cslone

I had knee surgery for a complete torn Articular Cartilage and 50% Meniscus removal on Jan 19th. I have been back in the gym for a month pain free. The PT released me to do about anything but distance running right now. Thursday when she released me I was doing single leg(surgical leg) press at 310lbs without pain(under her watch). I could have done more, but she didn't want a re-injury. Point being, I think I'm ready to get back on the bike. I did 30' Wednesday low intensity and had no problems. I'm going to build easy, like 3x this week at 1hr each. Maybe 1'30" 3-4x next week. After that I'm looking to jump back in full force. I have been off the bike since Oct 18 of 2009. My CTL is 0.4 right now.

I'm going to sit down today and rewrite my 2010 goals. From there I'll be able to see how many weeks I have and try to make the best plan of attack I can say right now, my A races are going to be Mid-June and late August, with a few priority races in July.

My A races are TT's and Crits as usual.

My question is, do I get a base or just hit specificity? I realize your peak is as good as your base, but I'm afraid it's too late to hit a "real" solid base right now and still be good for June/Aug with the intensity. So, if this were your situation, what approximate breakdown would you use? Lot's of base for 2-4 weeks then hit the higher intensity? Or straight into SST and skip the base for the most part?

Thanks for any opinions.

esammuli

I would use the next couple of weeks (at least) as a transitional period. Don't try to rush back all at once. Then I'd try to get at least a month of solid base, more if you can stand it. Going from injury/zero fitness straight to intensity sounds like a recipe for disaster.

cslone

Yeah, I don't plan on jumping right in. I was thinking 2 weeks pretty easy, increasing the work load/wattage every session. Then my question comes in whether I do 3 days of LSD or 4-5 days of SST for about a month. So that would be 6 weeks before I got back into my VO2 max efforts. I just didn't know that since my racing will be 60' max if I should really worry about the LSD or get a jump on the "harder" efforts of SST.
I guess what I'm asking is with races as short as 60', is my time better spent on building base or SST to be back to some semblance of form by June? I think I could get 8-12 hours a week on the bike.

waterrockets 

I'd favor base for at least the first month. You need a foundation on which to build fitness.

carpediemracing 

Although not quite the same injury, I was off the bike for 6-8 weeks following an Aug 11 crash. 2 months later, Oct 11, I realized my scale was wrong and I was 10# heavier than I thought. I'd just started riding a week or two earlier (with some pain, but the doc said that this was normal).

I was really weak. I could barely move a 1/2 pound weight with my shoulder, and that was my "light" injury. I thought it'd be forever before I could ride again.

I went on a diet, 3 months later I was 25+ lbs lighter. I haven't been this light for 10 years. During that time I trained whenever I had energy, 1-2 days a week. I can do 5-6 days now, 1-3 hours a day. I wouldn't say I'm at peak form but we'll see a week from Sunday.

My first A race? A week from tomorrow, i.e. next Sunday March 7. It'll be about 7 months since I fell, 5 months since I started riding. I've been training in a vacuum, 1 group ride, 1 crit (Red Trolley Cat 3s in CA), otherwise solo rides (or one other rider with me), all but 15 or so rides on the trainer.

I can't remember what level you are but I'd use the initial recovery period to do any "weight maintenance" (lose excess weight). Work on form (low resistance stuff like rollers or spinning type rides). Your strength will return rapidly when you're healthy.

And unless you're making a living racing, you don't have to be on fire this year. You can wait till next year, or the year after, or a decade or two from now.

cdr

ridethecliche

CDR what you did worked, but I think it's always a terrible idea to go on a diet when you're recovering from an injury unless you're really good about getting enough fats/protein to rebuild your body.

I guess it worked for you though. I'll try my best to come support you at bethel. It'll be weird since I still have a 'team' but you're going to be so strong this year that it'll be k-nasty!

carpediemracing 

Good point on recovery.

I was "healed" when I started my diet, i.e. bone was stitched (knitted? I forget which one is the right term), but I still had pain sensations. The whole time I was taking calcium supplements (loaded with stuff to help absorb calcium) and my "low cal" diet actually improved my diet. So no Snickers bars, coffee cake muffins, etc. More veggies, meat, even dairy (my prior source of dairy products - coffee and any deserts at restaurants I may have had, plus the infrequent yogurt).

Anyway, when I started dieting I was really, really weak. Like struggling to carry 25 lbs bags at work. I figured that I'd always be able to regain strength but it'd be hard to lose weight later. Since my metabolism was already kind of slow I decided I'd take advantage of the off-season, diet, and see what happened. It was pretty shocking.

