that way with my gestationally diabetic
wife and her requirements), but eating more is probably something I
don't pay enough attention to, and being a scrawny beanpole it probably
shows!

Thanks again....

Eddie(Thin Man)c

Do you eat before you ride? How soon? Too soon, and too much blood will
be in your gut, not your legs. But if you're de-energised, that could be
the problem. Do you drink sports drink? Staminade is quite cheap and
might give you a bit of a boost on your ride.

Tam

Hey EddieC,

I used to get this early last year, when I first got back into
commuting. I think that, for me, it was diet related in that I didn't
have enough 'fuel' in the body for the commute home....

Tam suggested I have a container of jelly snakes at my desk, ready for
a quick pre-commute snack before departure - and it actually made a
significant difference. Yay for sugar!! *grins*

Hope that doesn't add too much to the confusion!!

Cheers,
Abby

eddiec said:

Diet? No low-carb thing here (although I'll have to watch that given our diet is potentially heading that way with my gestationally diabetic wife and her requirements), but eating more is probably something I don't pay enough attention to, and being a scrawny beanpole it probably shows!

Thanks again....

Eddie(Thin Man)c

Snakes could be a good idea. Although You will probably have to buy some sugar free lollies at the same time for your wife.
You could check your sugar levels before you leave for work with your wifes equipment.

Daz

[PHP][/PHP] Size 10 what?[PHP][/PHP]

I see you've taken it on yourself to work on that humour transponder😄

Bleve said:

I just had a quick read through it, and I think he's right in his
descriptions of the causes and effects, but is discounting how it can
happen to non-elite athletes. It could be that what Joe calls
overreaching I'd call overtraining 🙂

🙂 I think I've maybe hit the overreaching thing at least once. My
commute is 10km each way. I don't race, but I do push myself most days
and tend to sit on 30 - 33 km/h on all the flat sections of my commute.
Decided to extend the distance I do daily by riding 10km in the opposite
direction to home and the riding home, so a 40km day. Despite knowing
that I shouldn't just switch straight from 20km per day to 40km per
day, I did anyway. 🙂

Was okay for week one of the new distance, but mid week two I found I
was getting very tired at a much lower heart rate than usual. Switched
back to 20km days for the rest of that week and then took 3 days off.
All has been good since then, and I've been doing 40km days since
without a problem. I'm sure if I'd increased the distance over a period
of a couple of weeks, I'd have been fine.

--
..dt

Absent Husband said:

Hey EddieC,

I used to get this early last year, when I first got back into
commuting. I think that, for me, it was diet related in that I didn't
have enough 'fuel' in the body for the commute home....

Tam suggested I have a container of jelly snakes at my desk, ready for
a quick pre-commute snack before departure - and it actually made a
significant difference. Yay for sugar!! *grins*

Hope that doesn't add too much to the confusion!!

Cheers,
Abby

Thanks Tam & Abby & Daz... the food thing is probably where I'm going to target things first - as I probably haven't changed eating habits since I got back on the bike and might not be getting enough. I think another problem is the desire to sleep in in the mornings - I've learnt already that my body needs at least 45 minutes to an hour to wake up, get breakfast down, and then feel ok to ride - any early and it's sluggish-central.

Ooh, an excuse to eat snakes and consume sugar while my wife can't! 🙂 Although how are you supposed to have a jar of jelly snakes on the desk and not eat them all during the day!

Still to check heartrate (battery was flat), but I know I'm a bit of a weirdo in that regard - Very low resting rate, and when using it once before I always seemed to be pushing 80%+ maxHR (according to their estimate anyway)...

The irony here is after my complaining about feeling dead yesterday, when I got back on the bike I actually felt better than I had all week!

dtmeister said:

Bleve said:

I just had a quick read through it, and I think he's right in his
descriptions of the causes and effects, but is discounting how it can
happen to non-elite athletes. It could be that what Joe calls
overreaching I'd call overtraining 🙂

🙂 I think I've maybe hit the overreaching thing at least once. My
commute is 10km each way. I don't race, but I do push myself most days
and tend to sit on 30 - 33 km/h on all the flat sections of my commute.
Decided to extend the distance I do daily by riding 10km in the opposite
direction to home and the riding home, so a 40km day. Despite knowing
that I shouldn't just switch straight from 20km per day to 40km per
day, I did anyway. 🙂

Was okay for week one of the new distance, but mid week two I found I
was getting very tired at a much lower heart rate than usual. Switched
back to 20km days for the rest of that week and then took 3 days off.
All has been good since then, and I've been doing 40km days since
without a problem. I'm sure if I'd increased the distance over a period
of a couple of weeks, I'd have been fine.

