Tonight, I was supposed to do a 20-mile group ride with the folks from Kinetic Motion. We call it “the KM ride”. I had my bike racked on my car and my bike gear with me. But I had a physical therapy appointment beforehand, and my PT gave me “dry needle therapy”. It’s sort of like acupuncture and it causes tight muscles to release and relax. She did the needling on my right and left quads. And boy, did it hurt more than I was expecting! Those muscles were already sore, and then I let her stick needles in them!
Afterward, my legs felt like I had just ridden 50 miles. Although they felt tight, the muscles were actually jiggly. She said it would be good to do a light ride and sit in our hot tub afterward. So, I bailed on the group ride and went home to do an easy 12-mile spin around my neighborhood. The hot tub felt good afterward.
Nevertheless, I feel like a wimp, because neither my 3-mile run yesterday, nor my short ride today seemed like enough of a workout. But I’m hoping this therapy will be good for my muscles. All we do is abuse them and tighten them up all the time. We need to get them to relax some of the time. I almost wonder if it would be good to do this needle thing weekly or bi-weekly. How much is too much? It doesn’t seem too unnecessary when you’re riding 60+ miles and running afterward, eventually working up to 100-mile rides, etc.
I’m actually hoping it will relieve some lower-back pain I am having on my left side. We shall see. I hope my legs don’t hurt tomorrow. Maybe I can at least get in a good, Ironman-in-training-worthy swim or something.
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I see an osteopath for dry needling, and it is the most violating pain when you’re getting it done, but by the next day, it literally feels like you’ve been given a new set of legs… I hope you feel better tomorrow!!