Bike Fit with Dave Luscan

Going on two months from the onset of my injury, I'm finally turning the corner from 'rehab' to 'training'.  I've stopped waking up in pain and have been able to make it through a few pretty good workouts pain free.  My goal to get back to the start line by the Giant Eagle 5150 race is looking realistic and with a little luck I'll be able to be in top form by Rev3 Cedar Point in September. 

Over a month ago, I approached Dave Luscan with Central Virginia Endurance (CVE) about doing a bike fit.  Since it's generally agreed that my position created some (or all) of my injury, I wanted to get it taken care of ASAP.  Dave took a look at me quickly but told me to come back when I was able to ride pain free and at a decent intensity.  Last week, I was comfortable enough to give it another try and here is how it went:

I've never had a bike fit from scratch and have always done moderately well on the bike simply based on my aerobic fitness and ability to endure pain.  Over the years, I've ridden many different bike brands and geometries, but have never stopped to ask what was optimal.   Here are a few shots of me over the years:

As a pro, I've always been asked "does it feel good?" and expected to know what I wanted.  In reality, I have no idea what is good/bad/ugly.  The nuances of riding and positioning have always been brushed over since I'm able to ride decently well.  I've had different fitters set me up the way they thought I should be, but Dave was the first one to take the time to understand what worked for me and how I could optimize my riding position.

Going in, I thought for sure I'd want to ride steep (seat forward, aerobars down) since that's the "most aero" and the way my Cervelo was designed to be ridden.  We looked at my position on the bike then started working with the "fit" bike starting in the slack position (seat back, bars up) and moving forward.  The idea was to start where we expected not to be and hone in on where I was best suited.

I was shocked how comfortable I felt in the slack position as we dialed in the drop (height of the front end).  We found the most comfortable bar position and I was feeling good... Couldn't wait to see how good it would feel riding steep!!!  Well, as we moved the seat forward around the crank toward the steeper position, I felt less and less powerful.  By the time we reached the 80 degree seat angle that I came in with, there was no contest!  We settled on the slack position and dialed in crank length and aero bar height.  Throughout the entire process, we were constantly discussing how I ride, why we were making changes, and what could make me more powerful/faster.  In the end we found I don't gain any position advantage from shorter cranks and if I go too low with my bars I close off my hips and lose power... Two current hot trends that don't apply to me!    

Once everything was finalized, Dave moved the measurements back to the Cervelo and I was ready to go. The whole process took close to three hours and addressed almost every aspect of my fit.  Here is the worksheet we used to record measurements along the way:  

Once in the new position, we noticed two things:  1. my bike was too long for me and just barely tall enough for me with a bunch of spacers and an upturned stem.  2.  A different aero helmet would make the position a bit cleaner and hopefully 'faster'.  Both of these realizations have me heading to 3Sports to spend money that I don't really have!  I've got a Specialized Shiv frame on order already and will be picking up a new helmet (Dave's pictured below) before toeing the start line. Here is a shot of me in the new position with the new helmet. Note the flat back, smooth helmet interaction, and how far off the pads my elbows have to be in order to be comfortable...

Although I'm a bit disappointed that my P3 doesn't quite fit me (we could make it work, but the pads for the bars would be behind the steerer tube making it a bit unstable), I'm very pleased with my experience with the fit.  I brought in pictures and our thinking to my PT and there was complete consensus that the changes are positive and will only help me get back to health and speed as soon as possible.  I definitely recommend a good bike fit to anyone serious about riding fast and staying out of the PT office!  If you're in Richmond, a trip to CVE should be at the top of your to-do list!

I'll be updating here again soon as I get back into the swing of training.  If all goes well, I'll have my first 'normal' training week next week.  Wish me luck!

