Are you guys tired of hearing me rave about K-Star and MobilityWOD yet?? Ha! Sorry. I'm going to do it just a little more today.
One thing he says quite often in his videos is "Take Responsibility. Make A Better Choice." I love that because it really can apply to just about any aspect of our lives, right?? It drives me NUTS when people are constantly blaming others for their situation in life... whatever is going on with me (good and bad!) is a direct result of the choices I have made and I need to take responsibility for that... If I am not happy with my situation, I have the ability to change it by making different choices going forward. Simple. Profound. Boom.
So. I feel fat right now. You know why? Because I suck at controlling myself around peanut butter and almond butter. I know those foods pack right on my stomach/thighs/ass but I've made the choice to eat them (a lot!) lately anyway and now I'm living with the consequence of feeling fat. I take full responsibility for that and will pay the price if/when I see pictures of myself in a bathing suit this weekend.
Moving on. I just finished up a little 3 day block of crash training. Nothing really that big but 3 days in a row totaling 4+ hours each day and it has left me feeling satisfyingly fatigued. I swam 3x, biked 3x, ran 3x, and lifted weights 1x. No one session was extraordinary at all- in fact, much of the training was actually very skills focused.
In swimming, I've been working specifically on my kick. I don't really use my legs much at all when I swim. For an Ironman, this is really perfectly acceptable and maybe even preferred. BUT, for shorter races (and I have 2 of these coming up in the next few weeks) where swims last <30' and do not allow wetsuits, its not a bad thing to have the ability to kick in your toolbox. I can tell you right now that a couple of the girls who will beat me out of the water on Sunday use their feet very effectively when they swim. So, if I want to stay near them, I need to use my feet more effectively too! I've been focused on that the last two weeks and I'm seeing some improvement there I think. It's really just a coordination thing and when you're in love with your pull buoy, as I am, you don't tend to get a lot of practice coordinating the timing of your kick. I take full responsibility for this so I have been making different choices in the pool to address my dissatisfaction with this. For example, I did not use my buoy at all today in the pool. (Nalani would keel over and die in disbelief if she reads this. Ha! I cannot remember a training session where I didn't use a buoy for at least part of it?!? So today was quite special.)
On the bike, I've been working on making some changes to the alignment of my hips/knees/ankles as I pedal. There have been a couple recent videos on MobilityWOD that discuss this exact thing and I realized that I was doing exactly what he was saying to NOT do... so I headed out this morning and did a little field testing on myself with my power meter and focusing on some different things... Interesting when I made the changes he suggested I stopped 'dumping torque' as he likes to say and my watts went up! I should not be surprised... everything else that guy has said has been spot on but seeing such a black and white immediate change was pretty cool.
On the run, pretty much every session lately is a technique based session. Mostly b/c I believe the #1 thing I must do at this point just to stay injury free is learn to run correctly vs just going out and putting one foot in front of the other... My main cue has been to drop my foot right under my center of mass vs letting it stretch out ahead of me. I also think about keeping my core engaged so I don't arch my back, lifting my heels a bit behind me (engage hamstrings!), and keeping cadence up. I def still have a lot of room to grow here but in good news, I can feel it immediately now when I lose focus and start over-striding or leaning back. The hip mobility stuff I've been doing is helping a great deal in this area as well b/c the basic ability to extend ones hip is sort of an integral part of being able to run correctly.
So, two weeks til Honu. Yikes. I'm actually going to try to get in a quality brick session this Sunday in the form of the Honolulu Triathlon. My swim and bike are not outstanding at the moment but they are fine, and I think I'll be capable of covering 6.2 miles without injuring myself. Maybe even without walking. We'll see. However it turns out, I'll take full responsibility for the outcome because it will be a culmination of all the little choices I have made over the last few months...
I swear I am not going to eat ANY peanut butter or almond butter between now and Sunday. And I know I'll adhere to this rule because both jars are currently empty (yes- have been licked clean by the dog) and I'm just not going to buy more for a while. ;)
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
Mid-May
Updating your blog is harder when you do it less often. It's like where do I start??
How about with what I just did?? I just updated my homepage to MobilityWOD.com so every time I open my browser that's the site I'll see from Kelly Starrett. He just recently made that site subscription based for new content. I'm glad I found him before and realized how much awesome info he has to teach b/c normally I'm not a fan of subscription based websites. But this one is worth the $8/month for sure. Every day there's new awesome content and the amount I have learned in the last few weeks from this guy is unreal. I have never heard anyone explain how our bodies should be functioning like this guy does and I find myself glued to the videos he makes... watching them over and over until I'm sure I understand. I've finished reading his book though I continue to go back and reference it often. This is like continuing education at it's absolute best.
Can you tell I'm a fan?
My obsession with that website stems from the fact that I am fixing my hip/hamstring/glute situation by using his mobilization and stabilization techniques. It's not all better quite yet but it's getting there and I'm running a little here and there. It's super frustrating of course because I'm not able to train the way I'd like to be able to train in order to see the fitness gains I'd like to see. Doing things half-ass is not my style but it's all I've got right now so I'm trying to be patient and work within my current limiters. Some days I do a better job than others. Yesterday my PWN after my run said something like, "I wish I could say I'm being all mature about how slow this was but I am not. Feeling super frustrated." So there you go.
Let's talk about something more cheery than how slowly I move when I am "running".
How about how cool my cats are? My neighbor took this picture over the weekend. That's Harriet running down our roof. One day I hope to be as agile as she is. She's got great downhill skillz.
Friday morning I swam Mokes with a couple of friends. It was one of the most perfect morning ocean swims ever. Glassy water like a lake. So rare out there.
Sunday I swam it again. Here's what the radar showed Sunday morning. For those of you who don't live here, I should note we live (and were swimming) on the east side of Oahu.
Hence, it looked a little different in the water Sunday morning. The ocean is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
Wet soggy days are not my favorite, especially in mid-May. But the waterfalls are pretty. I'd say this is what it looked like on my run, but while I was running those mountains weren't actually visible b/c of the low and thick cloud layer. It poured on me the whole time, which I actually sort of liked. Though I'm hoping the sun comes out again tomorrow. I am solar powered.
