Shoulder Trouble...Interesting Diagnosis

[redrhodie]

Boy, do I know what you mean. The other day I worked at the CSA farm, and I was toast withing 5 minutes of picking beets. The posterior muscles were firing up in ways that surprised me, since I thought I was pretty fit in that area from cycling.

Yesterday, I thought I'd be too sore to ride, but I got on the bike, and strangely enough, nothing hurt. Makes me think I need to add some squats (or volunteer at the farm more) to my current regimen of cycling, walking and Pilates. Evidently, I'm not working all the muscles I thought I was.

[bounceswoosh]

I think another common one is that the inner quad doesn't develop as well as the outer quad, because you don't straighten your leg out fully when cycling. That can lead to funky knee problems. You can do exercises like standing on one foot, bend the standing leg as far as you can balance, then straighten it all the way, focusing on flexing that inner quad at the top.

Or ... you can do lots of different stuff =) I don't ride my mountain bike as much as I used to, but in a typical week I will ride either my road or mountain bike, play soccer, and climb at the gym. I seem to have fewer joint problems than when I was just riding. I don't stretch enough, though, and I'm sure that'll come around to bite me. Oh, which brings up another great cross-training activity, yoga. Yoga is great stuff; unfortunately, I tend to avoid it because a lot of the positions involve putting weight on your palms, which is a problem for my bad wrist.

[BethG]

I agree with bounce, and I've also heard that imbalances between your hammies and quads are very common for a lot of sports.

Did you talk to your chiro about other potential trouble spots?