I rushed off from work to make it in time for my fitting at my chiropractor, Dr. David Mruz of Eastside Chiropractic.  Since today was an off the bike day, I didn’t have to worry about getting in a workout. I just needed to get worked over!

No kidding, I have been limping around since my workout on Monday. My hip has had shooting pain as I walk and a dull ache as I stand or sit. Things were getting desperate and I couldn’t wait to get in to see the doc!

He set my bike up on the rollers as I changed into some riding shorts. Then it was time to put on my new Specialized S-Works shoes. Once they were on I climbed on the bike and started to spin.

Really, it never really struck me that the actual spinning of the bike caused pain. As a matter of fact, I told Dr. Mruz that the only time my hip didn’t hurt was when I was easily spinning on the bike. He listened to my information and then began to instruct me to place my feet and legs in various positions.

It wasn’t long at all before he told me to step off the bike, sit down so he could see the alignment of my feet at rest, and hand him the shoes. He took them and started to adjust the cleats based on where he marked the shoes to show the balls of my feet. Turns out the cleats can’t quite reach what he thought was the optimal location, but certainly he could get it to a spot where the pain would lessen.

I then climbed back on the bike. I pushed my feet down to engage the pedals. I began to spin. Then I began to cry.

Now, I don’t mean that I was blubbering or anything.  However, have you ever had pain or maybe were sore from a hard workout and then slipped into a hot tub or took some medicine that made the pain ease? Do you know how that can make you have a laugh come up from deep inside you? It is that incredible feeling of relief and release of tension.

Well, that is what I felt. It was first a relieved laugh and then I felt the tears well up.  I knew immediately that this was a change. My body just felt right on the bike. Spinning felt very natural.

Dr. Mruz said the way I was riding I was torquing my right hip and that was causing me to strain the muscles in my right leg. It started with a messed up saddle which lead to a messed up shoe.  We fixed the saddle easily enough by getting a new one.  However, because I was waiting for new shoes, it has taken awhile.

It was at that moment I realized that really spinning didn’t make me feel better. Sure, I didn’t have the shooting pain, but what was happening was I was winding myself up like a rubber band. All the tension was building and causing my muscles to fire incorrectly.

Now, I don’t expect to wake up in the morning healed! I don’t even expect to be pain free on my next ride. It is going to take a bit to work out the stress on the right hip structure. However, I do have great confidence that we have fixed the foundation. In time my hip will come back into alignment as I retrain it back to its correct motion.

Thank you, Doc! You’ve made a grown man cry!

 

Tags: Bicycle Fit, Cleats, David Mruz, Eastside Chiropractic, Hip, Pain, Shoes

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.