Road Cycling - What do you do with your legs?

I have been trying out some new pedaling techniques as per Greg LeMonds book and my legs are starting to feel the difference. They ache at night, mainly because I'm using my muscles more effectivly and I was wondering what everyone else did to their legs after a ride :confused:

I dont rub them down or take a hot bath so is there something I can do after a ride?

I read some people take Glutamine for recovery, any one else know about this?

Thanks :beer:

The best thing you can do is streching. You need to learn proper streching techniques though to truly benefit from it. I suggest you pickup some Yoga classes. You will be amazed how much mroe quickly you can recover after a strong pull once you start streching after each ride.

Cheers

Take a cold bath. Muscles get microscopic damage and this means that the damage must heal so that you get stronger. The idea is to get the blood and waste away from the muscles by taking a cold bath. By the time you go to bed, fresh blood can get to the legs and help repair the muscles. Thus, you start each day, soreless and all rearing to go!!

regarding your question on glutamine, i don't know of any studies in post excercise recovery but we do use Glutamine in the hospital and it has been studied in hospitalized patients for trauma, cancer, and major surgery. It is called a "non-essential" amino acid because our body makes glutamine and therefore glutamine supplements are not necessary to thrive. The most important role of amino acids such as glutamine is to form proteins. Proteins are important for nutrition and muscle health but also help support the immune system and help maintain intestine function. People who suffer from trauma, immunodeficiency, malnutrition, or extreme stress do not make enough glutamine.
Those patients who received glutamine had fewer infections and improved wound healing. Animal and test tube studies suggest that glutamine helps to prevent a reduction in B and T cells. In patients who had surgery, glutamine increased T cell formation. One study in patients with HIV showed a small increase in body weight (3 to 6 pounds) and muscle mass for those taking 40 grams of glutamine daily.

In these circumstances there is good data on the utility of glutamine. If you don't have kidney or liver problems, it may not hurt to try glutamine supplementaion.

Hi,
gluten contains a lot of glutamine. Also has an imortant amino acid for healing, methionine. You can buy it in bulk a whole lot cheaper than glutamine pills. Try a health food store, should be $3 a pound. Better for you, too. The tricky bit is using it. It's easy to throw some into pancake mix, or bread mix, or... Here's what you do. On a day off, make something you like. COuld be banana bread, doesn't matter. Put a lot of gluten into the mix. Cut the result into small pieces, and have them during the recovery period. Alternatively, WHite Wave makes seitan in different flavors now (Seitan is like tofu made entirely from gluten). I keep some around and throw a little into dishes when I'm sore. The chicken flavor is good at disappearing.

In the last 3 years I went from being an out of shape 51 year old to being a dedicated cyclist who rides as much as possible on slightly hilly terrain. In that time I have encountered a few different leg aches. I think that the combination of my age and the sudden increase in exercise made me more prone to muscle aches.
Here are the causes I have encountered.

1. Not enough hydration. Drink plenty before, during and after the exercise.

2. Properly stretch before and (especially after) the ride. Walking around or taking a small hike helps too.

3. Not enough post ride protein. I now drink Endurox during the big ride and Accelerade after.

I think that the combination of my age and the sudden increase in exercise made me more prone to muscle aches. In all cases, the aches diminished after my muscles adjusted to the exercise, but I still do all three precautions mentioned above.

I take them off at night and lay them gently beside the bed, that way, they're fresh in the morning ;) :D Couldn't resist :rolling:

Endurox during and accelerade after? I thought is should be accelerade during and endurox after.

I lift weights, in addition to cycling, & glutamine is supposed to help with muscle recovery. I use EAS and just mix it with water & slug it down. I think it does help.

stretching.

and Advil.

but mostly stretching, it's key!

Endurox during and accelerade after? I thought is should be accelerade during and endurox after
OOPS! My Goof

Your right - I misspoke.

Nike used to make a t-shirt that said something like:

"Eat well. Drink plenty of fluids. Get a good night's sleep. Go like hell."

To that I add: "Take a cool bath."

AH GOD! A cold bath?? Jesus that sounds awful! Maybe a good while after the workout, but right after??? That would make me so stiff! I can't stand to feel cold at all when my muscles are tired.

Me either! :) After I finished the MS150 this past weekend, I went straight for a hot shower. It felt wonderful.

Not cold. Cool.

The cool water draws the heat from your body and helps close up the capillaries that are oozing blood into your muscles. If you take a hot bath, those capillaries will open up and the next morning you'll definitely be stiff and sore.

I wasn't much. :) Just tired. I did bloat a lot after the ride for a few days. Wonder if that was the hot water thing?

I always take a hot shower, and I rarely get sore. And it's not that I'm not pushing it enough. To each his/her own... Maybe I'll try a cool bath like an hour after or something. Can't hurt to try!

Now that I read it, what I should have said was "I never get sore after a cool bath." And with the caveat that your mileage may vary.

epson salts in the bath
message
stretch

i stretch and then go and have lunch...

Originally posted by caloso
Not cold. Cool.

