Originally Posted by
scozim
Way late to the party for me. I used to do a lot of bodybuilding training when I was younger and not riding. 57 now and with severe lumbar stenosis (thank you heavy squats and leg presses). I am currently lifting weights 4 days a week and mix between heavy and light days. With the back situation the legs get some strength training but size and strength in the quads is usually maintained with cycling - I like to ride hard when I'm on my own and build the lactic acid in the legs. Cycling is the one relief I have to the constant pain in the back and legs. I have doubled efforts on the strength and cardio this winter after prostate cancer surgery a year ago and rising PSA numbers leading me down the road toward probable radiation treatment later this year. I'd rather have my body as strong as possible before that happens.
Here's the John Hopkins on lumbar stenosis:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heal...pinal-stenosis
Mine was diagnosed maybe 15 years ago with an MRI. No cure of course, but there's treatment. All I can relate is what I've done. Whether that's been effective could be totally personal, but I'll relate anyway.
1) I've been taking glucosamine sulfate, 750mg/day, for 40 years. Glucosamine hydrochloride does nothing as has been proven by many studies. So it might be just the sulfur, who knows? Seems to work, anyway. For the past maybe 20 years, I've also taken MSM, also containing sulfur. I've taken to capping it myself to save money so don't know the exact dose, 1 00 cap/day, anyway
2) Stretching, these stretches every morning:
IT Band pain (during ride) Then I do a plank as long as I can, and then as many pushups as I can do, 1 set.
3) Walking. I use a slightly weird gait, where I rotate each hip in a circular fashion, walking as fast as I can with long strides, say 3 miles. This moves my lumbar spine around, avoids sciatica. Not every day, once or twice a week.
4) Gym. I started a strength training thread several years ago. scattered through it are PDFs of the periodized routines my wife and I still use:
Introduction to strength training for the endurance athlete
Unfortunately, the powers that be here decided that PDF files can no longer be attached, so none of those PDF links work. If anyone's interested, I could email them the PDFs as attachments. Really too bad that they did that. So PM me with your email if you're interested.
Anyway, my back is just fine today, didn't deteriorate, got better in fact, so this worked for me.