The biggest thing was that I wasn't concerned with riding, at least not beyond working on pedaling form. I'd spin at 80-100 watts, 80-110 rpm. It'd take me 3 days to recover from an hour of spinning, it was so fatiguing. But I didn't push it.

And, ultimately, I guess that's my point - I wanted to recover fully before thinking about racing. I figure I'll be racing another 10-15 years at least (I can't see doing M60+, but definitely racing at M55+), and I don't want to have problems from my crash. So I let my body dictate what I felt comfortable with doing. I felt okay at 80-100 watts although sometimes it felt a bit ridiculous. But now I feel great, nothing wrong.

So my approach would be to heal first, worry about racing after that. And based on starting riding right now, I think that being in decent shape by August for the OP should be attainable.

I wouldn't rush it. No sense throwing away years of future racing to get in some dumb-azz crit in May 2010 or do some group ride in a month.

cdr

cat4ever

Personally, I'd screw base. By base, I mean long time at endurance pace. I would easy easy easy (easy) pedal for a couple of weeks at a gradually faster rpm, then hit the hard stuff. Leave the base crap for the jerks who road race.

Shayne

You should come out and do the spring RR series. Then I'd have someone to ride with after the first climb.

mollusk

How much time per week can you devote to riding? If you can schedule things so that you can do 15 hrs, 17 hrs, and 20 hours in three consecutive weeks followed by a short week (10 hours) through 2 or 3 iterations I would strongly suggest a serious "base" mode with almost everything Zone 2. The occasional sprint or hard tempo ride is fine to break up the monotony, but only if it doesn't interfere with the "plan", i.e. you hurt too much afterward and need an unscheduled rest day.

If you cannot find that much time in your schedule, then slowly ramp into as much SST hours as you can fit in for awhile. When that becomes comfortable then start mixing intensity in.

cat4ever

Job/wife/kids - plus, his specialty is criteriums. There is absolutely no need to ride 20 hours in a week to prepare for a 60 minute crit.

cslone

Yeah, I can do maybe 12 hours realistically.

ridethecliche

If you're plotting a return, you have to practice your evil laugh.

Apus^2

I'm stuck on the trainer for another six weeks and I really can't get much more than an hour and a half at a time. I'm hitting up my FTP, hopefully to get it within 90% pre-injury before I'm cleared to actually get on the road (I'm not allowed to put a significant amount of weight on my pec yet). Once I can get on the road, I'll back off and focus on my base for a bit.

I also prefer crits, so I don't feel I need (or have the luxury) of more than 10 hours a week--and that is really stretching it. My goal for later this year is a steady 8+ hours a week--4.5 during the week and 4+ on the weekend. Because of that, I'll be doing a lot of SST and threshold intervals until I decide to race again, then I'll do some VO2s.

Greg180

Had the same surgery in January 09. Back on the bike in September 09 for spinning and LSD. Got anxious and ramped up the effort too fast and ended up with pain and swelling I could not train through. What did me in 2x20s at threshold+, Micro Burst intervals 3x10x1 and VO2 intervals 5x5x1. My physical therapist and I believe that the rest cycle between intervals was too short. Backed off training in late January 2010 and rebuilding through February and March. The joint needs good stability to handle the torque.

Advice. Don't push it. Your probably younger and stronger, but I thought I'd share the lesson.

mollusk

Then get to SST as soon as possible.

cslone

Thanks for the input guys.

Greg, did you have the Meniscus, Articular cartilage or both? What ended up bothering you once you got back on the bike? My PT said I could get back on but to ramp up slowly. She said there will be some pain but I can ride through that within reason. The problem is that my pain scale is way off for some reason, so my 1/10 pain might be someone else's 5/10. When I asked when I should back off with pain, she said, "Oh, you'll know, trust your body." Also, when you say you ramped up too quickly, how long from getting back on the bike and spinning to when you started the harder efforts?

Anyway, my stability seems to be there, but I don't want to overdo it. I've been doing single leg press @ 150lbs x 12, 160 x 10 and 170 x 8 with no problem for a month. My last day of therapy she wanted to push me and see how my knee felt. I did 30' on the bike pretty easy then 1/2 mile pick ups on the treadmill at 7:30min/mile pace for a total of 2.4 miles. Then I got on the leg press and did 310lbs x 5 on my surgical leg. The next day I had some muscle soreness, but no knee pain.

Anyway, what I was thinking was to get on the bike for 2 weeks, throwing in some very short 300w efforts, like 30-60 seconds x 3-5. Previous FTP was 320. I'd be lucky if I am at 250 right now. If it feels good, then hop into a week or two of LSD. That would be 4 weeks of "easy" distance. From there, decide if I want to start the SST and heavier efforts.

