ATB990

so just about all my muscles knot after what seems like every ride.

I have been doing 5 hours a week of massage therapy, I take magnesium calcium (2:1), sodium is monitored as well as potassium levels.

I hydrate doing my rides to the best of my ability.

I do trigger point therapy, it releases the muscles but then they knot right back up again next workout. (I take a day off after the trp cuz my legs are usually very sore and weak).

I stretch regularly as well, my RMT thinks i am a pretzel

My workout schedule is manageable, and within reason and actually less then it was in both volume and intensity. (about 10 hours per week less, currently only 14 hours).

Any solutions? willing to hear anything!!

Machka 

Which muscles knot, and how long as this been going on?

late

For one week...

Don't stretch before you ride, just after.

Skip the trigger point.

Cut the time of your rides in half and cut back on the intensity as well.
Don't take the stretches quite so deep.

The 2nd week, add 25% time but avoid intensity. If you need massage or therapy, go for it, but not unless you do.

The 3rd week add intensity, but not time.

The idea is simple, give the bod a chance to heal.

If that doesn't work, you need someone that knows what they are doing,
a sport physician or cycling coach, I'm not really sure what; but get it looked at.

Carbonfiberboy 

When I want something to be different, I change. So I'd say, stop most of that stuff. No massage, no stretch either before or after. Three 500 cal/250 mag pills, one morning, one after workout, one evening. If you get a cramp, take a Tums 500. Try to keep the intensity down for a couple of weeks or go further and do like late says. Always better to undercook than overcook.

How long have you been riding 10-14 hours/week? How much protein do you get?

ATB990

Pretty much all of them, the glutes are minor compared to the quads, the hamstrings are half decent, the calves are pretty locked up

I eat alot of protein, potentially too much, I weight 75 kilos and take ~160 grams

I have been riding 10-14 hours a week for over a year now, I took a break in november (entire month off), actualyl I was riding 20-35 hours a week all last year up until november and I had a sever muscle knott which I thought was ITB (Trp 1 on my vastus) and took 2 weeks off in march too cuz of that. other then that some odd weeks off here n there.


Whats the idea behind skipping hte trigger point. I stretch always after... so basically I should do like 2 weeks of low torque stuff?


Thanks thus far guys

Machka 

Is there a particular spot that hurts worse than the rest ... a spot where all this cramping may have started?

Have you made a shorts change recently?

When you say you hydrate, what do you mean? What do you drink and how much in a day?

ATB990

as much as I can, I try to hit about 2200-2800 mg of sodium and at least 3L of water if not more on recovery days and I try to drink at least a litre with at least half of that being gatorade during rides on training days.

I just bought a pair of assos shorts (though they are ripped and resown from a crash I had 3 weeks ago)

I just got a new bike well, both the bikes im riding are new geometry and fits, the fits seem adaquate to my knowledge,

I have been doing trigger point Therapy all day today, with alot of splitting, my noticable areas of discomfort are my inner left leg, various parts almost all trigger point there are very active (its 2am and i am tired of working on them), my vastus lateralis is very active as well, my intermedius and femoris on both legs are very tight, they were like rocks when I started this afternoon, but I have loosened htem up somewhat.

I have scheduled an appointment with a women who specializes in this Myofascial Stretching thing. I only have an hour with her so I spent all day today releasing hte muscles so she can get down to the bone or whatever she does.

I noticed that when I "split" my muscle groups, there is many bumps, I assume these are the trigger points? I assumed the trigger points were the spots of discomfort, but once I finally relaxed the muscles today, I noticed the lumps are located on all the same spots as shown in "www.triggerpoints.net" or whatever that site is...

I suppose it is from dehydration from rides I have done over the last few weeks that really has just built up. I only took huge concern over my hydration recently, and really cud of cared less last few weeks.

Carbonfiberboy 

Too much of everything. "Less is best." Cut your daily sodium way down. 1500mg is about right. My wife and I work to get about 3/4 tsp. salt/day between us, which is plenty, because there's sodium in many things. We don't eat anything processed or canned. Cut your drinking way down. That 8 glasses/day business is BS. Drink when you're thirsty.

Too much protein. 100g is more than enough. If you are protein supplementing, stop. If you are eating meat, cut it back to once/week. Cut it all back. Eat fruit, grains, vegetables. Put some protein back in after you stabilize. Just try to stop damaging yourself.

You aren't dehydrated. Hardly anyone is dehydrated. That got to be quite a fad, now discredited. Those knots in your legs are probably damage you've caused by poking at them. Leave them alone, let them heal. Which is going to take some time. Just ride 1/2 hour/day, easy, for a couple of weeks. Eat your vegetables.

ATB990

Ok, so I have rewritten my training plan as nothing but recovery rides till I recover, I will cut back on sodium, I will cut back on protein and I already eat heeps of veggies, and I will also only drink when thirsty!

