sanmicvaio

Hi, this is my first time in this Forum

I'm 45 years old and started cycling 3 years ago after a 25 year break.. For the past two summers I started commuting to work every day (30 Km one way), but am experiencing sore legs after the second day of the week. I start off ok on Monday (lots of energy and average approx. 27 KM/hr). By the Wednesday my legs really start getting sore, and by Friday my legs are screaming and I have trouble finding energy in my legs to get to work. What's wrong with me? Do I need to build muscle in my legs? How can improve? I get enough sleep and feel rested, but my legs are not following.. Any help would be very appreciated.

Thanks.

MyFeetAsJello

Try drinking more water during the day. It helps a whole lot to relieve soreness.

jbonus

Invest in a Travel Stick. Best $25 I ever spent.

https://www.worldcycling.com/merchant...duct_Code=STK2

Joseph H-T

Sore legs? Here are three suggestions:
1. Check fit of seat, peddle length, shoe cleats--many people are working against their natural movements of joints and ligaments. An experienced bike shop can help here.
2. I like the "more fluids suggestion already offered. I just biked across the North Cascades Hwy both directions, and the RSVP Seattle to Vancouver (187 mi) with absolutely no pain, and I'm 61.
3. For me, Yoga is good morning realignment of muscles and joints. Nothing fancy, more like James Yee's "Morning Yoga" tape or the basic exercises offered on the net for beginners.
4. Self-massage, as presented in "Massage for Cyclists" by Roger Pozenik (Vitesse Press), can help take away the pain caused by buildup of fuids trapped in muscles after a ride.
Joseph H-T

DannoXYZ 

spin easier gears...

power = work/time = (force*distance)/time = fd/t

force = how hard you're pushing on the pedals
distance = the circumference of the pedal-spin (distance of circle traveled by your feet on the pedals)
time = how much time it takes to spin the pedal around

So you can generate the same amount of power by pushing on the pedals lighter and faster. You push it through a larger distance (more revolutions) in the same amount of time. This lower force on the pedals will not stress your muscles as much for the same power output. Don't push such big gears....


You can also think about it in the reverse. Imagine theoretically, you can get such a giant gear, like 1800t in front and 2-tooth in the rear, or some monstrous gear ratio such that you only need to make just one pedal revolution per mile traveled. Imagine how much force you'd have to mash on that pedal in order to turn it over... Imagine how much stress that's gonna put on your muscles.... It'd be like squatting or leg-pressing.... 100,000 lbs!!!

So do the opposite, use two gears easier than you're currently using at the same speed, no more sore legs! ... and you'll go faster too.

balto charlie

I more or less "hit the wall" earlier this year. rode too fast and too long. My legs turned to mush. Here are a few of the replies I got from local bicyclist in the DC area. Their advice really helped. #3 is the area most of us ride- no man's land. Read 'em all na dgood luck Charlie
#1
i used to ride as fast and hard as possible on every ride i went on
until this year, when i started allowing myself to do easy rides when
my body told me i needed a rest. on these easy rides, i would do
nothing that caused any pain [such as that caused by lactic acid],
even when that meant not trying to catch someone who passed me.
[inconceivable!] in return i found that, as of the time of my
accident, i was in the best biking shape that i'd been in for a few years.

i don't know why it took me this long to practice what is already
known, but, oh well. [when i feel good and strong, i do push myself,
though.]

any miles on a bike are good miles. don't feel bad when you're
tired--just give yourself a break a couple of times a week [or as
often as you need].

#2
You can use Rating of Perceived Effort (RPE) as your guide. While this
still talks about Heart Rate, there's a scale at the bottom:

https://www.cptips.com/percxtn.htm

Basically, you just judge your exertion rate and add a zero using a scale
from 6 (lightest) to 20 (toughest) to roughly estimate your heart rate.

Others use an RPE going from 1 to 10. From Fred Matheny's book, "Complete
Book of Road Bike Training":

5 = an easy spin along bike path
6 = light effort
7 = breathing steadily and rhythmically
8 = breathing harder but but not panting
9 = beginning to gasp and can't converse
10= riding as hard as you can

I have also heard about using the conversation factor too. If you can carry
on a casual conversation with someone without fighting for breath, that
might count as light. But RPE is fairly widely used and accepted.

Yeah, I know what you mean when you see a "rabbit" go by you and that
temptation to chase is there. Unfortunately, sometimes you just don't
realize that you're throwing yourself out of whack for several more days.
Another quote - "ride at an effort and speed that anyone could do."

BTW, I also try to take one day and do some weight lifting as well. Breaks
up the routine. Works the anerobic vs the aerobic.

I don't think speed/distance really matter as much as long as your RPE stays
low. In training literature, recovery rides seem to be kept to about an
hour, though.

I remember training for a century and one week just feeling lousy and tired.
Didn't want to get on the bike. So, I took a few days off completely. I
came back feeling pretty refreshed and realized I had gotten into
overtraining.