You'll find it's a great way to make a rapid comeback though... when I
want to up my running mileage, I'll jump straight from some 20km weeks
to a 70km week, then rest for half a week, then sitting at 50km/week is
easy.

(Multiply by about 5 to make relevant to cycling)

Tam

quote='Tamyka Bell'dtmeister said:

Bleve said:

I just had a quick read through it, and I think he's right in his
descriptions of the causes and effects, but is discounting how it can
happen to non-elite athletes. It could be that what Joe calls
overreaching I'd call overtraining 🙂

🙂 I think I've maybe hit the overreaching thing at least once. My
commute is 10km each way. I don't race, but I do push myself most days
and tend to sit on 30 - 33 km/h on all the flat sections of my commute.
Decided to extend the distance I do daily by riding 10km in the opposite
direction to home and the riding home, so a 40km day. Despite knowing
that I shouldn't just switch straight from 20km per day to 40km per
day, I did anyway. 🙂

Was okay for week one of the new distance, but mid week two I found I
was getting very tired at a much lower heart rate than usual. Switched
back to 20km days for the rest of that week and then took 3 days off.
All has been good since then, and I've been doing 40km days since
without a problem. I'm sure if I'd increased the distance over a period
of a couple of weeks, I'd have been fine.

You'll find it's a great way to make a rapid comeback though... when I
want to up my running mileage, I'll jump straight from some 20km weeks
to a 70km week, then rest for half a week, then sitting at 50km/week is
easy.

(Multiply by about 5 to make relevant to cycling)

Tam[/QUOTE]
Bah! Replied to this on Usenet last night and for some reason it didn't come through. Pasted from Google Groups

-------

eddiec eddiec.222url='http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=cf9f13376e945b15&_done=/group/aus.bicycle/browse_thread/thread/156146feda8a9549/19a1f5a8f35fb85 said:

Bleve said:

Do you have any way to measure the intensity of your riding? Without
knowing anything about how hard you're working, it could be that
you're
riding too hard (there be hills enroute!). A cheap heartrate monitor
may be useful to keep track of your workrate if this sounds plausible.
You may be overtrained. Don't scoff, it's suprisingly common amongst
recreational cyclists. Box Hill to North Melb and back each day after
a long layoff is quite a jump in workload, and the ride home is all
uphill. It's not impossible that you're overtrained.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It could also be some virus or something too - glandular fever has a
habit of making one rather lethargic. Might be worth checking out.
Also, look at your diet. If you're doing some low-carb thing, bend
over, I'll put my size 10 into your backside! You must eat to ride!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The above is educated guesswork.

Quoted message said:

Thanks - appreciate that fitness advice is probably the hardest area to
give advice when there could be so many factors at play..

Quoted message said:

I'd wondered about the possibility of overtraining - but then I never
feel like I'm particularly pushing it when I commute (which explains
the multitudes passing me 🙂 ). Have an old Polar HR monitor in the
cupboard which I might shake the dust off of and see... I'll try a
'normal' feeling ride tomorrow and see what it says.

I've had a fair bit of experience with heart rate monitors, I've been
using them since '95. For the first three or four years I faffed around
a bit, it was only in '98 that I got my head around the different
zones. Without knowledge of the zones a heart rate monitor's a
interesting adornment but not much use as a tool.
I got most of my knowledge from the Sally Edwards book, can't remember
the title. Heart Rate monitor training or something like that. A
summary of the zones commonly referred to in Australia can be found at
Bleve's site here aboc.com.auhrcalc.plOpen ↗ (Hmmmm, should
read some of the other stuff ;-) )

Basically the heart is just like any other muscle; you keep hammering
it day in day out and don't give it no rest it's not going to get much
stronger. I don't know if you've any experience with weights, the
analogy is that if you're bench pressing your max then you'll do about
one rep and then fall in a heap. Great if you give yourself three days
rest minimum before hitting that muscle group again, but if you do your
max day in day out you're not going to give your muscles a chance to
re-grow.

