Injury Recovery

I've gotten really bad at blogging. I apologize. These days there just doesn't seem to be enough time to get on here and share all the thoughts that typically go through my head. But I do have a few minutes available today, so here's an update.

Almost two weeks ago, during a lifting session my right quad cramped up on me during one of my squat sets. This had never happened to me before. The pain was so bad that I was forced to drop the weight. Lucky for me my OL coach is also a physical therapist, so when I saw him the following day he confirmed that it was an IT band injury. He instructed me to stay off the leg for two weeks.

So what have I been doing for the last two weeks? Umm, just about nothing. Well actually, I have been having deep tissue work done on the leg, some very light mobility work and as of this weekend I have now started to put weight back on the leg via (high) single legged squats.

The leg is feeling much better, but I fear it will still be a bit before I can jump back into my routine. And not being able to train is a killer for me.

Those of us that love our training, usually have a hard time holding back. We become impatient, jump headlong back into training before we are ready and many times end up aggravating the injury again or worse re-injuring one's self. So what is my current solution? I decided to start playing around with the parallette bars that I build last year. I figure parallette work is upper body and core based. It should give me something to focus on while giving my leg the time it needs. And it's a new skill I can develop. And it looks like fun.

This afternoon I'll be having my leg worked on. If all continues to go well, I should be able to start to increase the intensity on the leg a bit more. We'll see in about four hours.

So the moral of the story is, we all get injured no matter how hard we try not to and when it occurs we should find other, creative avenues to pursue that will continue to let us grow and develop without jeopardizing our recovery. Train hard and train safe!