Compex, electronic muscle stimulator.

Compex.

Around 11 months ago I started to have my knee problems, you look back once you are clear of these issues and wonder why you were so worried in the first place, but back then it seemed like the problems were never going away or be fixed. The issues had started during the three weeks of the Haute Route and steadily got worse as I continued to race.

Once the race was over I presumed the pain and swelling would go away but only the swelling died down, the pain remained. I had become an Haute Route Ambassador in the weeks post race, they had planned a trip to London to go to promote the race, so off I went, still with soreness when walking and quite down about my possibilities to riding anytime soon. When I was there I met a guy called Peter Leccacorvi, I remembered well from the race in the Pyrenees leg of the Haute Route. He had come up to me during the latter stages of the race and said he had noticed I was a Brit and doing really well in the GC (general classification) and just wanted to say well done. That was really nice of him and you remember people like that.

We got talking at this promotional event in central London, and as I felt when we first met in the stunning Pyrenees mountains he was a very interesting guy. We got on well there and he was interested with my knee issues and how they were still bad a couple of months after the event had finished. He told me he was the rep for “Compex UK”, pre Haute Route I had not heard of them and only during the event did I see the name as they were sponsoring the event, people post ride would be connected to the electronic machines with their legs shaking. I had not tried it in training so wouldn’t use it in case I had some weird reaction during racing (this is likely with my strange body).

After a good chat with him I found out these shaky leg machines were actually good for not only recovery post event but can be used for pre race warm up, weight/resistance training and for me, recovery from injuries. He had said he had one of the old models which he could potentially let me borrow, I jumped at the chance. Anything that might cut down my recovery time, especially as the recovery time seemed to be many many months at that point! We met up a week or two later and I started using the Compex.

Conclusion: does it work?

When you use something like this many people look at it as a gimmic, or a strange pointless machine. They tend to condemn it. I must say I was a little sceptical initially. I had spoken to the specialist and had been given orders to loosen my muscles off and retrain other. To truly know if the Compex had worked I would have had to use it on its own, but I was also getting regular treatment from Laurence and Charly at the time and rehab work I was doing religiously during the day.

If I had to say yes or no, I feel yes it did help my recovery. Blood in the muscles is what I was trying to do and during/after use of it you could see the muscles were red and veins more prominent. It was doing what I wanted it to do!

Once my knees started to calm down pain wise we had to try to build other muscles up to stop my “muscle disfunction” (which was the main injury problem (in addition to hypermobility)). (Thanks Mother for giving me that). :-) Pete had said we can use the machine and do unweighted squats, so working against the contraction of the machine. This was an uber hard thing to do, and gave me D.O.M.S like I have never had before. Post these sessions my quads looked double the size with the amount of blood in them, I certainly feel these sessions were very beneficial. Bang for buck as they say, 3 minute session and huge fatigue.

Many thanks to Pete and Compex for the use of their “little electronic toy” (as my friends called it). I am now in Nice pre Haute Route and have my Compex with me for post ride use. :-) Every little helps as a certain supermarket says....