How about with what I just did?? I just updated my homepage to MobilityWOD.com so every time I open my browser that's the site I'll see from Kelly Starrett. He just recently made that site subscription based for new content. I'm glad I found him before and realized how much awesome info he has to teach b/c normally I'm not a fan of subscription based websites. But this one is worth the $8/month for sure. Every day there's new awesome content and the amount I have learned in the last few weeks from this guy is unreal. I have never heard anyone explain how our bodies should be functioning like this guy does and I find myself glued to the videos he makes... watching them over and over until I'm sure I understand. I've finished reading his book though I continue to go back and reference it often. This is like continuing education at it's absolute best.
Can you tell I'm a fan?
My obsession with that website stems from the fact that I am fixing my hip/hamstring/glute situation by using his mobilization and stabilization techniques. It's not all better quite yet but it's getting there and I'm running a little here and there. It's super frustrating of course because I'm not able to train the way I'd like to be able to train in order to see the fitness gains I'd like to see. Doing things half-ass is not my style but it's all I've got right now so I'm trying to be patient and work within my current limiters. Some days I do a better job than others. Yesterday my PWN after my run said something like, "I wish I could say I'm being all mature about how slow this was but I am not. Feeling super frustrated." So there you go.
Let's talk about something more cheery than how slowly I move when I am "running".
How about how cool my cats are? My neighbor took this picture over the weekend. That's Harriet running down our roof. One day I hope to be as agile as she is. She's got great downhill skillz.
Hence, it looked a little different in the water Sunday morning. The ocean is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
Wet soggy days are not my favorite, especially in mid-May. But the waterfalls are pretty. I'd say this is what it looked like on my run, but while I was running those mountains weren't actually visible b/c of the low and thick cloud layer. It poured on me the whole time, which I actually sort of liked. Though I'm hoping the sun comes out again tomorrow. I am solar powered.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
I'm Trying to Become A Supple Leopard
How about a random bullet point style blog for a Sunday night? Bear with me, it's all I've got. :)
~I'm seeing decent improvement now in my hamstring and sit bone area. Yay! Honestly after reading so much on different forums, etc I was preparing myself to be out of commission for the long haul, but turns out if you're super diligent about the strength and mobility exercises, hamstrings will forgive you for abusing them earlier. The jump band and other exercises/stretches I detailed on my previous blog post continue to be the ones I go to (daily!) and they are working. I am more motivated to do them now too b/c of how obviously different I feel after I do. I think I actually have some ability to extend through my hips now and it makes me feel like gumby. Lol.
~Becoming A Supple Leopard is now my favorite resource when it comes to all things physical movement. I have been reading it every day- it's a really long 400 page hard cover textbook style book and I feel like I should be earning some sort of college credit for learning all this stuff but honestly I was never as interested in any of my college courses as I am in this book! The level of detail he goes into to make sure he is clear (and there are lots of pictures!) is incredible. And he keeps it interesting enough because his writing style just sounds like he's talking. I laugh out loud sometimes, which never happens when reading an actual textbook... but when he writes stuff like "Having a glass of wine can make mobilizing a little more tolerable, but getting drunk and passing out on a lacrosse ball is never a good idea" it's hard to not laugh!
~The author of that book is a big CrossFit guy and a big chunk of the book goes into high detail about how to perform just about any strength movement you could think of (and some you've never imagined!) with perfect form. He also goes into common errors and how to correct them. All of a sudden this stuff is pretty interesting to me so I hit up my first Intro to CrossFit class a few days ago. I went in with an open mind... I've heard lots of different stuff- good and bad- about CrossFit and wasn't sure what to expect. The intro sessions are pretty basic where they're teaching you about the language they use and philosophy of the sessions as well as how to perform the movements. Mostly we just did a ton of different types of squats. I was a little sore the next day but not bad at all- just enough to let me know I'd worked some but I wasn't crippled or anything. I told the coach that I am a triathlete and I was planning to use CF as a compliment to triathlon training so I didn't want to work so hard I'd be debilitated for days. She totally understood and was respectful of that. So, I'll go back for more intro sessions this week! If I'm honest, after Honu I can see myself really getting into Crossfit. We'll see.
~So that's my plan for Honu. I figure I've got 3 weeks of 'training' (race week won't count for 'training') but it's not like I can just ramp back up to normal run training, and even if I could, three weeks wouldn't get me to the run fitness I want for that race. So. My plan is just to get as functionally strong and mobile as I can and then just cross my fingers on race day. Maybe if I'm strong enough I can gut it out? It's my only hope so I'm going with it.
~In good news my biking isn't as weak as I thought it might be after weeks of simply doing very haphazard random rides as I felt. I needed a break from having a set training plan for a while because I didn't want to feel the pressure of 'having' to ride or run (b/c if it's on the TP calendar I would have done it regardless of what my body was saying- not so bright I know but it's like how I'm wired or something)... I wanted the freedom to just do what my body and mind allowed each day without feeling any pressure. Turns out, I suck at making myself ride my bike if I don't have a coach monitoring it! In good news though, I got my power meter up and functioning again and rode yesterday and was capable of hitting decent power... not quite as good as before Cabo but it wasn't awful so that gave me a little confidence. If I'm honest, I wonder if I'll ever get back to riding as strong as I was riding before Cabo? Mostly b/c I'm not sure I'm willing to ride that kind weekly mileage again. That was really a lot. But maybe I can get close on half the volume?? Lol. Wishful thinking. We'll see though. Saturday would have been good but I ran over something that my tire didn't like and the giant hole in the sidewall wasn't something I could repair on the go. So I sat by the ocean and checked race results on my phone while waiting for my husband to come pick me up. Bummed to miss out on the end of that ride, but chillin' here on a Saturday morning didn't suck.
~I'm seeing decent improvement now in my hamstring and sit bone area. Yay! Honestly after reading so much on different forums, etc I was preparing myself to be out of commission for the long haul, but turns out if you're super diligent about the strength and mobility exercises, hamstrings will forgive you for abusing them earlier. The jump band and other exercises/stretches I detailed on my previous blog post continue to be the ones I go to (daily!) and they are working. I am more motivated to do them now too b/c of how obviously different I feel after I do. I think I actually have some ability to extend through my hips now and it makes me feel like gumby. Lol.