Greg180

cslone, I had a complete ACL, with repairs to the MCL and meniscus. I had the same advice. Train to the pain. I have lived with all types of pain over the years so my pain threshold is not a good scale. At one point I called the PA that assists my DOC and told him of some pain after training that seemed significant. He told me it was to be expected, keep training but back off if I can't exercise with the pain. I continued to train, eat some advil and told myself to HTFU.

I had one week where I did a set of MB, a 2x20 and 5 hours of low tempo work. I also did four miles of running on the treadmill, weight lifting and a hike of 8+miles with elevation gain. The following week I could barely walk. Another evaluation indicated severe tendinitis and irritation to my femoral condyle (do to a piece of it being tore loose in the original accident). His diagnosis was that my muscular strength was to yet sufficient to handle the stresses I was putting on the joint. His advice was to stay with the weights with light and high reps, more rest between hard efforts and not to be so intent on gaining all my strength back so quickly.

I'm back in the gym working the legs. Doing mostly tempo riding. As far as running I have new inserts for my shoes to assist in better displacing the impact and a six week program to follow.

I'm not a competitive cyclist. I am a middle age adrenaline junkie that loves competition and putting my body through stress. I race to keep me focused on fitness goals. Right now my goal is to get my knee back to 100%.

Your knee stability already seems to be very good. You have obviously healed well. I do not know your age but that could be a factor. Looks like your doing all the right things just be aware of any pain associated with the joint.

cslone

Greg, thanks for the clarification. I did note that your surgery was more involved than mine though as you had the ACL involvement. Mine was just the Articular Cartilage which is basically my shock absorber that sits on top of the tibial plateau. I can see why you were off so long. IIRC, the typical ACL isn't healed fully for 6-9 months. Although they took out a lot of material, I think it is still relatively minor compared to what you had. I'm 29 and seem to recover pretty well to this point. I'll play it by feel and see where it goes.

Greg180

Perfect...Hope all goes well.

echappist

cslone & Greg, sorry to reanimate a 10 months old thread, but i'd like to hear about your thoughts regarding your returns to the sport. Were you satisfied with the planned return, or are there things you'd like to change in the training during the return?

Many thanks in advance

cslone

Meh, mine did not go so well. I had some setbacks as far as PT. Pain which put me back off the bike until mid-May(about 8 months off total). I did my first race, a REALLY flat, REALLY non-technical 2/3 crit with about 2 weeks of training. I finished surprisingly, like 16th. After that, the wheels fell off. Anything that was remotely technical or had a bump in the road and I was toast.
Facing the reality that I was more than 6 months behind in my training(and still eating like the offseason), I kinda wrote the season off. I was about 20lbs over my race weight and didn't care. I had lost a lot of motivation and life in general got in the way. I took over as a team leader on the SWAT team, which consumed me for a few months. 2 week out of town classes(not taking the bike), meetings, etc. I really put training on the back burner. My longest ride of the 2010 season was 42 miles. I raced 10 races as that is my commitment to my team.

For 2011, I have switched teams. I've re-written my goals for next season, which doesn't put me really on a plan until late December. Right now, I'm riding 60+ miles each day on the weekends and cross training during the week, trying to lose weight again. I'm about 10lbs down right now, with about 20 to go, if I have my way. I'm trying to ease back into the bike so I don't burn out by March of next year.

I'm not sure if the pain I had was from the increased training load for the first two weeks, or my physiology. My recovery was strange by my Doc and PT's standards and they kept having to come up with different treatments/exercises to counteract the strange things my body was doing. They finally just said, "we can't figure out why you're still swelling, etc. Just get back on the bike and see how it feels." With almost daily contact from the PT and MD, they listened to my input and told me to take it easy for a little while in mid-March. That turned into me staying off the bike totally and getting lazy until I signed up for my first race and decided I had probably better do something. I am just now feeling physically like I could get back on the bike for a full training week. Now I need to get there mentally.

ridethecliche

My injuries made me realize that depending on your fitness and your injury, sometimes you might be better off going much easier than you think you can handle and taking it much slower than you need to with intensity, etc.

Peak later, race less, etc. Test your body before you commit. It's really frustrating when your legs aren't ready but your mentality says 'go go go!' you risk a ton of injury etc. Of course this depends on you, your body, and how well you and your docs know it.

cslone

I've been off the bike so long, I have the opposite problem. It's been nice not fretting over missing a workout. My body is ready, but my motivation is just starting to come back.

ridethecliche

It can bite both ways depending on where you're at.

Good luck though. I'm looking forward to seeing you come back. This group of addicts helps