Claus Bech

40 years old, from Denmark. Been racing competitively in triathlon, running, cycling and adventureracing since the early 90´s. PB´s: marathon: 2.32, IM: 9.21. National Coach Level Triathlon Diploma from University of Southern Denmark. Teaching in endurance sports and physical exercise on a Danish Folk High School: www.giv.dk Hoping to experience new challenges and improvements in search of optimizing endurance training.
View all blogs by Claus Bech...
Back in business
Finally back in business, after a few days of complete rest.
As expected my body was aching without the continuous training, especially the origin of my hip flexors was a little sore.
As well as the importance of listening to your body to avoid injury, you should also be able to tell the difference between training induced soreness and a potential injury - especially if you wanna make some quick progress as when returning to training after an off season.
I was a little worried about the tendon related soreness as tendons have very limited blood supply and therefore is the slowest adapting tissue to new stress. Most often injuries occur in the area of transition from one type of tissue to another, ie bone/tendons, tendons/muscle, so caution should be had.
Usually cycling is considered a safe sport, especially compared to running, but repetitive stress is always a potential threat. When starting on PowerCranks, your neural and metabolic limitation is, hopefully, short term, where as tendonitis could be a long term ailment that shouldn´t be taken lightly.
Another interesting observation with breaks from regular training is the reoccurrence of former injuries - sometimes a forgotten plantar fascitiis, runners knee or shoulder impinchment flares up and reminds us that our body is designed to be used - not to be sedentary and not be overused in a repetitive isolated manner. This pattern of returning anamnesis has also been reported by people undertaking longer periods, 7-10 days, of fasting.
Enough said I´m back on the PowerCranks with one or two daily sessions on the trainer, feeling well rested and able to go for 3 x 15 minutes without stops. And paying a lot of attention to my body´s signals.