The same's true of the heart. I first got in to this thing running and
had a fairly structured routine of running three days at < 70% and on
the fourth day just going for it; fartlek, intervals etc were all fair
game. It totally frustrated me for the first few weeks because I'd
actually have to stop and WALK to keep under 70% at times, and here I
was a seasoned runner in the top 10% of the regiment. Faaark.

I stuck with it though and it paid off. At the start I had a resting
heart rate of 65, in six months it was down to 55. I was expending less
effort, getting faster and fitter, w00t! Running at < 70% saw speeds
which I'd be expending 85%. Give your heart a chance to get stronger
and it will. I've plateaued on 42 RHR, not bad for a rec rider /
commuter :-)

I came back to cycling three years ago and although I was using a heart
rate monitor for some reason didn't apply the same logic to cycling as I
did to running. I didn't ride much at the weekends so recovered there,
Mon - Wed were generally fine, Thu was tough and Fri it was all I could
do to get astride the bike. Bleve set me straight on that and it's been
easy peasy lemon squeezy ever since.

Summary:

You will need to find out what your max HR is. There are a variety of
equations but the best thing to do is get a proper test done. I'm sure
others have the right places to go.

If you have anything other than an easy day, strive to make at least
your next two days easy days. It will frustrate you to hell and back to
begin with but stick with it and you will get stronger. You need to
give your body a chance to grow.

Quoted message said:

Diet? No low-carb thing here (although I'll have to watch that given
our diet is potentially heading that way with my gestationally diabetic
wife and her requirements), but eating more is probably something I
don't pay enough attention to, and being a scrawny beanpole it probably
shows!

Eat eat eat eat eat. One of the reasons I ride :-) If I ever see a
cycling jersey that says `CARB JUNKIE' I'm getting it!
I've no idea what distance you ride, I do 60kms a day. That means I can
eat about 3250 - 3750 calories a day without even worrying about putting
on weight. Staminade's good, I consume a bidon on the way to work. I
have muesli before going to work, a peanut butter and honey sandwich,
banana, creamed rice as soon as I've showered.

Commuting by bicycle rules! :-D
--
Cheers | ~~ __@
Euan | ~~ _-\<,
Melbourne, Australia | ~ (*)/ (*)

eddiec said:

No, not that sort, but moreso wondering where the heck my legs have gone in terms of strength, energy, response, etc... Allow me to elaborate:

Been cycle commuting pretty regular for about 10 years now, with some periods off the bike for various reasons. With my work recently moving to North Melbourne (and hence worse traffic and worse parking than Richmond was) I'm getting back on the bike for the commute from Box Hill more regularly - which I'm pleased about. Nothing worse than an easy drive/park situation..

The first few 'getting back into the flow' rides were tough, what with the slightly longer route and that I chose to do so in the middle of summer. But for the last couple of weeks I've been baffled that my legs seem to have disappeared on me. I'm used to the occasional lethargic, no-legs feeling at the end of a full week of riding, but every day last week it was there, and even after a 3 day break the legs were still a no-show this morning - and that's not just on the bike, but even in getting up to go to the other end of the office, etc... Just feeling heavy, no energy, slow, etc... No pain or discomfort, just no get up 'n go.

Quick google has shown too much general fitness info so I'm curious as to whether anybody here has experienced this or might suggest potential approaches to getting around this - Or is this just an inevitable thingy that has to be worked through?

on top of all the good stuff everyone has mentioned already, a few people alluded to it, but not explicitly stated it - hydration.

Are you drinking enough? Sounds silly, but most people think they drink enough (I drink 3 L a day - that's gotta be enough!?) but actually don't. Plus, drinking water if you are working hard just doesn't crack it. You sweat out sodium, magnesium, calcium amongst other stuff. You need to put it back in. A brands have been mentioned - powerade and gatorade are acidic and rot your teeth (my dentist showed me!!) staminade is less acidic and has magnesium, as does Endura if you are wealthy, or have access to freebies!

So, carb up, watch your HR monitor as just that - a guide, rest well, and drink drink drink!