The cool water draws the heat from your body and helps close up the capillaries that are oozing blood into your muscles. If you take a hot bath, those capillaries will open up and the next morning you'll definitely be stiff and sore.

Well, I don't know if you know this but we have closed circulatory systems. Capillaries do not "ooze" blood into the muscles. Now plasma from the blood in the capillaries can diffuse out into surrounding tissues in the right circumstances. But I doubt that that would affect whether you felt "stiff and sore" the next morning or not.

I have heard various explanations on the causes of muscles soreness and stiffness. It seems to happen after the muscles have been challenged above normal. It also seems to happen more as a result of pushing the muscles to high levels of exertion as opposed to just going out and doing a really long ride at a moderate level of exertion.

The soreness and stiffness might be a result of the build up of lactic acid but I doubt that. Seems to me that lactic acid would be removed before it could do much. It seems more likely that the muscles would be slightly damaged by the trauma of heavy exercise and the stiffness and soreness is a result of that. Stretching would seem to help the stiffness.

Originally posted by Pat
Well, I don't know if you know this but we have closed circulatory systems. Capillaries do not "ooze" blood into the muscles. Now plasma from the blood in the capillaries can diffuse out into surrounding tissues in the right circumstances. But I doubt that that would affect whether you felt "stiff and sore" the next morning or not.

I have heard various explanations on the causes of muscles soreness and stiffness. It seems to happen after the muscles have been challenged above normal. It also seems to happen more as a result of pushing the muscles to high levels of exertion as opposed to just going out and doing a really long ride at a moderate level of exertion.

The soreness and stiffness might be a result of the build up of lactic acid but I doubt that. Seems to me that lactic acid would be removed before it could do much. It seems more likely that the muscles would be slightly damaged by the trauma of heavy exercise and the stiffness and soreness is a result of that. Stretching would seem to help the stiffness.

I think that you may be correct and you rightly got me on the sloppy phrasing. No doubt a result of my sloppy thinking.

muscle soreness is usually caused by lactic acid -- which washes out quite soon after any exertion -- and muscle tissue damage. this later is not as bad as it sounds, since it is through damaging tissues that muscles grow back stronger. the pain from tissue damage is usually felt 24-48 hours after the exertion.

there's also the old problem of tendon strain, but this can be prevented by stretching before and after exertion. any exercise causes your muscles to contract [that is how they work, actually]. by stretching before exertion, you're allowing your muscles to contract to normal rather than shotrer than normal, and by stretching afterward, you bring blood into the tissue, and mitigate some of the contraction.

I often find that walking is the best way to relieve sore cycling legs.

Actually I believe a cold bath works better. However, that is after you have stretched and rested a while. You need to consume the carbohydrates and restore muscle glycogen, and that is while your body is still heated up, so that it can be sent to the muscles. If you take a cold bath, or even cool, blood flow to the muscles is minimised and thus your glycogen stores will not be completely restored.

I believed that it is definitely not lactic acid that causes muscle soreness. It is the damage done by the exercise, thus your muscle swells up with much blood flow in the area. However, the excess liquid delays healing and recovery, thus a cold bath is necessary. As cold as you can possibly take, but do it in moderation. If it is a cool bath, you can probably soak in for half an hour, if it's cold, you can at most soak in for 5-10 mins. It all depends, use a bit of logic. If you make your muscles too cold for too long, there will be a trauma response by sending more blood to the area instead and it will swell up even more.

Stretching helps, since you are more able to flush out the excess fluids. Cold bath helps. Drinking plenty of fluid helps. Eating well helps. More importantly, sleep well. It helps the most because it is when you recover.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by velocipedio
[B]muscle soreness is usually caused by lactic acid -- which washes out quite soon after any exertion -- and muscle tissue damage. this later is not as bad as it sounds, since it is through damaging tissues that muscles grow back stronger. the pain from tissue damage is usually felt 24-48 hours after the exertion.

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i've actually been reading about new theories about muscle soreness and they point towards the cleaving off of a hydrogen atom during catabolism rather than lactic acid production. yes, there is lactate production, but researchers are looking at this other process as producing muscle soreness.

WoW...so many responses and no talk of massage, I am blown away. I have always felt that cyclists were light years ahead of many other pro athletes because of the strict use of massage. You don't need a masseur...I have two excellent methods.

Electric massager while sitting in a recliner or up in bed...after a few times you can grind this into your quads until most cheap ones overheat and break, long tight pants preferred or oil em down if bare. Even when legs are sore to the touch you can work it out and feel when legs have recovered...you won't believe how legs will feel next day....or

lay on floor with legs up in air resting on a chair...put pillows under ankles to get them up almost straight. Oil em down and massage up and down....grind as hard as you can into muscle...at first your hands will wear out. You can also do this directly after a ride with electric massager...flushes lactic acid quickly. With hands this allows you to work all muscle groups vs. quads and calves electrically.

I guarantee results will blow you away....you will add another hard workout weekly with no neg. effects over not massaging. You will have great rides on days when you were sure the prev. day would have cooked you...Remember that massage immediately after ride is preferred but evenings before bed still help a lot.Good Luck