In 2024 I have set my mind to getting into the best shape of my life ready to compete at the European Middle Distance Champs, Outlaw Half Holkham and Ironman Tallinn, Estonia triathlon. In this episode I talk my first visit to a physio and what he found plus some different equipment I try to help my bike fit, and it made a massive difference!
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My name is Lewis and I’m currently training for the biggest races I’ve ever competed in which include the European Middle distance Champs iron manelin and Outlaw half hul and in this episode I finally start to understand the problems that I’ve been having with my hip and
Knee on the bike I get my first ever physio appointment and I’ll let you know whether I think it’s worth it or not and I go through my usual weekly volume and some of the training sessions I’ve had Yeah as you know most triathletes tend to have little time to train so I’m doing um a turbo session whilst doing this so apologies if the audio isn’t fantastic this week overall went slightly better than last week um if you didn’t watch last week’s episode I’ll
Link it up here so you can go and watch that it started with some decent sessions um I had a long run on Tuesday which is usually around an hour and a half long I never usually run on a treadmill because I think it’s a little
Bit boring and I prefer to go outdoors and feel like I’m actually traveling somewhere however two things firstly on my training plan it said that I if I can to go out onto some Trails for the run around me I don’t really have any good trails to run on also the weather was
Basically awful so I opted that the best decision was to go and do it on a treadmill I end end up doing an hour and about 35 minutes I think it was and to be honest with you I didn’t didn’t exactly enjoy it I much prefer running
Outside um and also for some reason the same sort of hip niggle that I get whilst riding a bike came up on the run and I think it’s because and the HIIT niggle basically is sort of like a feels like an overuse or a compensation type feeling in this
Hip and I think the reason that it flared up is because on a treadmill you’re at one speed you’re in One Direction and because of that you don’t you know it’s like same with being on a turbo trainer compared to being outdoors on a bike is you’re you’re sort of fixed into
One position for the whole time with very limited other movement and I think that basically caused my hip to over work and the next day ended up actually being really quite sore like a uh an overuse muscle soreness like if you were to go to the gy and train a certain
Muscle Group which kind of leads me to believe that that there’s some sort of imbalance or tightness or something in my lower body which is causing me to overuse my hip which kind of makes sense I suppose um and then so off the back of that and
Having quite a sore hip the day after the the long run I ended up Bing in a phys appointment which I will end up getting to later on in this um episode something else to note which similarly related to sort of hip and knee issues
Um I ended up buying a new saddle for my road bike reason being is my old saddle is well firstly it’s one from AliExpress which means it’s probably got no sort of technology or testing involved in it so also quite narrow and it’s very little
Padding on it so I a prime I can’t remember what it’s called but I’ll put it on screen saddle which is a lot wider a lot more cushioning and the pressure release channel in the center is a lot bigger than the old saddle um I put that
On the bike and instantly noticed a huge difference and I think that’s where maybe all of this stems from I think that where the saddle was so uncomfy I was sitting to one side a lot or shifting my body around a lot basically just to try and find The Comfy
Spot and that linked with um using the FAO asoma Duo she pedals which have a really increased Q factor where I was shifting on the seat a lot and my feet were out so wide it was making my knee alignment terrible and I think I’ve discovered that I prefer it when my
Knees track really close to the frame it feels comfiest it feels like I can put out most power and yeah and also when I run sometimes my knees actually hit each other going past the each other so I think I’ve got maybe narrow hips or I don’t know slightly inward knees or
Whatever whatever the reason but that ended up making a huge difference on Saturday I ended up having a really good day the day started off with a physio session I am here at cult to Sports Park um I’m here for a my first ever physio appointment um not really sure what to
Expect never had one before what I’m hoping for is so they can sort of um sorry if you can hear the wind but they can like analyze my body a bit see where if my hips are twisted see got now I’ve definitely got like a lot of
Imbalances in my body which I think is affecting my knees running and cycling and giving me discomfort so yeah be intered to see if it makes a difference or if I get any Clarity or anything so see you after I suppose right that is physio appointment done um
