Adductor Muscles 101 or No Pain, No MS Gains!

Adductor Muscles: Any muscle used to pull a body part away from the midline of the body. For example, the adductor muscles of the legs spread the legs away from the midline and away from one another.

Why a lesson on the Adductor Muscles this week you ask? Well I sure learned a lot about this very important muscle when I injured it 12 days ago! How did I do this, well here is the culprit.




Above you can see the Concept 2 Rowing Machine! Isn’t she a beauty? As you can see in the picture I have become rather serious about staying in shape for these 150 mile tours, so beside riding and muscle development, rowing has come into my training picture. At least I thought so. The Concept 2 arrived and only took 15 minutes to assemble. It was like hitting the Easy Button! That’s when the trouble started. For whatever reason, seeing that I’ve been working out, my brain told me to jump on and get rowing. I did 5,000 meters in a half hour. This was easy I thought. The next morning when it was too cold to ride, I jumped back on. Another 5,000 meters later I was thinking this was the greatest thing next to sliced bread. On Sunday I found out the hard way where my Adductor Muscle was located. The inside of my right thigh was knotted up and in pain. The past week has been spent in heavy rehab with electro stimulation and very deep tissue (= bite down hard and don’t let everyone in the clinic hear you scream) massages.

After 12 days off the rower and my bike, I am happy to say the pain is for the most part gone and I’ve just completed 5,000 miles fully stretched out, warmed up, and at a reasonable pace so as to not re-injure my Adductor.


The Lesson

I have to say that this was a very painful experience, but here’s the take away. I knew the entire time that if I did the rehab, the massage, the ice, all of it, that the pain would go away and it would get better. When you have MS you DON”T have that option. There is massage and physical therapy, and days you feel good, great, and lousy, but the MS never really goes away. Worse of all, you don’t have the control to make it go away the same way you can when you don’t have MS.

So my pain is a small price to pay to get ready to tour and honor those who don’t have the same options as I do to get rid of the pain. Think about that the next time you strain a muscle, feel some pain in your back, or reach behind your neck to try and rub the stress away. You have the ability to make it go away, those who need our help in finding a cure do not.

Janice Rock's

Last week I introduced you to Janice Dean the Weather Machine, and this week she made me cry. Yes, my sensitive side came gushing out. Thank you Janice for the kind words. Janice is an avid blogger (click to read her blog) click here and posted about the journey we are now taking together. Janice and I will be linking to one another and both posting about the experience.



How about a few gallons of GAS?

I know times are getting tough. I am to the point that if I could I would ride my bicycle to work every day. Buying a horse actually crossed my mind, but I could not figure out where to attach the toll tag. If each of you just donated a few gallons of gas money we would go a long way to finding a cure. Think about it the next time you are at the pump. Now’s even a better time to make the donation, because those few gallons are going to keep going up. Get in now and save! click here to be directed to the donation page. Thank you to everyone who has already donated. Next week I will bring you this year’s fundraising photographs! Until next week, be well, and watch out for cyclists on the road. I’ll be back out there by the weekend!