Dirt and Road Riding

Saturday I took my upright bike on some local dirt and gravel trails nearby for some fun riding on a nice day. Sunday was hard day so I took my recumbent for a fast tempo ride down in San Martin with some intervals and sprints on the way back.

Yesterday was hard upper body day. I modified my routine to work around my carpal tunnel diagnosis, because I noticed that my wrists flex and extend while arm-cycling. I could modify the grips to fix that, but for now I just omitted it. Instead I did a warmup walking with light hand weights, then did strength training with resistance bands. I followed that with sprints on my kayak simulator that uses resistance bands. I then did my resistance band canoe simulator, and low punches (that are effectively the opposite of the canoe motion). I finished with a cooldown with light resistance on the kayak simulator, and some more walking with hand weights. This was a challenging but enjoyable upper body workout. I then went on a 45 minute easy cruise on my recumbent.

The carpal tunnel diagnosis was a surprise. I mentioned!! that an MRI showed I have some issues like bone spurs in my neck which could possibly affect the nerves down into my arms, so I did a nerve test at my neurologist’s office. It did not show any problems from the neck, which was good news. But it did detect that I have reduced velocity of nerve signals in my wrists, which she suspects is an early symptom of carpal tunnel syndrome. She said since I am asymptomatic and this is fairly minor it is something to just monitor. But it made me wonder what activities I do that might be relevant to this. I don’t spend too much time on the computer these days so I doubt it’s typing or mouse movement. I checked I have a very neutral wrist position when riding and for all my resistance band activities. The arm cycling was the only suspect.