Training Log Archive: Wyatt

9:30am: I think this is a PR for a water-buoy swimming mile...

"Long" PT.
Hamstring stand-reach, crossover, eccentric (on back); IT, 2x Right; Psoas (hip flexor); Quads; Calves; (Tri's, shoulders for swimming).
Strength: Normal Hip/Ankle work, various upper body, bridges (6x w/ball - and watched to keep body straighter (as wasn't doing before); plank, both feet on floor, 60 sec., including straighter bit for last 20 seconds (hips were too high early)
Iced after (brough blue ice to gym...) reduced pain to zero, but back very mildly 'stiff' while standing a few minutes later.

(AM) Pain: Not quite normal for first 1-2 hours after awake, then burn on/off returned. More general not-quite-normal ache when standing than last week...

2 more short PT sets

One long and 2x quick of new exercise/stretches. I like this for the hip-flexor stretch - wasn't doing that - so maybe that will be the one missing link? I realize I may need to wait 3 mo. + though, so can't get too excited - but it's nice to try something new.

Pain: Barely noticable for first 1-2 hours of day, then back to burning. Right Ish. Tub had a few sharp pains today, and was often sore/stiff even while walking (but not burning.) I think I've figured out how to prevent the burn while sitting. Just pull the left knee up high once or twice seems to stretch things out - or maybe undo some of the 'over-anterior-rotation' of the pelvis that is apparently a common contributing factor...
3-4 sets of ice today too to quell it a bit...

Clem apparently whacked his elbow really hard today. He was looking pretty darn strong despite the need to go get an X-ray to figure out just how bad the damage is. Hopefully just a really, really bad bruise, and no breakage. Or a fracture requiring a minor splint or something. Although that may be too hopeful... Hope you're doing well if you're reading this...

C • Better, I think... 2

Event: US Short and Long Championships
 

1 long set of stretch/exercises, and 1 quick-set. So ice late.

Pain: It burns after stretching a bit - like during previous PT.

After swimming I did basic 4 + hip flexor + double on the right IT. Then did biceps, triceps, shoulders, calf & hip/ankle work. Then one more of basic 4.

Pain: Left Ish. Tub. was basically fine for ~30 minutes after the swim. Started getting back to a light burn (whether sitting or standing) ~1 hour later. No ibuprofen since 5pm yesterday, so even with that out of the system, there is little effect on the injury. d-pain/d-ibuprofen ~= 0.

1 long set of stretches in the morning, plus a few more basic-4 (incl. hamstring) stretches later in the day.

Did a few sets of heat/stretch/ice, a few more just ice, and a few just heat. Strange that just-heat helps, as well as just-ice. If both help remove the pain, I suspect just-heat is better theraputically, since instead of simply numbing the pain, it's actually increasing blood flow, or something like that.

Odd thought: I wonder if I should sleep with my hamstring stretched* out a bit - that helps with plantar fascitis - why not this? (*Not sure how i'd accomplish that though.)

Pain: Overall I remain very disappointed in how my 8-week copy experiment has good - even with heavy ibuprofen, it's still annoyingly sore. I even skipped swimming, no help there.

I'm currently leaning toward calling Bob on Monday, and if a few weeks of that doesn't seem to help, I may get back on the traditional physical therapy, and just try to ramp that up more conservatively. It appeared I was making progress - I was just pretty fragile, and overdoing it was easy. So perhaps a slower ramp up that - e.g. with a 2-3-month target rather than a 4-6 week target would work?

Found two related good articles on what I think I've got:
http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/b...
or
http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/b...

I like how they say "It can follow a tear of the hamstring tendon which is poorly treated or more often is an overuse injury." and "A gradual onset of pain following a sprinting session" Both of these seem to indentify the cause of what happened here pretty well.

And I think I've got the latter, and possibly the former too. The latter is likely because of the symptom "Pain which may be aggravated by sitting. " which is not present in the former.

http://chicagosportsmedicine.com/buttock_pain_and_... seems good too.

And here we have an Olympic level runner who had to do 3 months of therapy just to begin running again, and could compete only after 6...: http://www.physsportsmed.com/issues/2005/0505/fred...

No swimming today, just some stretching (high-school cross-country), and keeping up on the ibuprofin.

Pain: Pretty mild today - burn is there, but not bad.

11PM: I've been diligently taking 600mg IB 4x today, and icing almost every time there's some burning. And unfortunately there's still plenty of burning going on. It even burned annoyingly while I was laying down putting the kids to sleep and that's pretty rare. Bummer.

I wonder if the IB dose just means I'm walking around more aggresively (up stairs too fast?? walking too fast during tag w/the kids??) and that's upsetting the leg?

I'll starting swimming 3x/week again this Friday, and try to keep up with the Ibuprofen, ice & stretching a bit while traveling (to NY) this weekend, but if it's still burning Monday, then I've got a few choices:
a) start slowly ramping up activity (e.g. elliptical) (continuing the Ibuprofen, ice, stretching), only stopping if the burning gets much worse;
b) go see Bob Burg about his favorite combination of therapies (non-traditional);
c) go back to the doc and,
c1) insist on an MRI
and/or
c2) insist on a cortisone shot
d) go back to PT and try again.

What's your vote?

I'm leaning toward a, and if that doesn't work, b. If I do (a), the really hard part will be judging how much is too much...

C • Hey Wyatt, I would say opti... 5

4PM: Following the pattern of 8 weeks ago: http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_68/per... I'm supposed to be pain free tomorrow. That's doubtful, as I think the O'walking I did on Sunday was a little too hard for the current state of my leg (apparently it's weaker than 8 weeks ago).

In general, I think I have a tendonitis type issue, and the way I fix that is to get the inflamation down as low as it can go - hopefully to zero, or if not, then to the point where it's not getting notably worse in the burn department during the 24+ hours after exercise (like it did Sunday eve. & Monday). Only after that point can I start to restrengthen it, and I'm not there yet.

Since I'm seriously considering asking for a Cortisone shot again (didn't have one but I asked before and the doc. said not-worth-it), I decided to start a heavy dose of Advil/iburpofen - presumably it is less risky to take 2400mg of ibuprofen a day than to get cortisone shots, so I'll try that for a bit. I noticed that I was on that level for quite some time as I worked on the healing of my last bout of chronic tendonitis (in my foot ~2 years back).

PAIN: Light-moderate burn seems to recur every few hours, especially while sitting.

C • Advil/Ibuprophen 3

Noon: My high school cross-country list of 38 stretches. Why? Well, sometimes you've gotta stretch a nearby muscle to fix the bad one. E.g. kwalker's hip flexors helped his back. So I think I'll try doing these (once) daily during the quell-the-inflamation phase I'm working on this week+.

Icing several times a day too (basically whenever I feel any burn) along with the 2400mg IB to help quell things.