Monday, December 1, 2008

I Hate These Workouts

The ones when you're sick and would rather sleep in, but you know you'll feel better if you just muster up the strength and will to push through it.

Yeap, I've come down with the usual, cold and cough.  My two-year-old and I overlapped our colds this time.  He started to improve yesterday while I seemed to worsen.  I am taking the day off from work though.  I'm continuing to use the Neti pot as I had been trying to keep this thing at bay but will also be sampling some Claritin-D today as well.  Hopefully I can keep this thing under control.

Anyway, I still had the fortitude to get up and train a bit.  Here's what it looked like...

Swing:  12kg - 10/10;  16kg - 10/10

Snatch:  12kg - 6 minutes - 18/16/16/18/16/16 - 100 reps total

One-Arm Jerk:  16kg - 4 minutes - 12/6/12/6 - 36 reps total

Annex workout included Seated Russian Twist 12kg, Windmill 12kg, Standing Big Circles 6lb ball, and Standing Russian Twist 6lb ball.

I have been wondering a lot lately about how it feels to Snatch at a 20 rpm pace.  Up until now I have never ventured past 16rpm.  So I started to introduce within the 6 minute set, the first initial minute for each hand at 18 rpm.  It is fast!  At 16 rpm, you still have a moment at top to catch your breath.  At 18rpm, that starts to become non-existent.  I can only imagine what 20 rpm feels like.  At this point in my training 20 rpm for 10 minutes seems like an impossibility. But then again, that's why we train, right?  =)

I then added on the heavier One Arm Jerks.  I wasn't sure going into these how long I wanted to last.  I thought maybe 6 minutes, but after the first rather rapid set, decided to ease back and not push it too hard.    Particularly since my back wasn't too happy that I started to include these again in a prior session.  Which leads me to something interesting about my back...

I have started reading a book title Muscular Retraining for a Pain Free Life.  This book was recommended by Scott Helsley on his blog.  (I'll let you check out the synopsis on Amazon.)  As I was reading it last night, I decided to skim through some of the later chapters to see what was in store for me.  In the chapter on posture and alignment, the author described by current condition to a tee.  Laterally tiled pelvis with accompanying scoliosis.  Only he goes on to say that this sort of condition is typically caused by muscular dysfunction and that this type of scoliosis is in fact reversible as it is the result of the muscle imbalance and not the cause.  If this is true in my condition, I have much more work to do.  My chiropractor has told me the opposite.  I'm not sure which is correct, but I am tending to lean toward the book's view.  Although the initial visits to the chiro produced some immediate improvement, I am again stuck in a place where I have something of a constant ache in my lower right back.  I am gaining some increased mobility when twisting to the right, but this condition has been going on now for over 4 months and I have not ever been totally pain free in the whole time.  

Luckily the second half of this book includes muscular retraining exercises that are supposed to help.  I am going to try to start experimenting with them today.   The author, an occupational therapist out on the west coast, now also provides online consultations.  I am going to attempt to start working the exercises in the book first, but might also have to explore that option especially if I start to see some improvement on my own.  There might be hope for me yet!!  

Enough babbling from me.  That's it and that's all for today!

1 comment:

hunashaman said...

Howie, trust me buddy, I HATE them too. Interesting stuff about the muscular roots of apparently structural problems. I checked the reviews for the book out on Amazon. It looks good and I might just have to get it.