ASPHALT JUNKIES Summer Bronzing Crew - CLOSED (Page 14)

I have some experience with my own meniscus and have been able to develop a very good feel for if something is wrong or if  just tweaked it a bit.  Since I had my ACL reconstruction, 2 meniscus tear (1 repair, 1 removal) and a second medial meniscus removal (all the same knee) I have had countless times where I have felt a sharp stabbing pain in my "sweet spot."  The sweet spot is the medial meniscus that has a fairly large piece missing now, after 2 surgeries.  There is still a piece of the same meniscus that is torn but I am not going to have it removed again.  My problems have become so rare that I won't even consider a third surgery.  I believe the problems are rarely evident because my physical conditioning and muscular balance is far better than when I required the surgeries.

My experience has been if I have a misstep when running I will get a sharp pain for a 5-10 strides and then it clears up rather quickly.  If it continues for anything more than that distance I begin to pay much closer attention. 

I have experienced similar problems a you in the pool while doing my turns, either flip turns or open turns, but I have yet to have anything other than that one time pain.  If I have slightly babied it on occasion by pushing off the wall with the opposite leg alone, then after a few of these push off's I have been able to return to business as usual.

Cycling has rarely caused issues but when it has I have experienced more pain than when running.  I have dropped rides that I had been only a couple of miles into when the pain began because it was so fierce.  However, what I have seemed to notice was the issues with cycling have been almost entirely because of a few poor pedal strokes and knee alignment during rapid cadence drills such as spin-ups.  Usually this occurs for me above 100 RPM's but only if my knee alignment has been out of place at the same time.

I would say, unless you've developed swelling, give it a chance today on the bike and see how it goes.  You can always ditch if you need to once you've begun the ride.

I experience the opposite.  Even when riding my roadie with aero's I found my HR would decrease, effort would decrease and I would slightly increase my speed.  I would say Darek may be onto something but it is likely due to a poor fit condition rather than what would be considered a good position to ride in.  The position you should be in to ride aero should not leave you cramped and gasping for air and an increased HR, the opposite should be true. 

I believe you are riding a road bike and clip on aero's so there are some adaptive things you can do to regain a more aerodynamic position and open your hip angle at the same time.  It would likely require a couple of modifications to your bike but I may be able to help you with that one a little bit.

Post some pics with you on your bike on the trainer.  Make sure you have some tight cycling shorts on and include pics with your near side leg at the top and bottom of the peddle stroke.  Provide pics on the hoods and on the aeros.  Once you have those pics up I'll allow Jeff to take over.  He should be able to dial you in far better than I am capable of doing.

Muli-vitamin?

I take one everyday.  But I take a generally generic brand.  I take it more to make sure I get some of the items that may be missing or that I'm not getting enough of routinely.    Most of my diet is good enough that I get all I need of the most important supplements.  And if you get to much of nearly all of the vitamins your body disposes of them anyway, through urine.

Originally posted by JeffY Hey BigDaddy! You described your knee twisting as you did a flip turn, so I am going to assume you are one of those whose flip-turn is executed by beginning the body roll mid-turn. I encourage you to change that technique to the 'proper' way (according to swim coaches) and flip in line, push off the wall completely upside down, then roll over as you streamline. Once you do that, there should be no other movements that are part of triathlon training that will be a hardship for your knee ligaments. Everything is in a straight plane. I have been noticing the last few months that I can feel my knee ligaments get strained from time to time when I turn quickly. (not training...just in daily life) I have made a point to improve my hip flexibility because that's the joint that's supposed to rotate when turning, not the knee...and it's been helping. Hey all, I have a race tomorrow. It will be this season's first ROAD tri. It's half-way between a sprint and oly in distance. I've looked at the registrants and there are 8 guys who could realistically beat me IN MY AGE GROUP! This is going to be one deep race!