PT and the Long Road Back

 It's been two months since the first pangs of injury and it seems like two years!  I've gone through all of the phases of athletic grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) and have finally started looking forward to getting back to the starting line.  I still have quite a literal pain in the butt, but things are looking up.  Here's a quick recap:

Advanced Wellness Physical Therapy
I was lucky enough to get hooked up with Andy Symula at Advanced Wellness and together we've been able to develop a plan of attack for my injury.  Between stretching, strengthening, massage, and progressive training we've been able to make steady progress.  Of course there have been bumps along the way and it hasn't always been painless (see the sad, atrophied, bruised leg below after a rough trigger point session).   I'm now up to the point where I'm able to add in some intensity to the mix thanks to Andy's multidisciplinary approach and unwillingness to accept defeat in the quest to figure this thing out.  I couldn't be happier with the progress we've made.

Down Time Well Spent

Despite the progress at the PT office, I've been extremely limited in what I can do without pain.  For a while I was stir-crazy, but I'm getting better at adapting to 'real life' without hours and hours of training each day.  I've been working with my Sport Factory athletes as well as a few local Richmond triathletes and swimmers who I am able to live through vicariously.  I've also been able to slow down a bit and enjoy life. Ashley and I enjoy a few fire-lit dinners (when she's home before midnight!) and have made more efforts to get out and explore Richmond on her infrequent days off.  I was also lucky to have a visit from future Olympian Mark Wade and the best man in my wedding, Rob, fresh off of his Master's Nationals swim performance.  15 years ago, the picture below would have included some sort of dyed hair and probably some muscle flexing...  

All Perspective Aside...

I'm dying to get back to training and racing!  I have cancelled my entry into Rev3 Quassy and Rev3 Portland, but I hope to be back on the start line in late July at the Giant Eagle 5150 Triathlon before keying in on Rev3 Cedar Point.  I recently received my Blue Seventy Helix in the mail and can't wait to try it out.  I've been constantly using the First Endurance products for my limited training, but today was the first day I felt a little Pre-Race usage was called for.  4x800 at the track may seem like a small workout, but I don't think I've been happier with 2:40's in my life!  Hopefully my next post here will have a bit more impressive stats with it.  

Injury Update

It's been two weeks since my DNF at Miami and I'm still on the sidelines from training.  Sadly, the hamstring seems to have gotten worse as opposed to better!  I attempted to spin ez a few times, but that has only resulted in more pain afterwards.  The pool has been a bit better to me, but I cannot do flipturns, or even open turns, without pain.  I have been able to get in a few k worth of 25's, but it's maddening!  Any motion that brings my heel to my butt is a no-go.  The extent of my running has been jogging across the street to avoid a car and even that had me pulling up with pain...  Long story short, training is going to be on hold for a while until I take care of my body!

I have been being proactive on this with visits to Active Chiropractic and Hands on Wellness, which have helped clear up any secondary pain/tightness.  Unfortunately, the main cause still remains.  I am working on getting into a PT office at VCU as soon as possible to get as many eyes on me as possible to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to heal quickly.  After a good bit of extensive research and self differential diagnosis, I believe the cause of my pain is high hamstring tendinopathy (see article link below).  This is basically an over-use injury that causes the tendon at my hamstring attachment to become severely inflamed and painful.  It's a pain in the butt, literally!  Looking back, I may have been dealing with symptoms of this starting way back at the 2nd half of last season (of course that may be me just being neurotic).  Over the winter, when my intensity was lower, I had no problems.  As the intensity came back I started to have what I thought were 'normal' aches and pains in my right side. I believe the first race in Costa Rica running in the sand was just the final straw that finally convinced me to stop ignoring the problem.  Of course, trying to train through it for two weeks leading into Miami probably wasn't the smartest... The DNF proved that!

So where do I go from here?  It mainly depends on how my pain progresses.  One of the main themes from researching my injury is the negative effects of starting back to early.  I am going to be very aggressive with therapy, strengthening, and range of motion exercises; but I am going to have to wait until I'm pain free to start back to even partial training. My hope is that it will only be 3-4 weeks, but the potential is there for me to be out a number of months!  Obviously not the way I envisioned the year turning out!  Instead of reaping the benefits of my first full off-season of training, I'm back to square one!  I'll be updating the blog as things improve and hopefully I'll be back to the starting line ASAP!

For those of you interested, here is a pretty good article on what I'm dealing with:
http://www.agilept.com/downloads/high-hamstring-tendinopathy-in-runners.pdf