Your First Three Years ~ Part 16:

Coming back from Illness or Injury

A Guide for Beginner (and Experienced!) Cyclists, to the Art and Practice of Cycling.  Becoming Proficient, Fit, and Happy on your bike.

Sooner or later we all suffer an injury of some kind, or succumb to some illness.  It can’t be helped or avoided, no matter how conscientious and careful we are.  Sooner or later our well established rhythms are disrupted.  If we are athletes, this causes us a lot of anxiety.  After all we’ve worked, and worked hard, to attain some level of fitness.  In many cases we are aiming at some goal, and this problem occurs at exactly the worst possible time.  What are we to do?

Before we go farther there are some hard facts about training and physical conditioning that must be faced.  Among these, one of the hardest is just this:  It is not possible to “make up for” lost training time.  Once a day is past, it is forever gone.  Keep that thought in the back of your mind as we go through the next part.

Illness, whether it be a common cold or something more serious, simply must be dealt with.  Once one is suffering from some sickness, the first and only job is to regain health, and then recover from the sickness or infection.  Only then can training resume.

Injuries must be treated in exactly the same fashion.  First we heal, then recover, and only then may we resume training loads.

Attempting to “rush” the process is folly.  It leads to poor training, or worse, to relapse and even more lost time, possibly even a greater loss of fitness than would have been the case with a reasonable approach.

One last fact.  The time spent healing and recovering will result in a loss of fitness.  It cannot be “made up for,” and one can not simply resume at the same level as before the injury or illness.  That said, unless the convalescence is unusually long or involved, the level of fitness loss will not be as sever as it is perceived to be.  In fact, the enforced rest just may be beneficial.  (One of the most common mistakes amateur athletes make is neglecting proper training rest.)

So just how do we handle this recovery process?  The process is fairly simple.

1. Begin training activity, but at an easy and reduced level.
2. Assess the state current state of fitness.
3. Plan a “ramp up” back to pre-illness levels.
4. It may be necessary to reassess goals.

Let’s take those one at a time.

Begin training activity, but at an easy and reduced level.

The idea here is to start moving again, but to do so in an easy and enjoyable fashion.  Get on the bike and go for an easy ride with no particular “training goals.”  Just get out and feel the bike and your body’s responses.  Have some fun with it!  Return to the gym and work on stretching and light muscular activity.  Make a game of it.  In short, your only goal in these first two or three sessions is to resume regular patterns of movement, while emphasizing only very easy loads.

Assess the state current state of fitness.

Now that you have begun to move again, and to re-establish the training routine, you will need t determine just where you are.  Test yourself against your pre-injury fitness.  You will, almost certainly, find that you need to “set the clock back a bit and re-do previous training.

Plan a “ramp up” back to pre-illness levels.

How far?  Here’s a pretty good rule of thumb.  You  will need about two days of re-training for every day missed.  So if you lost two weeks to your injury or illness, you will, most likely, need to drop back about four weeks in your training plan.  Do NOT worry about it!  You WILL recover!!!

It may be necessary to reassess goals.

In the worst possible case you may find that you are not going to be able to accomplish a major goal in your previously scheduled time frame.  For example, let us say you are training for a particularly long and arduous event, with a “Personal Best” in mind.  Now let’s assume you lost a month to an injury, and it is less than a month until the event.  In this case, you may have to accept that you are not going to make that particular goal this time.  Go ahead and do the event, but with reduced expectations, and plan to “Live to Fight another day.”

In summation, each year is short.  The race is called LIFE and it is a long one.  There will be time, and you will be better for taking a measured approach.  Sometimes an injury or illness teaches you far more than it takes from you.  Consider it a “character builder” and a lesson in life.

Now go have some FUN!

Next Week:       Training:  What Kind of cyclist are you going to be?

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This series began with the post on Tuesday, 19 June 2012.  It is intended to continue for three years.  Each week, we will discuss exercises, skills, practices, and activities designed to bring the new (or “experienced”) rider a high level of cycling competence.  We’ll address common problems, and (always) stress safe practice.

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A Note on Timing:  This series uses Mid-June as the starting point of the “Cyclists Year.”  We do this because this is the time that most folks decide to start riding.  If you are following this guide, you can “adjust” the timing to fit your personal “first three years.”  Do note that some of the posts will concern weather and seasonal changes.  When that starts to happen, just swap the “months” around to fit your personal timeline.