~Becoming A Supple Leopard is now my favorite resource when it comes to all things physical movement. I have been reading it every day- it's a really long 400 page hard cover textbook style book and I feel like I should be earning some sort of college credit for learning all this stuff but honestly I was never as interested in any of my college courses as I am in this book! The level of detail he goes into to make sure he is clear (and there are lots of pictures!) is incredible. And he keeps it interesting enough because his writing style just sounds like he's talking. I laugh out loud sometimes, which never happens when reading an actual textbook... but when he writes stuff like "Having a glass of wine can make mobilizing a little more tolerable, but getting drunk and passing out on a lacrosse ball is never a good idea" it's hard to not laugh!
~The author of that book is a big CrossFit guy and a big chunk of the book goes into high detail about how to perform just about any strength movement you could think of (and some you've never imagined!) with perfect form. He also goes into common errors and how to correct them. All of a sudden this stuff is pretty interesting to me so I hit up my first Intro to CrossFit class a few days ago. I went in with an open mind... I've heard lots of different stuff- good and bad- about CrossFit and wasn't sure what to expect. The intro sessions are pretty basic where they're teaching you about the language they use and philosophy of the sessions as well as how to perform the movements. Mostly we just did a ton of different types of squats. I was a little sore the next day but not bad at all- just enough to let me know I'd worked some but I wasn't crippled or anything. I told the coach that I am a triathlete and I was planning to use CF as a compliment to triathlon training so I didn't want to work so hard I'd be debilitated for days. She totally understood and was respectful of that. So, I'll go back for more intro sessions this week! If I'm honest, after Honu I can see myself really getting into Crossfit. We'll see.
~So that's my plan for Honu. I figure I've got 3 weeks of 'training' (race week won't count for 'training') but it's not like I can just ramp back up to normal run training, and even if I could, three weeks wouldn't get me to the run fitness I want for that race. So. My plan is just to get as functionally strong and mobile as I can and then just cross my fingers on race day. Maybe if I'm strong enough I can gut it out? It's my only hope so I'm going with it.
~In good news my biking isn't as weak as I thought it might be after weeks of simply doing very haphazard random rides as I felt. I needed a break from having a set training plan for a while because I didn't want to feel the pressure of 'having' to ride or run (b/c if it's on the TP calendar I would have done it regardless of what my body was saying- not so bright I know but it's like how I'm wired or something)... I wanted the freedom to just do what my body and mind allowed each day without feeling any pressure. Turns out, I suck at making myself ride my bike if I don't have a coach monitoring it! In good news though, I got my power meter up and functioning again and rode yesterday and was capable of hitting decent power... not quite as good as before Cabo but it wasn't awful so that gave me a little confidence. If I'm honest, I wonder if I'll ever get back to riding as strong as I was riding before Cabo? Mostly b/c I'm not sure I'm willing to ride that kind weekly mileage again. That was really a lot. But maybe I can get close on half the volume?? Lol. Wishful thinking. We'll see though. Saturday would have been good but I ran over something that my tire didn't like and the giant hole in the sidewall wasn't something I could repair on the go. So I sat by the ocean and checked race results on my phone while waiting for my husband to come pick me up. Bummed to miss out on the end of that ride, but chillin' here on a Saturday morning didn't suck.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
How To Fix Your Hamstring... In 8 Easy Steps
Ok so first of all, huge Mahalo to those of you who took the time to reach out to me privately after that last post about my hamstring situation. Really appreciate you taking the time to offer your experiences and suggestions! Ii've tried lots of different avenues trying to resolve this thing and here's how it's going. :)
The other day I was riding and that Alanis Morrisette song came on my iPod... Thought the Eight Easy Steps line was funny so I was originally going to write a post called How To Fry Your Hamstring (Eight Easy Steps) but then realized really it's only like Four Easy Steps to Fry Your Hamstrings:
1. Mash big gears a lot while you pedal mile after mile after mile in your aero bars until your hip flexors get like super short and tight. Don't stretch them because, um, that hurts.
2. Look at your Trigger Point roller a lot but decide it probably would be too painful to actually use so don't use it. Ever.
3. Notice people posting on social media all those dumb little functional strength exercises you should be doing to strengthen your hamstrings and glutes but, um, who has time or energy for those?? Not with all that biking and running you're doing... Don't be bothered with those silly things.
4. Run with super crappy form (see #1 above tight hip flexors and #3 above weak glutes/hamstrings) and when it starts hurting, just ignore that and run as fast as you can anyway.
Turns out, hamstrings hold grudges and fixing them once you have fried them takes a few more steps. For simplicity sake, I'll see if I can narrow all that I've been doing down to just eight. In no particular order (ie I think my fix has been a combination of all of these)...
1. Stretch those hip flexors. I found a version of this that uses a resistance band around your hip- you can't see it too well but that green band is wrapped around the base of my ass and pulls that hip forward even further and OMG. Wow. Stretching on steroids. Part of my problem has been that I feel a pinching feeling at the base of my ass, especially when I get done with a bike ride. Doing this stretch daily, holding for 2' at a time (each leg) has helped ease that pinchy feeling. Photo credit goes to Moana. She's pretty good for a 4 year old, no?
2. Hamstring pull against Jump Band. Found this one on MobilityWOD which has truly been my go-to for curing myself this time around... tons of good videos there and I spent so much time clicking through them all that I finally just bought Kelly Starrett's book (I will be such a Supple Leopard when I'm done with all this shit!) so now I have all his awesome info organized in a coherent way and I don't have to dig through videos online to find what I'm looking for. Fwiw, that book is hands down the best info I've come across when it comes to how to organize yourself for physical movement- totally thorough but also very well written and easy to read/understand. Anyway, I had to buy a jump band for this one (and the one above- also idea from Kelly @MWOD) but that thing is worth its weight in gold if you figure out how to use it. Best therapy tool I own. (Ok, next to some others that I'll get into soon. I have a whole freaking' arsenal of PT tools now. Lol.) Anyway, this one hurts a ton if you have little micro-tears in your hamstring but something about the eccentric nature of the exercise makes it like 100x more effective in fixing that muscle than any other exercise I've tried. So, start in this position:
Then pull straight down.
