Hi Folks, haven’t posted in a long time ---- I had my left knee replaced around 3 months ago and I’m literally JUST back on the bike (yesterday managed an hour, mix of z1 and z2, then melted on the 200m of up for the last 4km…) . I’m not keen at all to go back on the fully caffinated TR plan, but do want to do some formal / scheduled outdoor workouts to give me a focus. I have a 30% deficiency in strength in my left leg (quadriceps specifically), and my flexion is now good enough to turn the pedals without any issue clipped in. Has anyone any idea of workouts I could do outdoor that wont stress the system too much or has anyone else any experience of coming back to cycling after a knee replacement? I think I’m looking ideally for 45-1 hour outdoor workouts that keep to Z1 or Z2, very traditional base training as I have a long time to recover before I need to do anything remotely hard (targeting a 180km grand fondo in May 24), but I could be very wrong on my thinking about this. I did burn out a few times over covid through over doing my intensity on TR…hence my keenness to start slow.
Ther is your answer….you really don’t need anything more than that, IMO. What you need to do is rebuild your aerobic base and obviously strengthen your leg.
Post-surgery, your best option is to just ride your bike, keeping it in Z2. Build those base miles and rebuild the strength in your leg. Most importantly, keep doing your PT religiously.
Hope the knee replacement has alleviated the pain you had!
It has, it was actually cycling that first manifested the problem, roughly this time a year ago I suddenly found it painful to complete a revolution on the bike, knee kept “catching” right at the top of the stroke…feels fantastic to be able to turn the cranks pain free, I dont think I realized quite how much disability I’d ended up with over the years till it was gone!!
