24 weeks Post Surgery

It has been 6 months since my surgery.

My shoulder is probably 90% of what it used to be, maybe more.  It is better than 4 weeks ago and continues to get stronger but at a slower pace than before.  The doctors say it will probably be healing for up to a year.  I think I could make it better with swimming and strength training.  I haven't been doing any of the exercises except maybe once a week, I need to make more of an effort towards them.  Most of my effort is going into training on the bike to be ready for State Championships and then Nationals.  At Nationals, we are probably a 3rd or 4th place team but we want to be better than the previous years.

My teammates and I are going back to threshold training for 5-10 weeks and then back to VO2max efforts.  I think that is the best route right now for the entire team.  I've been at 200 miles a week for the last 2 weeks again but will likely be short of that this week, maybe more like 140-160 miles.

I want to get back to swimming and running again, not at the level I was at before, maybe half of that.  I'd like to get in the pool 2 times a week and run 4 times.  I don't know if I can fit strength training into the schedule, I don't think there is a big return on it for me right now.  10 weeks isn't enough time to see significant gains compared to threshold training on the bike.  I may do it just for fun occasionally.

I have spent a little time on the motorcycle, not as much as I did last year because it's been colder outside.  This weekend I'm going to Grattan to ride, I've been struggling with on-throttle front end grip.  I think it's a combination of suspension and my riding abilities.

Weight loss is going OK.  I'm pretty stable at 144-145 lbs and not skipping dinner like I was before.  If I want to lose more I need to make better choices for meals.  When I took a few days off to go to Barber Motorsports park a few weeks ago, I didn't eat well and put 1-2 lbs back on.

20 Weeks Post Surgery

I did race last weekend and met my goals of finishing in the lead pack on the Scratch Races (4th Friday and 3rd on Saturday.  I finished 3rd in the elimination on Friday and was first out on Saturday.  The Madison was a mixed bag of mistakes by myself and my partner.

I felt strong for just about all of the races.  I didn't have much recent time at 30+ mph so I had to get used to it in a big hurry.  I seemed to adapt well.

I weighed in at 145 lbs this morning so I'm still on my way to getting to my goal.  Right now, I feel I'm losing too fast so I'm going to eat just a little more at the end of the day.  I've averaged 2.5 lbs a month since November and I've felt strong so I want to keep it at that rate.  I've skipped a lot of meals lately and know I can't continue doing it.  I should be down to 142 lbs by the end of next month.

My shoulder is doing well, still not 100% yet but it's getting there.  I am still slacking on my exercises, I need to get back to it.  

Last week I was lower on bike volume because I wanted to be strong for the weekend.  I finished the week with 140.3 miles and one run.  I will go back to normal training this week.  I'm also going to try to get in the pool at least once this week.

19 Weeks Post Surgery

It's been a few weeks

Highlights:

My 6X5(5) set my FTP at 205 which is in the ballpark of where I'd hoped to be.

After my 150 mile week I went back to 200+

Week ending 2/23/25 201.6 miles.

Week ending 3/2/25 215.33 miles.

Week ending 3/9/25 269.31 miles.

I spent some time in Arizona visiting a friend (2/28 to 3/9).  In that time I rode 381.9 miles, most of it was easy riding.

I have really slacked off on my exercises, I need to get back to that.  My shoulder is probably near 90% right now, it's good but not all the way back.  I've done Madison in practice twice now, last night with Derek and 2 weeks ago with Jon H.  I was a little sore after riding with Jon but this morning I felt perfectly fine.  Most of my exchanges were 100% and not holding back.

I swam twice while in Arizona without issues.  I kept the volume down to just over 1000 yds and I was fine.  I'll probably bump up to 1500 soon.

I've bumped my running distance up to ~3 miles with no issues.  I just need to balance that effort with bike training.

I decided to race this weekend at the Lexus Velodrome.  I'll likely be a "B" rider which is where I was before.  Drew and I made a deal to ride together for the Madison both race days.

I weighed in at 146.9 lbs this morning.  It's closer to my goal but likely because I didn't eat last night after practice.  I'd like to get down to 142 lbs again.

16 Weeks Post Surgery

 I had another PT visit on Monday which will likely be my last one for this issue.  He was very happy about how I have regained strength in my shoulder.  He tested my strength and flexibility and seemed happy with that too.