Crossing my fingers...

My legs have already tightened up quiet a bit from the treatment I did on myself yesturday, I suppose there is much work to be done.

Thanks for the tips so far, they have all been considered!

Carbonfiberboy 

And of course, who knows if they will work! I just know to make major changes and then watch to see what happens. I do think these changes are in the correct direction, however, not just random.

Machka 

Is the main part of the cramping above or below the elastic on the bottom of the leg of the shorts? Does lifting or shifting the elastic seems to alleviate the cramping to some extent?

And it might be worthwhile to check your fit.

ATB990

So I just spent another 3 hours tonight plus 2 hours this afternoon massaging (mostly splitting but some trigger work) and I did 1.5 hours with a professional last night and 4 hours total yesturday on myself. Went out for a nice base ride today as well

This is the cool part. I am seeing bulges on my legs where I have never seen before, my legs are looking more defined every hour, its 1 am now about 1 hour after my last treatment and they are looking very cool, I must say right after my treatment they were ugly, I sat and raised my legs against the wall for 10 minutes, set them down, and I could not believe that they were my legs...

Lots more work to be done as I just got past the first layer of muscle and finally able to go down deeper on the quads, but it is looking better by the day.

Chaco

Do you take statins of any kind?

Machka 

Did all this cramping start before or after you began doing all this massage and trigger point stuff?

And actually, I've been making an assumption here that by "knotting" you mean painful cramping where a particular muscle seizes up so it's agony to move. My feet cramp when I am not properly hydrated, whether I'm cycling or not. My calves will occasionally go into an agonising cramp, often in the middle of the night. And if I'm really pushing it on a hot day, my quads will start to seize up so that I can't pedal and it is difficult to get off the bicycle. I'm in tears with the pain.

Is that what you mean by "knotting"? Or do you mean that all this cycling is helping you build muscle and you're starting to notice some hardness in the muscle and some definition?

ATB990

I do not know what statins are, so I think not.

Knotting I mean, bundles of muscle fibers that are in a constant contracted state.

In your case it just sounds like a magnesium or electrolyte/hydration deficiency. I actually have read alot on this and those who engage in Endurance activities are more prone to Magnesium difficiency then those that do not. Magnesium is involved in over 300 enzyme reactions (Serious Cycling, Edmund Burke).

I have been consuming about 1200mg of magnesium daily lately, with at least 2500 mg of calcium, I ingest it throughout the day and not at one sitting, I will reduce magnesium intake to stable 600mg a day after next week.

Hardness in muscle was actually scar tissue development and required much much work to break apart. I assumed it was bone matter, but then a Body Worker assured me that it was scar tissue just two days ago. I literally massage myself with a CO2 cartridge and really knead it into the scar tissue to break it apart. I wear compression leggings because the toxins released in releasing muscle knots and removing scar tissue are extremeley concentrated, so it is best to keep legs elevated and always massage towards the liver.

The way I look at it, contracted muscle is useless muscle, if you save up to save 400 grams on your bike you could save 4000 grams by removing knots in the muscle, cuz all it is is weight you carry around.

This is a good proof, I went out yesturday to do a strength interval to maintain muscle memory (just 1 6 minute interval), and my avg power was 18% higher with a cadence that was 10 rpm lower, my muscle strength increased exponentially from the release of the muscles during this week.

Another good example is my old coach Hunter Allen, he had an incredibly tight Trp2 on his Lateralis (which is now pure scar tissue I would imagine), he never got past 425 FTP at 150lbs, I bet you anything if his muscle knots were released he could of hit 450 FTP or higher during his racing days.

Machka 

So you have trouble straightening your legs and walking?


Frequent visits to the toilet?


But why do you think you have all that scar tissue? Were you injured?

And wouldn't the muscle be 4000 grams whether it was contracted or not?

koffee brown

Hi,

I'm gonna vote on foam rollers. If rolling your muscles with a CO2 cartridge is doing the work, get the hard foam roller (the blue ones are pretty friggin hard) and roll your butt off (literally!). Once you can do that proficiently and don't need to do that, get a couple of older tennis balls and roll on those.

You can roll every other day for about 20 minutes a day. It'll un-knot you in ways you could never imagine!

koffee

alanknm

If I'm out for more that hour and I just drink just water I get cramping in my calves. It doesn't matter if I'm cycling or x-country skiing. I find that anything other than plain water, dilute juice or gatorade or whatever works fine for sessions of more than an hour.

If it's less than that, water seems to be fine unless it's really warm and/or I'm sweating more than usual. It depends on what I'm doing.


Eating a lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, not too much red meat helps as well. Bananas, which are high in potassium works well for me.

As for cutting back on the sodium, I'm all for it. There's way too much sodium in everything anyway.