I agree on your advice about the flip turn.  I flip just as you are coaching against but I have had so infrequent a problem that I am not concerned enough to try to change.  If I were swimming in pool events I would definitely change to the proper technique.  Obviously for OWS I'm not doing any of this so it's not a big deal for me.  BUT if I were having problems I would change my flip turns.

Hopefully you'll have a much better race this week than a couple of weeks ago.  The competition sounds incredibly stiff and you'll need to be 100% to pull off a AG win.  I'm sure you're making sure there aren't any dehydration issues this time.

 I have some thoughts on your physical condition after the last race but I don't have time to get it on here right now.  It has to do with the electrical impulses your heart sends.  SA node, etc...

This is what I see when I open up the thread ! Ouch is all I can say.

Best of luck for your race and I'm happy to read your knee is no longer bothering you. Jeff can't wait to hear about your latest race adventures but please don't hurt yourself!

Originally posted by DirkP

Originally posted by JeffY Hey BigDaddy! You described your knee twisting as you did a flip turn, so I am going to assume you are one of those whose flip-turn is executed by beginning the body roll mid-turn. I encourage you to change that technique to the 'proper' way (according to swim coaches) and flip in line, push off the wall completely upside down, then roll over as you streamline. Once you do that, there should be no other movements that are part of triathlon training that will be a hardship for your knee ligaments. Everything is in a straight plane. I have been noticing the last few months that I can feel my knee ligaments get strained from time to time when I turn quickly. (not training...just in daily life) I have made a point to improve my hip flexibility because that's the joint that's supposed to rotate when turning, not the knee...and it's been helping. Hey all, I have a race tomorrow. It will be this season's first ROAD tri. It's half-way between a sprint and oly in distance. I've looked at the registrants and there are 8 guys who could realistically beat me IN MY AGE GROUP! This is going to be one deep race!

I agree on your advice about the flip turn.  I flip just as you are coaching against but I have had so infrequent a problem that I am not concerned enough to try to change.  If I were swimming in pool events I would definitely change to the proper technique.  Obviously for OWS I'm not doing any of this so it's not a big deal for me.  BUT if I were having problems I would change my flip turns.

Hopefully you'll have a much better race this week than a couple of weeks ago.  The competition sounds incredibly stiff and you'll need to be 100% to pull off a AG win.  I'm sure you're making sure there aren't any dehydration issues this time.

 I have some thoughts on your physical condition after the last race but I don't have time to get it on here right now.  It has to do with the electrical impulses your heart sends.  SA node, etc...

I used to twist like that doing a flip turn. I went through a series of videos from I think swim smooth that worked that out for me. I remember the first step was holding onto a noodle and flipping through it. I was a little embarrassed to be at the pool flipping through a noodle like a little kid!

Well I got my bike to the shop today and they got the spring out for me right there while I waited. I was so excited but then I remembered the bent spoke I have been riding with. I had to leave the bike to get that fixed so I'm down to my hybrid for a week and the HIM aqua/bike I was thinking about is next Sunday. So, I think I'll just volunteer at that race. My longest ride so far this spring is 40 miles so I'm really not very prepared.

We've had some stormy weather here with lots of rain. Nasty winds blew through with the thunderstorm we had last night and have left our little town with lots of damage - trees, silos, barns, play sets, siding and fences down and a semi blew over on the highway that runs through town. Our house managed just fine with really nothing very serious. More bad stuff is coming. My sister lives in OK so I'm more worried about her than us but so far they have not been hit with anything. They live in Edmond OK which is not far from OK City.

May totals for me show my complete lack of bike time and not a lot on swim either. Though almost half my swim yardage for May was open water. I need to actually get out on the road and spend some seat time. Now that the pool at home is up and running for the summer the swim numbers should rise significantly. 

Swim: 2h 02m 59s  -5840 Yd
Bike: 55m 24s  - 12.57 Mi
Run: 7h 09m 14s - 44.94 Mi

Will, you'd better start looking at the run volume too.  An average of less than 12 MPW heading into IM could leave you in a deep hole if you're not careful.