We cut down the number of exercises for me to do, this is what I have been doing:

1.  On back arm overhead

2.  On right side arm overhead

3.  On right side backwards curl

4.  On right side left arm supported by right, backward curl forwards

5.  Sitting up arms in front stretching band

6.  On left side left arm curl, or ban with attached to wall internal rotation

7.  Pendulums (I pretty much stopped this one)

8.  Standing up left arm stretch behind (I pretty much stopped this one too)

9.  Wall angels

10.  Standing up arm on side to overhead

11.  Arm behind back stretches

12.  Kettlebell halo

13.  Thread the needle, on all four move left under body then reach up 

14.  Half Turkish get up, on back left arm up with weight then reach up

15.  Serratus Plank, plank on bench arch back and pull shoulder blades together

16.  Band attached to a low point, hold band low with arm across body.  Move hand/arm in a diagonal up and over to upper opposite side with arm extended.

These were optional and I did them on occasion:

17.  Around the clock with a band

18.  Curl then overhead

19.  Inclined Pushups

20.  Bench press up to 45lbs

21.  Deadlift up to 65lbs

22.  Overhead press 10lbs each arm separately for 30 to 40 steps

Because I've felt a need to do these with both sides, we have narrowed down to these to cut the time down:

4.  On right side left arm supported by right, backward curl forwards

9.  Wall angels

10.  Standing up arm on side to overhead

12.  Kettlebell halo

13.  Thread the needle, on all four move left under body then reach up 

14.  Half Turkish get up, on back left arm up with weight then reach up

15.  Serratus Plank, plank on bench arch back and pull shoulder blades together

16.  Band attached to a low point, hold band low with arm across body.  Move hand/arm in a diagonal up and over to upper opposite side with arm extended.

In addition to these, I'm now including a few others that I've done before:

Squats

Deadlift

Bench Press

Seated Row

Lat pull downs or pull up depending on where I'm at

I may try to do some overhead presses.

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I'm not sure but I may start racing in the middle of March depending on my fitness.  My original plan was for the middle of April but the racing season is finished before then.  I'm still debating on racing on the road this summer.

I cut my riding volume down to 150 miles last week because I'm having a problem recovering from the work I've been doing.  This week I'm trying really hard to get more sleep (9 hours) to get back on track.  I started squatting last Saturday, even though it was light, it took a lot out of my legs.

Plans for this week are to complete my baseline test of 6x5(5) again.  I had worked up to about 195watts last fall but I should be capable of more now.  I did the workout as a Z3 last night and felt pretty good.  Provided everything goes well, I'm going to try the Tuesday Night Track Practice again next week.

15 Weeks since my AC Reconstruction Surgery

 A little late this week.

I've seen significant improvements in my strength exercises and the shoulder stability is getting better.

I've got 15 different strength exercises and stretches to do, it takes me about 45 minutes to get through them with just one arm.  The issue now is that for some of them, I'm seeing more strength than in my right shoulder.  Now I'm doing both shoulders so one doesn't lag behind.  Anything that requires stability still needs work but there are a few that I can do better with my left than my right.

I realized this while riding on the horns on my new track bars.  I feel some weakness in my right that I don't have in my left.  The position is awkward but fairly aerodynamic and powerful.

I have made 200+ miles a week for 10 weeks now, I've debated on reducing it a little but always seem to cram in the miles to meet the goal.  Right now I'm not seeing the improvement I expected to see so I'm going to reduce volume this week and maybe the next to rest up a bit to be capable of doing higher power work.  This is my last week of the 6 week threshold block, next week I'll test with 6x5(5) again then rest up a bit before going to Arizona to see David G.  I may even try the Tuesday Track Practice in the week before I leave.

Other notes:  I weighed in at 147.7lbs today, I bumped my run up to 15 minutes 3 times a week.  My legs are feeling better than I did before week 14.  I got a tattoo on Wednesday so I won't be able to swim this week but I probably will next week.  I swam 1000 yds last Friday without pain, I stopped to limit stress and I was tired.  Workout was 5X100 on 2' and 10X50 on 1'.

14 Weeks since my AC Reconstruction Surgery

Good and not as good things happened last week.

I'm getting better every week but the gains are coming slower, or at least I feel they are.  I'm doing more exercises to get stronger and maybe they are making me feel like I'm not healing.

I was unable to swim over the weekend because of the pool schedule, I may try today and then do my stretches at the Rec Center after swimming.  If I do it'll only be 500 yds again to keep the load low.

My legs were very tired last week on the bike despite taking it a little easier the previous week.  I skipped the Saturday morning track practice in favor of riding easy on Zwift.  Sunday was about the same intensity as last week.