Then slowly allow your foot back up to starting position. Yikes! That is hard but only if your hamstring is compromised. Doesn't hurt at all on my right side but left side LIGHTS UP. But, after ~15 reps or so it feels 100x better. I've been doing this one 2x/day because it really feels like it's made the biggest difference.
3. More Functional Strength! Single leg glute bridges have probably been the #1 exercise for me in this category. When I first started these I could hold for like 10" before feeling like my hamstrings were going to cramp. But I did them often (several times/day) and eventually got up to 20", then 30", then 40", etc. Now I can do 3x1' each leg. PT suggested I get up to 6x1' each day so I'm still a work in progress here. The key to these is to drive down through your heel while keeping your pelvis level. Try it and you'll see what I mean. And ya, sometimes Ozzie likes to get right under that bridge, which is good b/c it's like extra motivation to not collapse on top of your cat.
For simplicity sake, and also b/c this is supposed to be only 8 Easy Steps, I'm going to group the other Fx Strength exercises I do here under this same point... planks, side planks, firewalkers with band around ankles, Jane Fonda's, clams, reverse clams, hip hikes with ankle weights, eccentric calf dips, single leg romanian dead lifts, good mornings, kettle bell swings, walking lunges (all directions), single leg squats, step ups holding weights each hand. All of these I can do right in my own living room and they're pretty much all targeting posterior chain. You can find lots of examples of good exercises just by googling posterior chain.
4. Use your Trigger Point Roller and ball. I finally stopped ignoring these things! :) If you take 5-10' to roll out your hot spots every day, it really hurts quite a bit less. I focus not only on my hamstrings here but also my quads (especially upper quad) as well as adductors b/c those suckers are T.I.G.H.T. Then I take that ball and sit on a solid chair that is up high enough off the ground and do my own version of ART on my hamstring trigger points- stick the ball under a hot spot on my hamstring then just bend and straighten my knee like I'm doing a leg extension. Yikes. It's not tough to figure out where your trigger points are. They're super obvious when you find one.
5. Find some good professionals to help. I always start with ART and acupuncture for the acute issues... They do a good job of loosening things up at least for the short term. For a more long term fix this time around I also went to see Anica at Longevity Bodywork as well as Marissa and Jaco at Jaco Rehab. Learning from professionals like this about your own personal weak/tight spots and how to fix them has been priceless. This is really how I discovered in the first place that I need to find a good hip flexor stretch and that my hamstring strength was abysmal.
6. Have a run gait analysis done. As horrifying as it can be to watch yourself run in slow motion, you'll learn so much about proper run mechanics. I used to prescribe to the line of thinking that if you just run enough, your body will figure out the most efficient way. Well, given that I have run a ton of miles over the years and my run efficiency has simply gotten worse over time, I'm going to call bullshit on that theory. Check out how far ahead of my center of mass my foot lands when I run... no real mystery why my hamstring eventually gave out! So I am working on fixing this by doing very short bouts of running with more correct form, forward lean, all that stuff. Then I stop, rest, regroup, and start again. I am up to 30x1' trying to land with my feet directly under my body, keeping turnover up, core engaged so I'm not arching my back, etc.
7. This one might be fairly controversial and I thought about leaving it out so people who know better wouldn't judge me, but I'm nothing if not honest and straightforward here so I'll include it since I do believe it is helping. I've been scraping myself with this jade heart tool thing. I've had graston done several times so I have an idea of the type of pressure and speed used and when I get desperate I'm willing to try just about anything, and I have to say, I feel awesome after spending 3-4' scraping myself. I use this Cramers rub down hot oil stuff that gets pretty hot. I def don't do this every day but maybe 2x/week for a few minutes and it's the best my hamstring ever feels after I get done with it.
8. This one might sound odd as well, but I do believe that eliminating sugar and grains from my diet recently has also made a positive difference. I read a book called The Permanent Pain Cure where Ming Chew talks about how sugar and grains can act like glue in your fascia... and if you have pain you need to get that fascia smoothed out. Willing to try anything so I could run again- even giving up pasta and bread- I tried this as an experiment. I found it interesting that within 3-4 days I felt super loose and my body was cracking (all on its own) all the time- everything is cracking! Neck, toes, shoulders, wrists, ankles, hips... It's like snap crackle pop around here these days! So while other people might eliminate sugar and grains for other reasons, this is my reason and the way I feel now it's motivating enough to continue to bail on cereal for breakfast in favor of a banana with almond butter.
So there you go! 8 Easy Steps! Simple eh? Ok, probably easier to just take care of yourself better in the first place so you don't end up in this mess having to take these measures. Lesson learned? I'd like to say yes but unfortunately I can be a moron at times when it comes to dealing with myself so we'll see. My hamstring is certainly not 100% yet but it's improved significantly over where it was 2 weeks ago and I am cautiously optimistic that I will be able to actually run train again at some point.
One month til Honu. Argh.
The other day I was riding and that Alanis Morrisette song came on my iPod... Thought the Eight Easy Steps line was funny so I was originally going to write a post called How To Fry Your Hamstring (Eight Easy Steps) but then realized really it's only like Four Easy Steps to Fry Your Hamstrings:
1. Mash big gears a lot while you pedal mile after mile after mile in your aero bars until your hip flexors get like super short and tight. Don't stretch them because, um, that hurts.
2. Look at your Trigger Point roller a lot but decide it probably would be too painful to actually use so don't use it. Ever.
3. Notice people posting on social media all those dumb little functional strength exercises you should be doing to strengthen your hamstrings and glutes but, um, who has time or energy for those?? Not with all that biking and running you're doing... Don't be bothered with those silly things.
4. Run with super crappy form (see #1 above tight hip flexors and #3 above weak glutes/hamstrings) and when it starts hurting, just ignore that and run as fast as you can anyway.
Turns out, hamstrings hold grudges and fixing them once you have fried them takes a few more steps. For simplicity sake, I'll see if I can narrow all that I've been doing down to just eight. In no particular order (ie I think my fix has been a combination of all of these)...
1. Stretch those hip flexors. I found a version of this that uses a resistance band around your hip- you can't see it too well but that green band is wrapped around the base of my ass and pulls that hip forward even further and OMG. Wow. Stretching on steroids. Part of my problem has been that I feel a pinching feeling at the base of my ass, especially when I get done with a bike ride. Doing this stretch daily, holding for 2' at a time (each leg) has helped ease that pinchy feeling. Photo credit goes to Moana. She's pretty good for a 4 year old, no?
