Kurt Roeser - Recovery strategies for gravel cyclists

This week we sit down with Board Certified Orthopedic Specialist, Kurt Roeser from Ability Physical Therapy in Colorado to discuss recovery strategies for gravel cyclists. We dig into the things we can be doing at home to recovery faster along with the various products that have recently been developed to aid recovery. 

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Kurt Roeser - Recovery

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

So as we start out this week, let me ask you a question when you're done with a ride. What's next? Do you just hang up the cleats, put the bike away and go onto the next thing,

Or do you take a moment for self care?

If you're like me, it's often onto the next thing with Naria thought for what? I just put my body through.

This week's guest is Kurt. Roser. A board certified orthopedic specialist and physical therapist at ability physical therapy

. Kurt is an experienced distance runner and cyclist. And brings a wealth of experience to the field of recovery.

Before we jump into this week, shall I need to say a big thank you to this week, sponsor the feed. The feed is the largest online marketplace for your sports nutrition,

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With that said let's dive right into this week show.

[00:02:42] Craig: Hey, Kurt, welcome to the show.

[00:02:45] Kurt: Hey, Craig, how's it going? Thanks for having me,

[00:02:47] Craig: Yeah, it's going great. I'm excited to dig into this conversation about recovery. I feel like half these podcasts are guided by my own personal interests. So I just hope the the listener likes to join me on this journey.

[00:02:59] Kurt: for sure. Yeah. So it is all about learning, learning for yourself and helping some, some other folks at the same time.

[00:03:05] Craig: Yeah, exactly. I'm appreciate you giving me the time to pick your brain. Let's start off with a little bit about just your background and how you got into your profession. And then we'll, we'll dig into some questions.

[00:03:15] Kurt: Yeah, definitely. So I kind of grew up being a, being a distance runner. I ran college it in track at the university of Florida. And then like a lot of runners, I got injured a lot. So, I w me to want to be a PT. And then when I was in PT school, I got into cycling a lot and some triathlons.

And so, yeah, kind of developed a, just broader enjoyment for endurance sports in general. Yeah, so now I, I am a physical therapist working in an outpatient setting and work a lot with runners and other endurance folks whether it's cyclists or, or skiers all, all sorts of fun stuff, just kind of helping people get back out there.

And then, yeah, I still like to run like competitively. So, my marathon vest is a two 17, so I got to run in the. USAA marathon trials a couple of years ago. So hoping to get a couple more good marathons and in me, and then just a transition to more, just fun, fun diverse stuff more biking and, and all that good stuff.

So,

[00:04:13] Craig: Nice. I imagine being in Colorado, you've got no shortage of patients bringing their bodies in damaged from the great outdoors and their endurance athletic pursuits.

[00:04:24] Kurt: Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Overuse injuries. And then I mean, cycling tons of yeah. Impact injuries, falling, you know, shoulder stuff. Yeah. There's a, there's lots of good ways to hurt yourself doing fun things here. So, it is yeah, good for good for me. But I think I like to think I do more good than I take away from society, so, but

[00:04:44] Craig: I imagine if you're getting people back out on the trails and the, and the the slopes, you're doing a service to the citizens of Colorado.

[00:04:51] Kurt: Yeah. And it's, it's, it is really fun for me to like help people that are motivated to get back to doing you know, whatever their activity is or sport it is. And if, yeah, people really love doing something they're super motivated to do their, do their PT whether it's coming in for manual therapy or do their exercises or strengthening or, or whatever it is.

Yeah, so it's a, it's a fun place to practice for me, for sure.

[00:05:14] Craig: I wanted to open up a conversation about recovery from bike rides. I mean, we all, every listener of this podcast, and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of listeners are doing big gravel events, a hundred mile gravel events, or the training for those types of events. And every single one of us has come home, had a little food and then had our legs start to get really solid and heavy.

And I just thought it'd be. To talk to someone, a professional and understand what's actually going on. And then later in the conversation, let's talk about what we can be doing about it.

[00:05:46] Kurt: Totally. Yeah, That's something that like, Everybody is going to encounter encounter soreness. And yeah, it's such a, it's kind of like a hot topic, like recovery. I feel like the past, you know, five to 10 years is getting a lot more spotlight and we see what the pros are doing in various sports. And I think we all are.

You know, here are the best ways to optimize their own training and lifestyle and stuff. So, yeah, it's a, it's a really kind of hot topic now, but basically like the physiologic, like kind of like process of, of soreness is a very normal response to kind of a newer type of exercise that you're doing.

Or maybe not a new type of exercise, but an increasing training load. So, we see this in the early parts of summer where people haven't. Biking a lot, or haven't been doing whatever their sport is in particular, but then you start doing a lot more of it. And even though we think we're being pretty like gradual with it where you usually are, our mind is biting off more than our body can choose.

So to speak. So soreness is just a result of doing something that you're not used to, and then your body's adapting to it. And in that, in that process, you're going to feel some, feel some soreness. And one of the interesting things that I always remember from exercise physiology, class, the professor saying like the only way to prevent muscle soreness is previous exposure to the same stimulus.

So you can't ever prevent yourself from, from getting sore, but you can just kind of like expect to get sore when you do something hard for the first time or, you know, bike longer than you have in awhile. And then know that like, if you do that same thing again, you're not going to be as sore from it.

Kind of like an up and down process.

[00:07:24] Craig: that makes sense. You know, if I think about my, any given week, you know, I can go out and do an hour long training ride and, and. 1200 feet of climbing and don't feel sore at all from that kind of effort. But when I get out on the weekends and I add, you know, five, six times that amount of climbing, those are the days in which I come home, but I know from experience over time, if I'm training for an event, if I've gradually built, I can then go out and ride, you know, 4,000 foot of climbing ride and not be sore and save that soreness for the 8,000 feet climbing.

[00:07:58] Kurt: totally. Yeah. And I also want it to differentiate between like, muscle soreness and then like tendon or joint soreness. Cause that's a really common thing that people ask about is, and. And how to differentiate that from like an

So like, I think delayed onset muscle soreness who are all like pretty familiar with like, you do something hard and then you're sore from it for a couple of days.

So that processes partly. Kind of like mechanical at the cellular level. So, you're actually getting some microtrauma t