I slacked off on the shoulder exercises a bit this week.  First because I was a little lazy and second because I was sore and wanted to see if it would get better with a little less stress on it.

My weight was as low as 148 lbs last week.  I'm cautiously optimistic that it will continue to drop.

13 Weeks Post Surgery

I have my last Physical Therapy appointment today.  I really feel I should have more but BCN says they are not medically necessary.  Interesting that they would pay for them before my surgery when it actually was useless, but not now when I could benefit from the guidance, they won't.

I had an appointment with my surgeon last Tuesday.  She said I could go back to riding on the track, could introduce overhead strength work and start swimming again.  The X-Rays revealed no stretching of the grafts and everything is where is should be.  There will still be a small bump on my shoulder consistent with a Grade 1 separation but everything is healing well.  It will still be another 3 months before I should go back to bike racing and healing will go on for about a year.

Shoulder is feeling much better, I've avoided the things that made it sore and introduced new things that could have made it sore. 😁 I swam for the first time on Saturday.  I purposely held it to 500 yards to see how it would be.  The best description I can give is that it felt loose in the socket and slightly painful.  I was only swimming 50's on a minute so it wasn't fast.  Afterwards I ran on the LRC track and did my exercises.  In addition to the exercises I used the pull up machine with 100lbs of assist.  I am ~150lbs right now so it's like pulling ~50lbs.

I rode 204 miles last week with a mix of track and Zwift, ran 3 times and swam short once.  Only one intense day on the bike: Saturday Moring track where I finished all the drills.  It wasn't easy, but I finished them.  There were no jump-the-gap sprints so I didn't put much stress on my shoulder.

Sunday track is progressing well.  We have some new riders that are learning how to do pursuits, they seem very enthusiastic (wow I spelled that right on the first try) and are working out well.  We have a very good candidate for our fourth member of our team, I feel he fits in really well.

My strength exercises are going well.  I've increased the weight I've been working with a little because I felt some of them were just stretches and too easy to do.  I have 15 exercises to do 3 times a day and it takes me ~40 minutes to complete them as prescribed.  Sometimes I cut them to 2 sets instead of three to save time since most of the time I'm doing them twice at work.

My weight has consistently been 149-150lbs for the last week;  I'm pretty happy about that.  I would like to be down to ~142lbs by May.

Bike training notes

 I'm going to drop the intensity this week to recover. 

No 4x10's but I'll likely ride the Saturday morning practice if available. 

12 weeks post surgery

My shoulder has been better since last week.  I cut the running and bench presses out and things got better by Thursday.  I ran again on Saturday and Sunday and felt good so I feel the bench presses were the cause of the problem.  45lbs was more than I wanted to do but there wasn't a lighter bar.  I need to find an alternative.

Threshold intervals went well last Thursday, they confirmed my TP of 190.  It was just Kevin/Linda and myself doing the intervals, we started off splitting my work as a rotating paceline of 9 strokes each then 20/9.  After that we went 4 laps for me and 1 lap for K/L.  That lowered his power to the range he needed and and raised mine to the power I needed.  I'd like to see and increase of 5 to 10 watts in my next cycle, I'd be happy with 5.

I've been up for 3 weeks now and it's time to lower the training stress for a week so I can recover.  Kevin is on the same cycle.

The Saturday practice is going well. I need to be careful on the "jump the gap" sprints so I don't tweak my shoulder any.  At one point during practice I got my HR just over 180bpm so I was going quite hard.  Our second Sunday of pursuit training went well, we had 7 bikes and worked on exchanges, and finishes.  Today I tried to ride on my aerobars but it turned my left arm to an uncomfortable angle so I abandoned it for now.

I've been pretty good about doing my daily strength exercises, sometimes I miss one but most of the time I don't.  I have an appointment with my surgeon tomorrow and expect to have some restrictions removed.  I'm going to ask if there is something I can do to get more sessions of physical therapy.  I don't need a lot, maybe just 8 sessions so I can make sure I'm doing the right thing to heal up correctly.  I don't want to go through this again.

Body weight has been 149-150 so it dropped a little.  I've been skipping lunch sometimes to reduce calorie counts.  I need to find something more filling to eat for breakfast so I don't snack before lunch.

