Heartache and the back squat

Watching a friend who’d experienced recent heartache struggle through a workout that should have been tough but doable made me stop to think about the extent to which our emotional selves impact our abilities to perform.  How often have you gone into the gym for a workout on a day when you were feeling down, only to struggle through every lift, through every set?  It’s a given that emotional struggle will distract you from that place of “focus,” sometimes to the point that you seemingly daydream through the workout.  On days when I have “so much on my mind” I find I have to drag myself back to the next set.  So watching my friend try to squat 225lb and essentially fail when it was nowhere near his max, I knew he was struggling with more than the weight on his back.

The use of music in the gym, whether your own or whatever's piped in, is geared at improving your mood during the workout/training process.  It clearly suggests the recognition and understanding that improving one's mood would be conducive to improving the gym experience. I wonder though, on days like that, is it best to just call it and move on, or is it better to “soldier on” and make the best of it? I have never quite learned how to channel my emotional state into competition or training.  Not like my brother, who took his level of training up to such an elite level because of issues he was dealing with that year.  When my emotions are getting the better of me I just want to hide – hit the couch and put a blanket over my head.  Struggling through the workout would just leave me feeling weak and hence worse than I did going into the gym, so to me it seems counter-productive. I'm good at hiding, so why not focus on  that instead?  But we all know better - the endorphins from the workout are the best thing for elevating your mood on those days. A good workout always leaves you feeling good, even if it's wrung the life out of you, and remember, even if you don't feel great at the end of it, your heart and your elderly self will thank you.

Sugs

Attempts at pain recovery/reduction

On Tuesday I went to see Leanne my physiotherapist about my hip.  The upping of my level of training has brought the pain back like a beast, and I needed to figure out ways of working around it over the next while.  She did some traction work and suggested that we try dry needling.  Now like the next person, I have somewhat of a fear of needles, but not enough so to prevent me from getting things done that I know (or think) will benefit me – heck, I let my roommate do acupuncture on me a few times a week when I was training for the Disney marathon in 2009!  But last year when he had awful shin splints, Jason had Leanne dry-needle him, and his reports of how much it had hurt have me all wound up.  I grudgingly agreed to the treatment, but I must admit that my guts were in a knot in apprehension.  It was my understanding that whilst similar to acupuncture, this procedure involved a more invasive approach and use of bigger needles. Yay!

She started with my right glutes, and yes, it hurt a bit – you could feel the needle as it entered a trigger point, and then there was this sharp “quiver,” which I’ve since learned is a local twitch response (LTR), which is an involuntary spinal cord reflex in which the muscle fibers in the taut band of muscle contract. The LTR indicates the proper placement of the needle in a trigger point. The theory is that dry needling that elicits LTRs improves treatment outcomes.  Both Jason and Leanne are believers, so I figured I'd give it a try. I wimped out of the complete process though.  When she was done with the backside and had me flip over, I baulked at the thought of having my hip flexor and groin done.  In my mind that was going beyond my pain tolerance and so I decided to pass.  The pain had eased somewhat and the area around my hip did seem looser hours later, but that could have been a placebo effect. 

Wednesday morning I woke up and instead of my usual pain and stiffness, the right glutes were pain-free and it seemed all the pain had transferred forward into the hip flexor area.  Coincidence?  I’m going to suggest not.  I really think the needling helped.  In the afternoon I went for a deep tissue massage, and I swear Monica awakened the pain beast just as he’d fallen asleep from the needling the night before!  So I woke up this morning in god-awful pain.  I actually skipped my sled workout and stayed in bed with a heating pad, hoping to loosen things up a bit.  I dunno, it’s almost noon and things haven’t improved much – I’m seriously leaning in the direction of copious amounts of drugs to get me through tonight’s paddle.  Gonna go for a walk and see if that helps loosen things up any. I really do need to find a way of working yoga into my process. The stretching and strengthening that comes with it could only help.

Fitness accountability

It's official - I'm just one solid, giant walking ball of ache. Being me, I put off training consistently, even after making the decision to try out for Hungary next year, and suddenly the testing months are upon us and I  have to be scrambling to try to  make  some semblance of form if I am to be in the running at all. Truth is it's highly doubtful I can pull it off. It's incredible, but it's been 6 years since I was last in the kind of shape I am aiming for, and to try to get back there in less than 3 months is nothing short of ridiculous. Why I do these things to myself, nobody knows. Things have to be at the absolute extreme before I react.
Jason's written me a program aimed at ramping up the training and getting me back in shape as quickly as possible. Monday I had to do the baseline testing, (ran for the the first time since 2009!!!!) and talk about being handed a giant cup of humility!!! According to the numbers I got from Helen from December 2010 testing, things should look like this:

	1200 m run		500 m row	chin ups	Bench Press (seconds)	Bench Row (seconds)
Mean (average)	5:59		01:52.0	8.4	37.6	35.2
Median (middle data)	5:47.5		01:53.8	7	36.5	34
Top Result	4:44		1:39.7	26	68	65

Nothing I did came close. My 1200m run is over 7 minutes, I did 20 reps at the bench press and 17 for the row, and I couldn't do one single pull-up! Me, the person who taught almost all my friends to do pull-ups, and could always depend on my strength and fitness to make up for any deficits in the paddling. I'm plain and simply too heavy. I need to drop a good 25-30lbs. Chug, chug, chug. So I'm in the gym twice a day on non-paddling days and once on paddling days with the exception of Sundays when I just paddle. The hip and knees HATE me. Me TIRED. One GIANT bag of ache I tell you. However, come hell or high water I will be in the most amazing shape by year-end. So even if I don't make the cut for the fall camp, it won't matter much because I will be in killer shape!
Add to all my new training the fact that Albert has ramped up our on-water practices, and seems to be paying real attention to me in the boat now that I've told him I'm gunning for the team. I've been sticking to clean eating paleo-style, and other than losing my mind when I was in Toronto last weekend and giving in to the Kernels craving, I've been good. No slacking for this girl. In fact, it's 12:35 and I have to be up early for deadlifts...

Just do it!!

As we went through the warm-up ritual we follow before every sled workout, Jason, Alex and I couldn't help but notice a young man arriving at the track. We noticed him because he was wearing a single sporting prosthesis just below his right knee. Prior to that moment I had only seen Oscar Pistorius and others wearing their prostheses in news articles and photos. The articles are usually part of the discourse around the "unfair advantage" these athletes would have were they to compete against the able-bodied. Ridiculous. How quickly would these people change places with said able-bodied runners!

I couldn't stop watching him - he ran with a stride I could only envy, and boy is FAST! Wearing a "Canada" shirt, I could only assume he was one of our paralympians. He inspired me - made me push the sled all the harder. I left the field with a smile on my face, feeling uplifted by what I had seen. I needed to know, who was this guy? What's his story? Had I guessed right about his Olympian talents? A few hours later I had my answers - Jackie Marciano is a 22 year old sprinter who had lost his leg at age 9. He was/is a natural, having been discovered by a running coach while he was out jogging. According to one article I found, Jackie's deadlift max is 450lbs!!! This is a feat for an able-bodied man, few of them able to come close.
I was/am still smiling. He has a FB page, so I just sent him a note wishing him the best in his running career and telling him how much he has inspired me. :-)

More Jackie...http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2011/11/02/ns-nova-scotia-parapan-american-games.html?cmp=rss