February turned out to be a pretty solid month, I got in 23 days of working out which is not bad considering my kids were out of school a week and that threw off my schedule a little bit. My ride times improved steadily, I feel like I'm getting back to actually being a cyclist, as opposed to being a guy who rides a bike once in a while.
I'm still struggling with the ab Injury, I saw Dr. Brown (http://www.sportshernia.com/sports-hernia-specialist/), who is convinced it's a "sports hernia". From all that I have read and my own symptoms this seems right. It's unlikely my insurance would cover the surgery, and I hate surgery anyways, so I'm about 8 days into a 45 day plan to see if I can be one of the lucky few to rehab my way out of this problem. It's been done, but rarely. I managed to find one case study of a NHL player whose injury started off far worse than mine, and recovered in 45 days (that's how I picked my timeline). If I'm not back to full speed by then, I'll just cough up the money myself and get surgery. Here's the case study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3273884/
Now of course I don't have the rehab time or facilities of an NHL player (nevermind the physical recuperation powers) but my injury was never as bad as this player's was. So I'm going to focus on the rehab the best I can and hope for the best.
As for the bike, Strava is my main ride tracking tool at the moment, here's one of my recent rides:
https://www.strava.com/activities/1447982247
It was a pretty chill day on the bike, I focused on nose breathing and form more than speed or power. My average power for some of the climbing segments has been as high as 265 Watts for 4-8 minutes (a few rides last week, not today), which is nothing to write home about but not too shabby for a 45 yr old who rides 3 days a week and had a long break in his late 30's.
I've been transitioning my lifting to a higher rep / lower weight program with static holds to really target specific muscle groups. Partly because I just like to transition a bit every 3 months or so, and partly because I started struggling with a bit of tendonitis in my right elbow. As I get older I see myself focusing more on hypertrophy focused lifting, the cost of an injury in terms of time lost is just too great. Here's a few good articles on training from T-Nation, one of my go-to sources for strength info:
Some advice on reps:
https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-want-size-build-reps-then-add-weight
And some additional tips for the over 40 crowd:
https://www.t-nation.com/training/expert-advice-for-the-over-40-lifter
I'll probably put one of these on the bike soon and then I'll be in data heaven:
https://www.power2max.com/en/product/ng-road-campagnolo-with-crank-set/
