I've been waiting for the beginning of this year with alot of anxiety because it was going to be my first full year of training, starting in January. But unfortunately on the 3rd I was playing basketball with friends after a short warm-up ride, and ended up twisting my ankle badly... At first it was diagnosed not to be bad at all but long story short, it's been two weeks, not much improvement. I will probably be able to get back on the bike in a month... if all goes well.
So I guess my question is, is there some way of cheating the lack of a whole month's training? When I get back on what should I focus on? After getting the strength back in my ankle of course.
Yeah, I guess it was a dumb question...:p if there was something I could do people would be doing it even if they weren't injured, lol. Anyway thanks for replying.
Depends on what the Doc. will let you do or what you can do. Can you swim? Swimming could be a good way to help maintain cadio and increase felxibility.
I've been waiting for the beginning of this year with alot of anxiety because it was going to be my first full year of training, starting in January. But unfortunately on the 3rd I was playing basketball with friends after a short warm-up ride, and ended up twisting my ankle badly... At first it was diagnosed not to be bad at all but long story short, it's been two weeks, not much improvement. I will probably be able to get back on the bike in a month... if all goes well.
So I guess my question is, is there some way of cheating the lack of a whole month's training? When I get back on what should I focus on? After getting the strength back in my ankle of course.
Thanks in advance
You won't actually lose a massive amount of fitness - a couple of sessions and you'll be heading quickly back to where you were. Just concentrate on making sure that ankle really is better first otherwise you'll spend a long time recovering from what should have been a simple problem.
So I guess my question is, is there some way of cheating the lack of a whole month's training? When I get back on what should I focus on? After getting the strength back in my ankle of course.
If you have access to a swimming pool AND if you know how to re-tape your ankle, then spend as many hours as you can doing your aerobic work in the pool.
You won't actually lose a massive amount of fitness - a couple of sessions and you'll be heading quickly back to where you were. Just concentrate on making sure that ankle really is better first otherwise you'll spend a long time recovering from what should have been a simple problem.
I agree that you will not lose a lot of fitness, but you do lose strength fairly quickly. I was off the bike for 3 weeks (OS holiday) prior to riding a 130km ride with 2700 metres of climbing... and I certainly found that I did not have the strength to climb that I normally do.
Way back to full strength and fitness is to revert to base training for a few weeks... this both helps the cardio return to normal, quickly builds endurance, and prepares the body for strength training reducing the lisk of strain and injury. Downside is that is boring! But persevere and you will be rewarded.
Now my alpine ride is behind me, I will go back to boring training for a few weeks.... oh dear!
I agree that you will not lose a lot of fitness, but you do lose strength fairly quickly. I was off the bike for 3 weeks (OS holiday) prior to riding a 130km ride with 2700 metres of climbing... and I certainly found that I did not have the strength to climb that I normally do.
Way back to full strength and fitness is to revert to base training for a few weeks... this both helps the cardio return to normal, quickly builds endurance, and prepares the body for strength training reducing the lisk of strain and injury. Downside is that is boring! But persevere and you will be rewarded.
Now my alpine ride is behind me, I will go back to boring training for a few weeks.... oh dear!
If you find it boring - up the pace and pain level for at least 20 minutes at a time. High quality aerobic work is always a good way to improve the fitness whilst not giving you enough time to think about 'how boring' it is...
Last year I have a few weeks off the bike prior to a little "alpine" jaunt in the Sierras - 320km and almost 7000meters of vertical ascent (198 miles and 20,500ft). Like you I experienced a lack of "snap" where it was hard to recover when the grade eased off a little but that passed after a few rides of 'dealing with it' by just doing the best effort I could.