2. Hamstring pull against Jump Band. Found this one on MobilityWOD which has truly been my go-to for curing myself this time around... tons of good videos there and I spent so much time clicking through them all that I finally just bought Kelly Starrett's book (I will be such a Supple Leopard when I'm done with all this shit!) so now I have all his awesome info organized in a coherent way and I don't have to dig through videos online to find what I'm looking for. Fwiw, that book is hands down the best info I've come across when it comes to how to organize yourself for physical movement- totally thorough but also very well written and easy to read/understand. Anyway, I had to buy a jump band for this one (and the one above- also idea from Kelly @MWOD) but that thing is worth its weight in gold if you figure out how to use it. Best therapy tool I own. (Ok, next to some others that I'll get into soon. I have a whole freaking' arsenal of PT tools now. Lol.) Anyway, this one hurts a ton if you have little micro-tears in your hamstring but something about the eccentric nature of the exercise makes it like 100x more effective in fixing that muscle than any other exercise I've tried. So, start in this position:
3. More Functional Strength! Single leg glute bridges have probably been the #1 exercise for me in this category. When I first started these I could hold for like 10" before feeling like my hamstrings were going to cramp. But I did them often (several times/day) and eventually got up to 20", then 30", then 40", etc. Now I can do 3x1' each leg. PT suggested I get up to 6x1' each day so I'm still a work in progress here. The key to these is to drive down through your heel while keeping your pelvis level. Try it and you'll see what I mean. And ya, sometimes Ozzie likes to get right under that bridge, which is good b/c it's like extra motivation to not collapse on top of your cat.
4. Use your Trigger Point Roller and ball. I finally stopped ignoring these things! :) If you take 5-10' to roll out your hot spots every day, it really hurts quite a bit less. I focus not only on my hamstrings here but also my quads (especially upper quad) as well as adductors b/c those suckers are T.I.G.H.T. Then I take that ball and sit on a solid chair that is up high enough off the ground and do my own version of ART on my hamstring trigger points- stick the ball under a hot spot on my hamstring then just bend and straighten my knee like I'm doing a leg extension. Yikes. It's not tough to figure out where your trigger points are. They're super obvious when you find one.
5. Find some good professionals to help. I always start with ART and acupuncture for the acute issues... They do a good job of loosening things up at least for the short term. For a more long term fix this time around I also went to see Anica at Longevity Bodywork as well as Marissa and Jaco at Jaco Rehab. Learning from professionals like this about your own personal weak/tight spots and how to fix them has been priceless. This is really how I discovered in the first place that I need to find a good hip flexor stretch and that my hamstring strength was abysmal.
6. Have a run gait analysis done. As horrifying as it can be to watch yourself run in slow motion, you'll learn so much about proper run mechanics. I used to prescribe to the line of thinking that if you just run enough, your body will figure out the most efficient way. Well, given that I have run a ton of miles over the years and my run efficiency has simply gotten worse over time, I'm going to call bullshit on that theory. Check out how far ahead of my center of mass my foot lands when I run... no real mystery why my hamstring eventually gave out! So I am working on fixing this by doing very short bouts of running with more correct form, forward lean, all that stuff. Then I stop, rest, regroup, and start again. I am up to 30x1' trying to land with my feet directly under my body, keeping turnover up, core engaged so I'm not arching my back, etc.
7. This one might be fairly controversial and I thought about leaving it out so people who know better wouldn't judge me, but I'm nothing if not honest and straightforward here so I'll include it since I do believe it is helping. I've been scraping myself with this jade heart tool thing. I've had graston done several times so I have an idea of the type of pressure and speed used and when I get desperate I'm willing to try just about anything, and I have to say, I feel awesome after spending 3-4' scraping myself. I use this Cramers rub down hot oil stuff that gets pretty hot. I def don't do this every day but maybe 2x/week for a few minutes and it's the best my hamstring ever feels after I get done with it.
8. This one might sound odd as well, but I do believe that eliminating sugar and grains from my diet recently has also made a positive difference. I read a book called The Permanent Pain Cure where Ming Chew talks about how sugar and grains can act like glue in your fascia... and if you have pain you need to get that fascia smoothed out. Willing to try anything so I could run again- even giving up pasta and bread- I tried this as an experiment. I found it interesting that within 3-4 days I felt super loose and my body was cracking (all on its own) all the time- everything is cracking! Neck, toes, shoulders, wrists, ankles, hips... It's like snap crackle pop around here these days! So while other people might eliminate sugar and grains for other reasons, this is my reason and the way I feel now it's motivating enough to continue to bail on cereal for breakfast in favor of a banana with almond butter.
So there you go! 8 Easy Steps! Simple eh? Ok, probably easier to just take care of yourself better in the first place so you don't end up in this mess having to take these measures. Lesson learned? I'd like to say yes but unfortunately I can be a moron at times when it comes to dealing with myself so we'll see. My hamstring is certainly not 100% yet but it's improved significantly over where it was 2 weeks ago and I am cautiously optimistic that I will be able to actually run train again at some point.
One month til Honu. Argh.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Weak.
So I haven't been super motivated to blog lately. I've had lots to say but most of what's taking up my brain space at the moment is related to my hamstring situation... and I don't know... I think I was hoping to wait to write a blog until I had it all figured out... but the way things are going it might be a while before I've got this thing fully resolved so I figured I'd try to sit down and organize an interim report of sorts. The purpose of this is mostly to organize my thoughts in my own head as I am trying to solve this problem but then I figured maybe somebody out there is going through something similar and this could help you avoid ending up in my scenario??
I think I've got my diagnosis dialed in as High Hamstring Tendonitis. If I were to say how/why I got this, since hindsight is 20/20, here's what I would say: Hamstrings were wicked tight after Cabo. I took a week and did next to nothing but then I thought I felt better so I started training again. I was pretty pissed/frustrated that my marathon was so shitty in Cabo, so coach and I got aggressive with the run training too early post-race. My hamstrings were telling me it was too much and I was making note of it in my PWN but I didn't stop the quality run sessions. I don't know if I just figured eventually they would just stop being pissed even though I was irritating them fairly often... whatever. They didn't stop getting pissed. They got more pissed. And one of them is still currently holding a grudge. Apparently hamstrings are like that.