11 Weeks post surgery

I over-did it last week on the bike and my should is sore.  I rode track a little on Tuesday, then easy on Wednesday, Saturday morning track practice and Sunday easy pursuit drills.  The extra stress on my shoulder is a little too much right now and I'll drop that down a bit.  Combining with Zwift I completed my 200 miles again.  My last threshold session indicated a TP of 190 watts so that came up a little.  I decided to do track workouts instead of the second TP session.  My next one will be on Thursday and I'll see how it turns out.  It should be on the track, I don't know if I should do it solo or with the group, solo would be a better indicator of my abilities but it's also boring.

I have an appointment with my surgeon next Tuesday and I expect some restrictions to be removed.  My PT feels that they'll let me start swimming and do upper body strength exercises.  As of now I have one more PT session left and that is the week after the appointment.

Body weight is still 150-151, I have not been tracking it as closely as I should.  I need to work on that.

Week 10

 Another 200+ mile week on the bike, mostly on Zwift but Saturday I rode on the track.  It was a moderate ride without a whole lot of effort but not easy.  Since I was there to work on the refrigerator and Kevin was there, I choose to ride.  It was busy but uneventful.

I noticed that I ride a lot harder at the track and my moderate days on Zwift need to be a little harder to match that effort.  I plan to be there Tuesday to ride my 10 min intervals with Kevin and whomever else shows up.  My 10 min intervals went well, they indicate my TP is about 185-190 watts.  Garmin estimates 190 watts.

Home therapy is getting better and I'm using more weight than I had in the past few weeks.  I have used some Ibuprofen a few times when I felt swelling was hindering my recovery.  Even though it relieves pain, I'm using it for recovery when needed.  I think it was 2 or 3 times last week, 400-600mg.

I'm 150-151 lbs this week, I'm getting lighter but I need to concentrate on it some more.

Bike training notes

A follow up to yesterday's post:

I did my 4X10(3) today starting off with a goal of 160 watts.  I wanted to do this as a Zone 3 interval so I could get a feel of what I am currently capable of.  My power output was 166, 167, 166, 174 watts for the four intervals.  They felt more difficult than I thought they should have, this indicates my threshold power is much lower than I thought it would be.

My 30/15 intervals indicated a TP of 200 watts. (238/1.18)

When I was doing the 6X5(5) intervals, the results indicated a TP of 188 watts.

These intervals indicate a TP of ~180-185 watts.  (168/.9)

So the last 2 are fairly close to each other and come from a near-threshold type of workout.  The first comes from a VO2max workout.  So 238/185 gives me a VO2max of 128% of threshold.  Since that is far greater than 115% it appears I am going to benefit more from threshold training than VO2max training for  now.

According to the numbers;  it appears I will benefit more from TP workouts until I reach ~205-210 watts.

So now I have a fairly clear cut path for improvement.  I'm thinking it'll take 6 to 9 weeks to reach that goal.

In addition, I am still able to do the swimming drill I mentioned yesterday.

9 Weeks Post Surgery (1 day early)

No big advancements except that I was able to do one of my swimming drills today.  I was unable to do the zipper drill which simulates the recovery portion of the freestyle stroke but today I did it.  I did some behind the back stretches and gave it a try and was successful.

Another 200+ miles on Zwift again this week with just about all of it as easy riding.  I tried some longer Z3 intervals yesterday and found them more difficult than I thought they'd be so instead of the 45/45's I'm going to start with 10 min Z3 intervals and work them up to threshold.  I'm planning 3 weeks of this but may cut it to two if I think my improvement is stagnating.  This won't drive the heartrate like VO2max stuff will but my performance right now indicates it's what I need.

Weight has been mostly in the 151's, up and down a little but averaging right there.

Home therapy is going OK.  I get sore doing internal shoulder rotations with weights so I'm staying easy with it.  I've taken some Ibuprofen for it a few times but not my normal large dose, just 400mg once or twice a day.

8 Weeks Post Surgery

There weren't any big advancements last week.  I'm getting better but slowly.

There is still no swimming or running yet.  The protocol calls for running in week 10.

I rode 200 miles on Zwift again and finished the :30/:15 intervals.  I went from 214 to 237 average watts on those intervals in the three weeks.  Those power numbers indicate an FTP of ~200 watts.  I'm OK with those results.  

Staying consistent with last weeks' plans, I'm going to do easier riding this week while holding the same volume.  Next week I'll be moving to :45/:45's.  I'll figure out the final numbers but it'll likely be something like 6X(5X:45/:45)(5) with the option to shorten the set count.

While I'm still 152 lbs I'm touching 151 now and am on my way back down.

My strength and flexibility is getting better.  With my home exercises I'm using weights on just about everything now.  They have taken me down to once a week.  I don't agree with it but will continue with their plan.