The Week Of Rollers

I've not been on the bike much in the past month due to sinus problems. I've been running recurring lowgrade sinus infections since last April but at the moment am not taking any medications, just avoiding (to the degree possible) having icy cold air blasted up my nose. This has meant: (a) no cycling when it's windy and (b) even on still days, no cycling outside the village because every road out goes downhill... fast. 

I'm been trying instead to get to grips with riding my bicycle on my new Tacx Antares rollers. In the first 10 seconds of my first attempt, I was confronted with a shocking truth: I don't know how to ride a bike!  No, I didn't fall. But I can hardly pedal. The only strength in my legs seems to be brute downward force through my quads, one leg at a time, which on rollers basically causes my bicycle to behave as it is being ridden by a drunk. 

Glamorous work out location in the garage!

All I can say is, I am a long way from being able to use the rollers to improve my cadence or pedalling technique or any of the other "skills" that rollers are touted for. Instead, I've been using them in short sessions to 'diagnose' functional imbalances and asymmetries that I need to work on in terms of stretching and Pilates matwork (which I do 3-4 times per week). 

One of the most disconcerting discoveries has been the severity of hip/pelvic imbalance.  During my months of physiotherapy following my knee surgery in 2010, I had a bike fitting session with my physiotherapist present and she pointed out that I drop my right hip when I start pedalling from a stop, when I do a sudden sprint and when I get out of the saddle. I worked on this for a while but not with any particular exercise, just awareness and a conscious effort to keep my hips level. However, I had somewhat lost track of that over the past few years. 

Then last Sunday, I got on the rollers and was shocked at how severe the hip drop was and how it impacted my ability to pedal -- and by that I mean, my ability to pedal at all, much less pedal smoothly. A few days later, I became aware of pain in my hip flexor, something I've suffered from intermittently in the past. As the week progressed, I paid close attention to the function of both my legs, especially while walking, and began to wonder if the "cause" might actually be tight glutes and/or hamstrings. 

So today I got on the other roller... the foam physio one.... and.... oh my sainted aunt! Working on the right glutes produced the kind of pain that levitates you right off the floor. 

I did this kind of thing...

... and this...

...while wearing considerably more clothes and looking considerably less glamorous. 

As painful as it was, I worked through it and am hopeful that all the muscles will settle down over the next few days and decide to "play nice" again. 

Next weekend it's back on the other kind of rollers with my bike. I am both fearful and eager to see what I'll learn then!