So there was no one session that made this happen. It was a culmination of me being stubborn and pushing through with run sessions against my own better judgement. I *knew* in my gut that more hard running was going to hurt me but I did it anyway because it was on my schedule and heaven forbid I miss a workout once it's on my schedule. That was my mistake for sure. I should have known better. Maybe at some point I will heed this lesson that I have learned like 100 times already. <bangs head on wall>
Beyond this though I am finding out about the underlying factors that made me vulnerable to this in the first place. There are several, though maybe they are related??
I've always thought of myself as a strong athlete... like strength is my thing. But as it turns out, my strength has developed quite lopsided over the years. I've heard the term 'Quad Dominant Athlete' before but didn't totally understand what it meant, nor did I know that it applied to me!? Turns out, it does! And this is not a good thing for running. I'll go out on a limb and guess that maybe spending tons and tons of time mashing big gears on my bike pre-disposed me to developing this way, as well as having some faulty mechanics on the run... but the run mechanics thing is like the chicken and the egg, you know? Let me go back.
Last weekend I went to Jaco Rehab and had a run analysis done. It was super informative as the PT was awesome and she took me through a whole battery of physical 'tests' to see where my strengths and weaknesses are... where I am tight vs where I am not, etc. I'm going to guess I'm not totally unique here, but what she found was weak hamstrings, weak glutes, super tight hip flexors. Strong quads, strong abductors, weak adductors, weak core. Because of this hot mess my lower body as become, my run mechanics suck. I've learned a ton about biomechanics on the run recently and as it turns out, I'm doing pretty much all of it incorrectly. I think I have known this for a while but didn't really know exactly what was wrong or where to start in fixing it!? But it's not just about trying to focus on fixing it, because I am missing the basic ability to extend my hips since they are so tight... and since my hamstrings and glutes are so weak, they can't act to help extend that back leg anyway!
So given this info, no wonder I constantly get hurt when I try to run faster. I don't currently have the functional strength or mobility to support faster running.
So, #1 focus at this point is increasing my ability to extend my hips, and increasing strength in my core, hamstrings, and glutes. Basically, hold planks and single leg bridges like they are my job. I was told to be holding those single leg bridges for a minute at a time, 6x/day. Um ok. I'm up to being able to hold it for 20" now before I feel like my hamstrings are about to seize up in that debilitating cramp I am all to familiar with. Lovely. How the hell did my hamstrings become so completely non-functional?? I swear I remember having strong hamstrings but I guess that was years ago and I have since neglected functional strength exercises in favor of spending my time actually swimming, biking, and running. There are multiple views on this of course- some believing functional strength work is essential to triathlon performance and others believing you get all the functional strength work you need from swim/bike/run. You can guess which camp I used to be in and also which one I am in now. ;)
Next up, how to fix high hamstring tendonitis in a hurry? Honu is in 6 weeks and I have not been able to run at all for 2 weeks. Less than ideal for sure. Again, lots of conflicting advice when it comes to this as well! Ice. Don't ice! Heat. Leave it alone- don't touch it so it can heal on its own! No! Beat the crap out of it with ART, manual massage, graston, foam rollers, etc. Keep running easy- it won't heal unless it's stimulated. Don't run until it's all better. It's really important to stretch. Don't stretch or it will be more irritated... WTF??
So I'm kind of experimenting with all this to figure out what makes me personally feel better vs what does not. Running (even super easy jogging) does not make it feel better. Both heat and ice massage have made it temporarily feel better. Beating the crap out of it hurts a ton while it's being done but afterward does tend to make it feel better. Direct hamstring stretching does not make it feel better. Doing hip mobility drills/exercises and stretching other areas (hip flexors, adductors, quads) does tend to make it feel better. I found this website which has been one of the most informative sites I've ever come across and I am still exploring all these videos- but some of those mobility drills have been great. That said, I can get to the point where it feels pretty much 100% and I think maybe I'm good to go but then I take one running step and pain comes right back. GAH. When that happened on Friday, after all this energy I've been putting into making this thing better, I just felt like completely throwing in the towel on this whole triathlon thing.
This morning I painted a smile on my face and went to cheer on some of my athletes and friends who were racing. It was a shitty morning for a triathlon, as you can plainly see. Racing this morning would have totally sucked. I didn't want to be out there at all. <ahem>
So, the moral of the story?
~Figure out where you're weak and fix it. You might need professional assistance here to figure it out.
~Listen to your body when it's talking to you.
~Don't get greedy with your training, especially when it comes to quality run sessions.
My gut says I'm not going to have this thing resolved in time for Honu, but I'm going to go do those damn single leg bridges again right now anyway. Maybe I'll manage 25" this time.
I think I've got my diagnosis dialed in as High Hamstring Tendonitis. If I were to say how/why I got this, since hindsight is 20/20, here's what I would say: Hamstrings were wicked tight after Cabo. I took a week and did next to nothing but then I thought I felt better so I started training again. I was pretty pissed/frustrated that my marathon was so shitty in Cabo, so coach and I got aggressive with the run training too early post-race. My hamstrings were telling me it was too much and I was making note of it in my PWN but I didn't stop the quality run sessions. I don't know if I just figured eventually they would just stop being pissed even though I was irritating them fairly often... whatever. They didn't stop getting pissed. They got more pissed. And one of them is still currently holding a grudge. Apparently hamstrings are like that.
So there was no one session that made this happen. It was a culmination of me being stubborn and pushing through with run sessions against my own better judgement. I *knew* in my gut that more hard running was going to hurt me but I did it anyway because it was on my schedule and heaven forbid I miss a workout once it's on my schedule. That was my mistake for sure. I should have known better. Maybe at some point I will heed this lesson that I have learned like 100 times already. <bangs head on wall>
Beyond this though I am finding out about the underlying factors that made me vulnerable to this in the first place. There are several, though maybe they are related??