So, after all is said and done, I think the main point is to listen to your
body and above all, keep it fun.

#3 VARY THE INTENSITY

If there's one trait that distinguishes pros from recreational riders, it's
how they pace their training. Professional riders can go fast because when
they train hard (or race), they go like lightning. But when they train
slowly, they go very, very slowly.

Conversely, most recreational riders train at a moderate pace -- fast enough
to feel like they're accomplishing something but not so hard that they're
suffering unduly. You'll hear some coaches refer to this pace -- about 80%
of max heart rate -- as "no-man's land." Like the shell-pocked wasteland
between dug-in armies during World War I, you don't want to be there very
often.

Why? Because no-man's land delivers a double whammy. It compromises recovery
and improvement.

At a moderately brisk pace of around 80% of max heart rate, you're not going
slowly enough to recover. You need a pace around 65% of max to pump
nutrient-rich blood to your leg muscles without stressing them further.

Unfortunately, when you're languishing in no-man's land, you're also not
going fast enough to improve. That takes an intensity of about 90% of max.

When every ride is done at a medium pace, your results are bound to be
mediocre.

DannoXYZ 

#3 No man's land is where a lot of people get trapped! Simple way to break it up is to do two types of rides: short rides with 5-10 sprints along the way and long weekend endurance rides of 3-4 hours. If you can only ride two days a week, do these two rides and that's it. If you do three days a week, add in a day of intervals. Four rides a week, add in some longer hill-climb intervals.

Note that in sprints, intervals and hill-climbs, you MUST max-out the heart-rate by the end. It's the intensity that makes you improve. Sprints are 100% all out effort for about 45s-1minute. Spin easy gears as fast as you can, 110-130rpm.

Intervals are long sprints at a fixed intensity such that your heart-rate climbs steadily to maximum at the end, 95% effort for 1 minute or 90% for 5 minutes. You can pyramid them 1-2-3-5-3-2-1 for an intense workout.

Same thing with hillclimbs, 5-10-15 minutes at a pace that has your heart-rate slowly increasing to maximum at the top.

Basically the way to get rid of sore-legs is to work them out even HARDER! It makes them stronger (cardio also improves). Just make sure you get plenty of rest for recovery in between rides... 1 sprint day a week, 1 interval day, 1 hillclimb day, etc.

youngster

nice post danno, gives me great ideas. i'm just wondering how much time would you take to recover/spin in between each type of exercice? I imagine it depends on whether you want to train aerobically or anaerobically.

DannoXYZ 

I usually monitor my HR on these workouts and rest until my HR falls down to 50-60% of max-HR before doing the next sprint/interval. With conditioning, you'll find that the recovery time improves significantly. Eventually you get to the point where you can do an all-out sprint, say... for a prime in a race. Then when you pull off to let the pack catch up, you're fully recovered by the time you pull back into the pack. Practice crits are a great way to get in sprint & interval workouts in the least amount of time.

I've heard some people say that they can get to the point where after a sprint, by the time they sit back down in the saddle, they've recovered and are ready to go at it again... I suspect they either haven't pushed themselves fully in the sprint, or they really haven't recovered. I always attack right after a prime sprint to test those claims ... heh, heh...

sanmicvaio

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback!! I'll start applying some of this stuff

ben hustis

as far as supplements go, i recommend some glutamine, which is found in several muscle-building protein mixes. helps muscles recover.

however, a lot of water to keep lactic acid from building up is key. i also like the yoga suggestion. any kind of stretching will help keep your muscles supple and able to respond to the exertion much better. don't know if i'm stating the obvious.

good luck!

Portis

Tell us more about your bike. We have the stats of distance and speed but what are you riding? This makes a big difference.

I find it odd that you would be getting soreness considering the miles you have logged. It seems on the surface that your legs should have become acclimated to said coniditions. That is not to say that there won't be days when your legs don't have any "get up and go." Or that there might not be some mild soreness but they shouldn't really "hurt."

I ride every day with more mileage involved and I occasionally get mild soreness. I never would say that my legs hurt. Some days my legs are dead and don't want to go, but like i said they never hurt. Oddly I often tell people that my legs get more of a sore feeling if i don't ride. That is true yet i don't know why.

Maybe you have a bike fit issue or you are not yet acclimated to riding that many miles yet. One of the reasons i mention needing to know what bike you are riding is because sometimes miles don't mean much. I think your legs are a lot more interested in how long they have had to perform a give task. My legs can take me 40 miles in a little over 2 hours on my road bike. On my mountain bike on unpaved roads, i will be looking at a little over 25 miles in the same time period. And sometimes my legs are more tired from the 25 on the mountain bike.

webist

This is a reqally great thread. Thanks for asking the question Sanmicvaio.

DannoXYZ 

I'm with Ranger, we need more data. Also give us an idea of the gears you're using and cadence. A datalogger would be perfect for this.