I’ve been training with TR since February this year and achieved great results. About 3 weeks ago, I had my first bike crash and broke my left collarbone (no surgery required). Along with that, my ribs were heavily bruised as well. I was in the middle of week 3 of SSB Mid Volume 1 when I had the crash. Since my shoulder is not hurting anymore early this week, I decided to continue my training, picking up where I left off.
While I was able to complete Tunnabora, Carter, and Monitor +1, I noticed that my average and maximum heart rate was about 8 - 10 higher than usual. Today, I really struggled in doing McAddie and I failed at the end of the 2nd interval. Again, my HR was about 10 bpm higher compared to my last McAddie, which pushed me to above threshold (I’m 50 yo and today I reached 180 bpm).
For any of you who have been in a similar situation, it would be great if I could hear how long it took until you were able to continue training. And also, while recovering, did you do an easier plan like the SSB Low Volume or the Traditional Base, or just stay off the trainer?
Everyone is different. presuming you were off the bike for 3 weeks. The first thing i would have done was re-test. After the 1st week you start to lose your top end fitness. At 3 weeks you no doubt lost some endurance as well. After your injury your body is using a lot of its energy to rebuild from the trauma. Even if you don’t feel pain you may not be completely healed from the injuries and your body is under stress trying to rebuild. Normally after a cold or injury that takes me off the bike i drop my FTP 10-15 watts and repeat the last week that i completed to get an ideal of how i feel at that intensity. Now with the ramp test its easy just to plan a test and do it. My guess is that if your heart rate is 10 beat higher then normal over the three weeks your FTP also has dropped. Starting up where you left off is a good way to bury yourself. It sounds like you are doing just that with starting to fail workouts. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. we think that we can just jump back where we left off as if nothing has changed. Good luck with your recovery. train hard ride fast