I've always thought of myself as a strong athlete... like strength is my thing. But as it turns out, my strength has developed quite lopsided over the years. I've heard the term 'Quad Dominant Athlete' before but didn't totally understand what it meant, nor did I know that it applied to me!? Turns out, it does! And this is not a good thing for running. I'll go out on a limb and guess that maybe spending tons and tons of time mashing big gears on my bike pre-disposed me to developing this way, as well as having some faulty mechanics on the run... but the run mechanics thing is like the chicken and the egg, you know? Let me go back.
Last weekend I went to Jaco Rehab and had a run analysis done. It was super informative as the PT was awesome and she took me through a whole battery of physical 'tests' to see where my strengths and weaknesses are... where I am tight vs where I am not, etc. I'm going to guess I'm not totally unique here, but what she found was weak hamstrings, weak glutes, super tight hip flexors. Strong quads, strong abductors, weak adductors, weak core. Because of this hot mess my lower body as become, my run mechanics suck. I've learned a ton about biomechanics on the run recently and as it turns out, I'm doing pretty much all of it incorrectly. I think I have known this for a while but didn't really know exactly what was wrong or where to start in fixing it!? But it's not just about trying to focus on fixing it, because I am missing the basic ability to extend my hips since they are so tight... and since my hamstrings and glutes are so weak, they can't act to help extend that back leg anyway!
So given this info, no wonder I constantly get hurt when I try to run faster. I don't currently have the functional strength or mobility to support faster running.
So, #1 focus at this point is increasing my ability to extend my hips, and increasing strength in my core, hamstrings, and glutes. Basically, hold planks and single leg bridges like they are my job. I was told to be holding those single leg bridges for a minute at a time, 6x/day. Um ok. I'm up to being able to hold it for 20" now before I feel like my hamstrings are about to seize up in that debilitating cramp I am all to familiar with. Lovely. How the hell did my hamstrings become so completely non-functional?? I swear I remember having strong hamstrings but I guess that was years ago and I have since neglected functional strength exercises in favor of spending my time actually swimming, biking, and running. There are multiple views on this of course- some believing functional strength work is essential to triathlon performance and others believing you get all the functional strength work you need from swim/bike/run. You can guess which camp I used to be in and also which one I am in now. ;)
Next up, how to fix high hamstring tendonitis in a hurry? Honu is in 6 weeks and I have not been able to run at all for 2 weeks. Less than ideal for sure. Again, lots of conflicting advice when it comes to this as well! Ice. Don't ice! Heat. Leave it alone- don't touch it so it can heal on its own! No! Beat the crap out of it with ART, manual massage, graston, foam rollers, etc. Keep running easy- it won't heal unless it's stimulated. Don't run until it's all better. It's really important to stretch. Don't stretch or it will be more irritated... WTF??
So I'm kind of experimenting with all this to figure out what makes me personally feel better vs what does not. Running (even super easy jogging) does not make it feel better. Both heat and ice massage have made it temporarily feel better. Beating the crap out of it hurts a ton while it's being done but afterward does tend to make it feel better. Direct hamstring stretching does not make it feel better. Doing hip mobility drills/exercises and stretching other areas (hip flexors, adductors, quads) does tend to make it feel better. I found this website which has been one of the most informative sites I've ever come across and I am still exploring all these videos- but some of those mobility drills have been great. That said, I can get to the point where it feels pretty much 100% and I think maybe I'm good to go but then I take one running step and pain comes right back. GAH. When that happened on Friday, after all this energy I've been putting into making this thing better, I just felt like completely throwing in the towel on this whole triathlon thing.
This morning I painted a smile on my face and went to cheer on some of my athletes and friends who were racing. It was a shitty morning for a triathlon, as you can plainly see. Racing this morning would have totally sucked. I didn't want to be out there at all. <ahem>
~Figure out where you're weak and fix it. You might need professional assistance here to figure it out.
~Listen to your body when it's talking to you.
~Don't get greedy with your training, especially when it comes to quality run sessions.
My gut says I'm not going to have this thing resolved in time for Honu, but I'm going to go do those damn single leg bridges again right now anyway. Maybe I'll manage 25" this time.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Swimming: The Only Subject I Can Talk About...
OK so still working out this hamstring/adductor issue. Leaving no stone unturned in my quest to fix it and feel like maybe I've earned a freakin' PHD in hip and posterior leg anatomy with all the learning I've done... Still no running or biking though so don't have a ton of results to report there. Will let you know once I have some concrete info on what actually fixed it.
In the meantime, I've been swimming a ton so that's all I really have as a subject to blog about. :( NOT that I hate swimming, but, you know, I'd prefer to have some good stories about running at this point.
Anyway.
~25K swimming in the last 6 days and swim fitness feels like it's running deeper than ever. I remember one time years ago (seriously, like 15 years ago!) when I was swimming really well and I remember thinking I hope I'm never swimming this fast again... with the point being that the only reason I was swimming so well was because I had no residual fatigue from bike or run. Alas, here I am again with no bike no run so not surprisingly, swim goes fairly well.
For the first time maybe ever, I swore out loud when I saw instructions for one of my swim sessions this week. 80x50's?!? WTF?? UGH. I swear had it said 40x100's I wouldn't have blinked an eye but 80x50's just sounded like hell to me. So.Boring. And not even really THAT challenging. Just boring! I fixed it though... since 80x50's sounds way more BSC than it actually is, I figured I'd make it actually BSC by doing it all with bands. 80x50's, 1 hard/1 easy, bands only qualifies as BSC in a way that plain old 80x50's does not. (SEE? I go freakin' insane when I can't run. It's bad. have to find other ways to torture myself! Ha!)
Since it was now a meaty enough set to take a real bite, I enjoyed that set in a way I would not have enjoyed it otherwise. And I felt a sense of fatigue getting out of the pool that I have not felt in some time, so that was satisfying. Save for the gross old guy swimming next to me in his underwear, TRUE STORY I shit you not, I'd call it a really good session.
Followed that up with a truly hard 5K session this morning. Interesting I hopped in the water and ripped off my fastest 1000 w/u ever (yes I time my 1000 warm-ups but don't race them per say- I just like to have an idea of my current easy-ish pace). I found it truly interesting that 4K bands only set yesterday forced me to really find my power in my catch/pull and it totally translated over to today. Super cool. So then we did 4K main set and I will say that when your swim fitness is deep, you can push SO MUCH HARDER than when your swim fitness is low. Every time we got to a part that was supposed to be 'fast' today, I was capable of pushing until I felt nauseous. And then HOLDING that pace. I'm not always capable of that. Sometimes (ok usually!) I fail muscularly before I can really dig like I could today. So that was cool.
