injury and cycling medicine

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How To Return To Cycling After Illness

Returning to riding after an illness can be tough for the best of us.  But returning to training after an illness can be even harder.  Should you be getting back to where you were as fast as possible or just work through it slowly?  How do you go about planning your workouts in order to get the most out of them?  What can you do to avoid getting sick again?

On this episode of the Tailwind Coaching Podcast, I’ll tell you how to get back in the saddle and start your cycling training again after you’ve been down and out sick for a while.  Click through the jump to listen and get a few helpful tips and tricks on how to get your fitness back fast.

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Am I Overtraining? How Can I Prevent It? (Podcast #62)

Athletes are a notoriously hard working bunch, carving out a dozen or more hours each week to train for their chosen sport.  Especially with cycling, there is a misconception that “more is better” and it often leads to overextending yourself.  Remember that training stress stacks up on every other stress in your life: family, work, kids, paying bills, doing tasks around the house, etc.  It’s easy to turn a blind eye to the stress you deal with every day and focus solely on your training stress, but in reality, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

This is generally the reason the busiest athletes find themselves stuck in an every declining spiral of training, declining performance and training harder, hoping to reverse the trend.  Overtraining is a condition where the body is taxed beyond it’s ability to recover, and is a very real condition that I see in a certain percentage of athletes.  And yes, it’s mostly the guys who get up at 4AM to train for 2 hours, get to work by 7AM, work hard all day, get home by 6PM only to eat, walk the dog, spend time with kids and go to bed late.

Then they repeat it the next day.

And the next day, and the next, over and over.

When performance starts declining, typically they add more training, maybe an after-work session or a longer morning session, hoping to see the trends reverse and performance to climb again.  Usually, it doesn’t work, overtraining sets in and suddenly, they’ve dug a deep hole they’re stuck in.

In today’s podcast I’ll discuss the signs and symptoms of overtraining as well as some of the ways to dig yourself out of the overtraining hole if you find yourself there.  Don’t forget to leave comments below or on the Tailwind Coaching Facebook page, don’t forget the coupon code at the end of the show notes and don’t forget to share with your friends by clicking the bubbles on the left of the page!

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Cycling’s Emotional Cost

Forget the financial cost of riding a bike (which can be pricey to say the least), there’s also a significant emotional cost incurred with becoming entangled with this sport we love so dearly.  See?  There’s a perfect example of it right there: “the sport we love so dearly.” What is it about cycling that reaches deep down into our soul and entwines our psyche into the sport?

See?  There’s a perfect example of it right there: “the sport we love so dearly.” What is it about cycling that reaches deep down into our soul and entwines our psyche into the sport?

What is it about cycling that reaches deep down into our soul and entwines our psyche into the sport?  Why do we become obsessed with the thrill of the open road, the search for fitness and the company of friends and teammates?

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Coaching Q&A – Ways to Boost Your Training Outcomes (Podcast #58)

This time of year, the focus of your questions has turned from how to get strong and fit for upcoming events to wringing the most out of your training time.  If you are anything like the 99% of cyclists for whom riding a bike isn’t a job, you have limited time to train and need to get the most out of each hour. I’ll wager that these questions that I’m getting will apply to many of you out there.  It’s true that no question is a stupid one, and since there’s a lot of valuable information in each of the topics I’ll talk about, I’ve put them together into a podcast intended to help you boost your training outcomes.

In this episode of the Tailwind Coaching Podcast, I’ll explain how you can boost your fitness and increase your training outcomes with some simple techniques.  After the jump, you’ll be able to peruse the show notes and read a synopsis of what’s talked about in this episode.

Don’t forget to hit the like and share buttons on the left to share this information with your friend, group ride buddies and teammates!

Now, learn how to boost your training outcomes with these simple tips:

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Knee Pain Primer

Knee injuries can destroy a season

[dc]W[/dc]ith spring rearing it's much welcomed head, a lot of riders are in the midst of building fitness towards their early season racing programs.  A lot more are just ramping it up getting ready for the beck and call of sweaty summer club throwdowns.  But whether you've been riding hard since December, hoping to podium at that spring "classic" or you're just starting up your training, one thing can slow all of us to a crawl: knee pain.  At some point in our cycling lifetime we'll all experience it, and we'll all know the suffering of sitting on the couch while we wonder "why me" or "why now?"

Instead of asking those questions, it's more prudent to ask "what caused this" along with treating the symptoms that put you out of commission.  Here we'll take a quick look at some of the reasons your knees may be throbbing and help you shed some light on why you're couch surfing.

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