I finally got sick of the fat I am carrying in the midsection (biking alone is not doing it for me this summer) and went back to weights and HIIT this week. My rides may suffer, but I can't stand the fat in the belly area anymore.
Anyway, I went out yesterday evening to do sprints using the Tabata protocol (or something similar to it). After a 5 minute warmup jog (difficult in itself since I hadn't run in over a year), I ran 5X20 second full-out effort sprints, taking about 90 seconds rest in between each. Afterwards, I felt good, but after stretching, I felt dizzy (not good).
Anyway, here's the interesting part: usually with full out sprints, I feel it in the vastus lateralis (outer part of the quads), the glutes and especially the hamstrings. OK, after yesterday's effort, I felt pretty good in those areas....but what was very tight and sore was my vastus medialis (inner part of the quads) and my adductors (inner groin muscles). Pretty evident that cycling has made the other muscles pretty strong and resilient, but has comparatively neglected the VMO and adductors.
I remember Craig Ballantyne telling me that it was important to work the VMO during a heavy cycling season to maintain balance and keep the patella tracking properly - he prescribed Peterson step-ups to do that. I think I need to get back to those given my results yesterday.
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