Leg muscle pain after fitness cycling

[Geoff_nz]

In reading my post again, I can see it may sound as though it's just muscle fatigue. The thing is though I have a weekend in between each week to have my body and muscles recover, but come Monday morning, I'm still very sore.

[karen.hankey]

Hi Geoff,

First thing that springs to mind for me is are you stretching? Secondly, did you get this feeling when you first started cycling, or has it just been when you have increased your weekly milage?

[Geoff_nz]

Thanks Karen,

1. Re: Stretching ... Hey no I haven't done any stretching at all. Do you think I should Stretch before each ride? (I work an afternoon shift 1pm - 9:30pm and ride to work 1pm and home 9:30pm) I didn't give any thought to stretch as I though the excercise was so low impact, I felt I didn't really need it.
2. Re: geting this feeling when you first started cycling ... Actually no, I only really got these aches and pains when I was doing the greater mileages 40 kms per day.

[karen.hankey]

When you exercise, be it impact or not, you build up lactic acid in your muscles. Stretching would be better used after you have cycled to try and help the removal of lactic acid. The thing to avoid would be a hot bath as well when you get home as this may exacerbate things.

The other thing is that perhaps you have increased your mileage too quickly. If the stretching doesn't help, then reduce your milage again and gradually build up. I definately wouldn't advise increasing your milage at the moment as you would just get worse.

[Geoff_nz]

Thanks for your advice Karen.
Can you give me some idea of what specific stretching exercises I could do after my daily cycle?

I guess like all things, now that I have been continuing my cycling and have now cycled two consecutive days, and my muscles appear to be handling the ride a bit better now, and I'm experiencing less aches, but I will be careful about increasing any more mileage.

If you can let me know more about the specific stretching exercises for my cycling I would be greatly appreciative. Thanks again Karen.

[karen.hankey]

You want to stretch all of your leg muscles (hamstrings, quads and calfs) and then probably your pecs, due to the arm position. You might be best investing in a stretching book.

Glad your feeling less achy. Obviously you just increased the stress on the muscles too quickly and the ache was them unable to cope. Now they are getting used to it and getting stronger the ache should die down. As I said before, just watch how quickly you increased your milage in the future,