Of interesting note- why are men incapable of hearing and understanding how to execute a long swim set?? And why are they incapable of understanding how to pace one when it's going to be both long and hard? Why do they feel the need to bolt on the first part that's supposed to be the easiest of the day?? Do they think that all of a sudden TODAY they are superman and will magically be able to hold their fastest 100 pace for 4000 meters? And when they get out half way through because they're too tired to continue do they think that next time they'll be able to keep up with the girls who managed to rip through the whole thing?? Hint: Maybe it's better to swallow your ego a bit and swim at a pace that enables you to actually finish the session.
So ya, Nalani and I swim together and usually there are 2 guys who join in... Interesting today they were both CRUSHING us for the first 5x100's (you know, the ones that were supposed to be just 'steady')... then we got to the fast parts and um, Hey what happened you guys?? Missed school the day they defined 'pace'? Lol. Sorry. I just had to vent b/c it's frustrating to feel like someone is racing you on the 'easy' parts then has nothing left to even attempt to change pace when it's supposed to be fast. <Rant over>
Hopefully one of these days I'll have a more interesting post about biking or running.... :)
Sunday, April 7, 2013
On Taking Risks... and Being Broken
Lots of thoughts in my head right now... let's see if I can communicate them in any coherent way?
I've written before about searching for the edge... the cliff... where you're pushing in training because you're trying to improve and get faster... and at some point if you want to race to win you must do this. So we push until we sense that we're right near the edge of the cliff and then (if we're smart ad patient) we back off and rest/recover and then repeat... and then next time the edge is a little further out than it was before. All good stuff!
Sometimes though this means we end up flat on our backs under a tree mid run, or walking off the track in tears... Which means maybe we took a step (or three) too far and actually started falling off that cliff. It's easy to do, you know, when you're hungry and pushing and you just get greedy and go after a few more watts on the bike or a few seconds faster on that 800... This is what I have gone through this past week and now I'm paying the price.
Of course I sent an SOS email to coach that started off something like "So, um, how trashed should I be??" In all honesty the training I was trying to do was not outrageous but I guess 3 weeks post IM it was just too much as my body just wasn't ready to go as hard as I was trying to make it go. So when the plan calls for 1/2 IM effort on the bike and I rip 1/2IM watts out of my legs even though they don't want to do that today, well, I'm just digging a deeper hole for myself every day! Lesson: 1/2IM effort and 1/2IM watts are not always the same thing. Got.it.
My other issue is that apparently my body just does.not.like.running.fast. It is so freaking frustrating, you know?? I've got this great big base so now trying to get faster, which means I need to run faster... so I'm trying to run faster and my body is just rebelling in every way. Before Cabo is was my hip and my foot. My expectation was that I was going to be completely crippled post Cabo but to my pleasant surprise I was not... hip and foot are good... so ok... game on let's start working that run again and them BAM. Hamstring is pissed. If it's not one thing its another with me and this damn running. Clearly I am doing something mechanically incorrect when I try to pick up the pace on these runs so I am still trying to figure out what this is. Interesting to me that if I'm running easy/slow I can run 50+mpw no problems at all but if I'm trying to run faster, 30mpw and I'm injured.
So the plan going forward? I don't know. Coach yanked my power meter for the next 2 weeks on the bike b/c it makes me work too hard as I'm chasing the numbers I want to see. I need to listen to my body vs the gadget and only give what body wants to give that day... ok. And back off the speed work again on the run b/c clearly my body hates that stuff... but how frustrating is that? I want to make my run more competitive by running faster than 9' pace all the time but pushing and taking that risk is backfiring at the moment so I guess we just be more patient. BLAH. I hate being broken.
I've written before about searching for the edge... the cliff... where you're pushing in training because you're trying to improve and get faster... and at some point if you want to race to win you must do this. So we push until we sense that we're right near the edge of the cliff and then (if we're smart ad patient) we back off and rest/recover and then repeat... and then next time the edge is a little further out than it was before. All good stuff!
Sometimes though this means we end up flat on our backs under a tree mid run, or walking off the track in tears... Which means maybe we took a step (or three) too far and actually started falling off that cliff. It's easy to do, you know, when you're hungry and pushing and you just get greedy and go after a few more watts on the bike or a few seconds faster on that 800... This is what I have gone through this past week and now I'm paying the price.
Of course I sent an SOS email to coach that started off something like "So, um, how trashed should I be??" In all honesty the training I was trying to do was not outrageous but I guess 3 weeks post IM it was just too much as my body just wasn't ready to go as hard as I was trying to make it go. So when the plan calls for 1/2 IM effort on the bike and I rip 1/2IM watts out of my legs even though they don't want to do that today, well, I'm just digging a deeper hole for myself every day! Lesson: 1/2IM effort and 1/2IM watts are not always the same thing. Got.it.
My other issue is that apparently my body just does.not.like.running.fast. It is so freaking frustrating, you know?? I've got this great big base so now trying to get faster, which means I need to run faster... so I'm trying to run faster and my body is just rebelling in every way. Before Cabo is was my hip and my foot. My expectation was that I was going to be completely crippled post Cabo but to my pleasant surprise I was not... hip and foot are good... so ok... game on let's start working that run again and them BAM. Hamstring is pissed. If it's not one thing its another with me and this damn running. Clearly I am doing something mechanically incorrect when I try to pick up the pace on these runs so I am still trying to figure out what this is. Interesting to me that if I'm running easy/slow I can run 50+mpw no problems at all but if I'm trying to run faster, 30mpw and I'm injured.
So the plan going forward? I don't know. Coach yanked my power meter for the next 2 weeks on the bike b/c it makes me work too hard as I'm chasing the numbers I want to see. I need to listen to my body vs the gadget and only give what body wants to give that day... ok. And back off the speed work again on the run b/c clearly my body hates that stuff... but how frustrating is that? I want to make my run more competitive by running faster than 9' pace all the time but pushing and taking that risk is backfiring at the moment so I guess we just be more patient. BLAH. I hate being broken.
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