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07-24-07, 08:23 AM
I've tried stretching before for different activities, but I've never seen any benefit to the greater flexibility. Danno's stretch pictures from a few months back have been in my mind as a potential fix for my TT position.
My legs have always fallen asleep during TTs after 10-20 minutes. The harder I go, the sooner they fall asleep. I've tried changing my position all over the place, and it's had no impact (right now, my saddle tip is 2cm behind my BB spindle).
Well, I did a TT last week without aero bars in my normal road position, concentrating on staying in the drops. My legs fell asleep, and I realized I could feel a lot of strain in my glutes across the bottom of my hips (like I could feel the tendons stretching out).
So, Sunday night, I decided to commit to just one stretching exercise. So, every 6 hours or so, I just stand, cross my legs at the ankle, and bend down as far as I can, gently hold it for 15s, then switch legs. In two days, I can get 2" lower during the stretch.
This morning I did the local ~8-mile TT at an "easy" pace (below LTHR until the last 2 minutes). My legs didn't fall asleep, and I got my 2nd best time ever (19:04), in spite of being 30s behind schedule at the turnaround. Previously, my increasing effort has always been hampered by the falling asleep -- but today I was able to ramp it up all the way to the finish.
I'll keep stretching, and next Tuesday, I'll hit the RunFar TT all-out and see how it goes. I feel like getting that 13s to beat my PR will be a cakewalk.
My legs have always fallen asleep during TTs after 10-20 minutes. The harder I go, the sooner they fall asleep. I've tried changing my position all over the place, and it's had no impact (right now, my saddle tip is 2cm behind my BB spindle).
Well, I did a TT last week without aero bars in my normal road position, concentrating on staying in the drops. My legs fell asleep, and I realized I could feel a lot of strain in my glutes across the bottom of my hips (like I could feel the tendons stretching out).
So, Sunday night, I decided to commit to just one stretching exercise. So, every 6 hours or so, I just stand, cross my legs at the ankle, and bend down as far as I can, gently hold it for 15s, then switch legs. In two days, I can get 2" lower during the stretch.
This morning I did the local ~8-mile TT at an "easy" pace (below LTHR until the last 2 minutes). My legs didn't fall asleep, and I got my 2nd best time ever (19:04), in spite of being 30s behind schedule at the turnaround. Previously, my increasing effort has always been hampered by the falling asleep -- but today I was able to ramp it up all the way to the finish.
I'll keep stretching, and next Tuesday, I'll hit the RunFar TT all-out and see how it goes. I feel like getting that 13s to beat my PR will be a cakewalk.