Muscle scar tissue

[Catrin]

My injuries of last year are healed, but there is a good amount of scar tissue in both quad and hamstring.

I am noticing that when my rides exceed 2 hours, or if there is a lot of climbing, occasional that scar tissue starts to twinge. I always back off when this happens, but it is getting frustrating. Between this and the weather I've been unable to build my mileage up to where I would like to see it at the end of June. Please note I am avoiding the use of the word "should"

This is not a new injury, or a return of an old one. This is not pain, there are no signs of inflammation or anything like that; I certainly learned all of the signs of injury last fall when I was carefully ignoring it all.

The twinging stops immediately when I either stop or avoid climbing for the rest of my ride. This makes it quite challenging to prepare for a ride called "Brown County Hill Challenge" in October.

I am going to break out my roller and start rolling that area well a few times a week. Is there anything else I can do that will help?

[Veronica]

I massage Badger Sore muscle Rub into my quad - and anything else that hurts - every night before I go to bed. I also do Yoga for Triathletes a couple times a week. That has kept my overuse injury at bay.

Veronica

[Catrin]

I found a video on You Tube called Yoga for Cycling, the link is here. It looks like it could be helpful, though I don't know much about Yoga. I will try this, her instructions seem quite clear.

I do have a series of stretches I do after I get off the bike, last year I didn't know what a stretch was...

[bmccasland]

Catrin - not sure what particular kind of scar tissue you're talking about - but my PT is having me do little circular massage on my knees surgical scars to keep the healing skin part from adhering from the underlying muscle. Of course I haven't tried my knee at a good spin rate either.

[tulip]

Tiger Balm. Just don't touch any sensitive areas (like, um, eyes, for one...) until you've washed your hands well.

[Becky]

The foam roller and yoga would be my two suggestions. Both have immensely helped me, but neither is a cure-all, and I have to continue to listen to my body....

[indysteel]

Tiger Balm. Just don't touch any sensitive areas (like, um, eyes, for one...) until you've washed your hands well.

+1. I carry Tiger Balm with me on every ride, mostly because it keeps my hot foot/toe pain down to a dull roar. During a ride last month, I was having some hip pain and thought, hmmmm, I wonder if Tiger Balm will help. Poof, the pain was gone. The stuff is magic.

But I also agree that use of a foam roller along with some yoga and gentle stretching might help, not just with the scar tissue, but in general.

[Catrin]

Tiger Balm seems popular, will check it out. I've been stretching after every ride using the same stretches we use after spinning class - hip, quad, hammie, and calf stretches. No soreness afterwards - but I didn't get sore last year unti it was too late.

Balm, more stretches, and rolling will likely solve this. Thanks!

[Owlie]

+1 on Tiger Balm. DBF and his fellow scouts apparently used to bathe in the stuff when doing the cycling merit badge...

[KnottedYet]

...
I am noticing that when my rides exceed 2 hours, or if there is a lot of climbing, occasional that scar tissue starts to twinge. ...
The twinging stops immediately when I either stop or avoid climbing for the rest of my ride. This makes it quite challenging to prepare for a ride called "Brown County Hill Challenge" in October. ...

That's what you want. Make the tissue "twinge" 10-15 times (1 second twinges) 3-6 sessions a day for 6-8 weeks.

You know you're doing it right if the pain stops immediately or within at most 30 minutes of stopping the activity.

If you don't "twinge" it regularly, your body will never get the message that the scar tissue needs to be remodeled. If it doesn't remodel, it will never improve.

ETA: it doesn't matter what the activity is, as long as it recreates your twinge you feel on the bike. Find something simple that won't take you more than a minute, because you'll be doing it a lot for the next couple months!

[ultraviolet]

I found a video on You Tube called Yoga for Cycling, the link is here. It looks like it could be helpful, though I don't know much about Yoga. I will try this, her instructions seem quite clear.

I have no specific advice about stretching or your scar tissue issues.

I do have a comment about the YouTube video you linked. At under 5 minutes, it doesn't really seem like it offers much value. Especially if you aren't that familiar with yoga already.

If you don't want to buy a DVD, there are lots of video podcasts out there that can help. Here's one from Yogamazing that's titled "Yoga for Triathletes". http://podfreaks.com/view/yogamazing/37771 It's about 25 minutes (the action starts about the 2:50 mark), and has pretty clear instruction and goes at a pretty reasonable pace. You'll also see a bunch of links beneath it for other sessions.

I bought a LivingSocial certificate a little while back for a month of unlimited yoga at a studio near my house. It was probably the best $30 I've ever spent. The combination of strength building and stretching always leaves me feeling awesome. Of course, I also got completely hooked and was going to 4-6 classes a week. It now costs me way more than that to keep it up, but it will still come out to less than I was spending per year on massages and the inevitable PT visits when my muscle imbalances and lack of flexibility issues would land me up with some kind of silly injury.

[Catrin]

That's what you want. Make the tissue "twinge" 10-15 times (1 second twinges) 3-6 sessions a day for 6-8 weeks.

You know you're doing it right if the pain stops immediately or within at most 30 minutes of stopping the activity.

If you don't "twinge" it regularly, your body will never get the message that the scar tissue needs to be remodeled. If it doesn't remodel, it will never improve.

ETA: it doesn't matter what the activity is, as long as it recreates your twinge you feel on the bike. Find something simple that won't take you more than a minute, because you'll be doing it a lot for the next couple months!

Thanks Knotted, I hoped you would weigh in on this. I will try to figure out some way to do this. I am at a loss right now about how to recreate this off the bike but haven't had my coffee just yet I think I must have pushed it a little longer on the bike yesterday than I should have since I woke up in the night with some aching from that quad - but it WAS my third day in a row for riding, so rest day today & will find some Tiger Balm.

Bmccasland - the scar tissue is in the muscle (both quad and hamstring) from my overuse injuries last year. Hamstring injury was from deadlifting at the gym without proper warmup, quad injury (same leg) was from the bike... It took a long time to figure out what caused everything because they appeared to happen at the same time.

Time to toddle off for coffee now, the office coffee pot sounds like it is done

[Kathi]

Foam roll, foam roll, foam roll. I do it before, and sometimes after, every bike ride, ski day, hiking, etc. For those spots you can't get with the foam roll, a stick (I use the tiger tail brand) tennis ball or a 5" Fit ball gets in deeper. Stretching, and other forms of movement just don't loosen my muscles like my foam roll does.

My PT introduced me to the foam roller after I had ACL surgery and my quad muscle wouldn't loosen up. Scar tissue was also involved, but using the FR kept my quad loose so I could progress with my rehab. Now I use it for everything, back, IT band, hamstrings, etc., except I use the stick for calves and my little Fitball for glutes.

It's amazing what these little tools will do to relieve trigger points and soreness in the muscles before, after exercise and anytime in between.

[starcloud]

Hello everyone—first post. I didn't see cross-friction massage mentioned, but I highly recommend it as part of the maintenance/healing of old injuries (speaking from too-extensive experience here). That's the one thing that successfully and reliably breaks up adhesions and keeps some very small muscles mostly happy in my back that otherwise would give me hell all the time. I do it against a door/wall with one of these (no affiliation):

http://www.performbetter.com/detail....tegoryID_E_488

Definitely worth the money. For me at least. It's the reason I was willing to try riding a bike again after 20 years of not riding one, which is a heck of an endorsement of this modality in applicable circumstances. I don't know if I'd try long distances, but I can do it all, which I didn't expect would happen.

(Just read that last line at the link: "The therapist can achieve a substantial financial reward in selling the Spikey Ball to his/her clients." Yuck, but the thing works...ignore that bit.)