It was it was interesting actually not what I was completely expecting um basically I got told that so we we ran like through a few like different Mobility tests and and a few different stretches and stuff like that to see to see where what was wrong with my body
Obviously answered a load of questions about what I’m feeling about the the discomfort in my knee and hip um we kind of came to the conclusion or Michael um the guy that did the sort of appointment came to the conclusion that I’ve got that my knee issue is probably stemming from my hip
Area um probably due to like a bit of instability um and the instability is coming from a weak glute or not weak but a weak her glute he said that he said that the chances are the yeah maybe there’s my basically my right glue is definitely weaker than my
Left Glue by a little bit which could be causing instability and yeah make maybe well he didn’t say this but this is kind of what I get from it is that it’s then causing me to maybe like overuse my hip or I don’t know but um he said yeah first
Thing to work on is carry on with my stretch him um what I’ve started including this week also definitely definitely start foam rolling he said he said that that’s like a kind of like a soft tissue massage type thing so definitely going to get a foam roller start that and then
The main or one of the main things is um basically strengthening that right glute so he’s given me three different exercises to do basically as and when I can to help with that sort of imbalance um so yeah we’re going to do that for 6
To eight weeks and then going to go do a followup um yeah and see if it gets any better but it’s interesting to know that there’s no real you kind of feel a bit silly sometimes going into them and they go you’ve not really got any problems but um yeah that
Was the conclusion so it’s a good thing to know that I’ve got no real big issues but um that was good I think I’m going to try and go over to the swimming pool now for a swim trouble is the local pool near me that I like to go to that’s a
Really nice pool with wide Lanes is now closed until the 2nd of January which means I either have to go to culta which I don’t think things open at the minute or go to Walton which is like it’s a weird swimming pool at Walton it’s it’s
Like a more like a fun pool than a actual lane pool that they put Lanes in but I did end up managing to find a pool with uh some swim times that I could make it was at Cults the Leisure World I could only fit in a very short session
Though I think it ended up being just over 2K like maybe 2.2 k um and then I had to get home pretty quickly cuz my other half was going out then later on in the day I ended up having quite a good run session and that went a little
Bit like this 10 miles in the books um basically all easy including 3x 10 minutes building from an easy Pace to Tempo Pace um kind of ignored heart rate completely on this one and just went by F ended up averaging a 7 17 minute per mile not too bad heart rate was probably
High but oh well it felt good legs felt really good actually the first like8 9 Minutes of the run of the 10-minute builds felt super super comfy like really comfy so it’s good signs um think it’s going in the right direction so yeah all good happy with that one then
On Sunday which was Christmas Eve I ended up missing my session I had a long ride booked in a three-hour ride but the day kind of just got away from me a bit and I never ended up finding time to do it which was a little bit annoying cuz
The rest of the week was going so well um finish it with a Miss session um isn’t great but yeah it is what it is it’s Christmas Eve you know got to spend some time enjoying life a little bit and it’s not the worst thing so that ended
Up being my week I’ll go through my total weekly volume I ended up doing in total 9 hours and 9 minutes would have been 12 hours if I didn’t miss that session I ended up doing 2 hours and 12 minutes of swimming which ended up being
9,186 yards which is like 8 and 1 half K maybe something like that ended up doing 3 hours and 17 minutes on the bike which is rubbish and I ended up doing 3 hours and 40 minutes of running which I think was 28 Mi somewhere around that maybe a
Bit more um so yeah overall I had to missed that session it would have been a good week I’m glad to have got three swims in because really struggle I don’t know why fitting in the swims but yeah so overall like I say definitely better than last week is going in the right
Direction also I’m currently in the middle of the following week this week seems to be going quite well as well so make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss next week’s episode few gear upgrades some good training some big training so yeah definitely a good one
To watch if you want to I hope you enjoyed this if you did please make sure you like comment subscribe and I will see you next time for some more Triathlon related content PE