stringbreaker

I have had back an knee problems since I was in my 20's. The back was caused from a fall when I was a 15year old high schooler. It didn't bother me too much until I hit my 30's kind of off and on then more on in my 40's and even worse now in my 50's its one of the reasons I don't like riding in the drops. Fast forward to this past May and my son calls and says "hey dad can you help me install an airconditioner) well this kid is 25 and in his first home so I go help if I'm asked so I went. To make a long story short I really screwed up my back and I went to the doc last week finally so he gives me some muscle relaxers and refers me to the PT department. I went in today and the therapist puts me through this exam bending here and there doing all kinds of stuff. So she says the good news is there appears to be no damage to the structure :ie: vertabrae and discs cause the things she had me do would have made it very apparent. So I have 4 excersises I'm supposed to do every 2 hours that I am home and a couple I can do at work sitting in a chair or just standing. I've done them 3 times this evening hopefully they will give me some flexibility since thats one area I am lacking in. I also have really tight hamstrings so she gave me a good excercise for that. She didn't tell me not to ride so ride I will. Its nice to know there is no structural damage and the muscle stretching I can do so alls well. Sorry to ramble but I'm really relieved last week I could hardly move at times without killer pain it felt like a big knot on both sides of my spine mid back now I know what a muscle spasm feels like

Bud Bent

I hope the pt helps. It did for me, so much so that I bought a video called "Healthy Abs and Back" that used a lot of the stretches and exercises I'd done in the pt, and incorporated it into my non-cycling exercise routine. It seems to help me a lot.

Widsith

It's good there's no major damage. If you keep up with the PT exercises you'll probably see a big improvement in flexibility. I broke my elbow in a bike accident at the beginning of June and was in a cast for a couple of weeks, then had physical therapy sessions twice a week for a few weeks after that. Like you, they also gave me exercises to do at home. When my arm first came out of the cast I couldn't come anywhere close to straightening it out or bending it enough to touch my shoulder. Treating my elbow with a heating pad, a massage and the exercises (whether done by the therapist or by myself at home) would give noticeable improvement, but afterward it would stiffen up again. The therapist said there were measurable gains at each appointment, but I couldn't see it at first. After a couple of weeks, though, I started noticing that I could reach farther and the feeling of tightness was less. By the time I had my last PT appointment there was a big difference. Now, almost exactly two months after the accident, there still is some pain when I fully extend my arm, but I have full range of motion back and the pain is less every day.

Some of those exercises seemed kind of silly, but they got the job done. The important thing is to keep it up, even if it doesn't seem to be doing much at first, because the effect is cumulative and before long you should see some improvement. Don't try to hurry up the process, though, by doing a lot more exercising than the therapist told you to do, because that can cause a setback. Doing several sets of the exercises at different times during the day is much better than trying to exercise a lot all at once, because your muscles need time to recuperate in between sets, and too much or too frequent exercise interferes with the healing of damaged tissue.