18 December 2017

How to be injured. Well




If there were one negative to an active lifestyle it would be that you push your physical self through barriers and in doing so you may negate safety momentarily. Sometimes a fraction of a second lapse in concentration is all it takes to pick up an injury that can plague you a lifetime!

Lets say you’re here now, and you know what went wrong and sure as dammnit ‘aint going to repeat the same mistake in the future…that is if you ever get up without your injury complaining ….and if you ever get back on to that blooming football field/running track/bicycle.

The first battle is the mind. As always.

Here is what you need to do: Get up, and get on with what you can do.

Here is how to do that: Get some professional advice. Physio’s and Osteo’s are my preferred clinicians; Chiropractors are yet to convince me.

Here is what not to do: Feel sorry for yourself and lounge around moaning.

Here is also what not to do: Ignore your pain and train like you did before on your injury.

What will happen if you follow this advice is one some days you will feel like your injury is improving and you have made headway in the gym/field/road. But on other days you will feel demoralised and like your injury will never go away and you may end up fat and riddled with pain and ‘what ifs’. BUT panning out your overall progress month by month will be that in a positive healing direction and in time you will have less of the bad days and more of the good days until the bad days become a distant memory.

By the way if you don’t follow this advice you probably will suffer more pain, get fat and continue to get injured through musculoskeletal compensations, get more unfit, get fatter more injured, more unfit, fatter, even more injured, until finally one day you will not even notice because as you waddle down the street having finally given up you see they are having a sale in the mobility scooter shop and this will be the highlight of your day…after your Mcflurry breakfast… *disclaimer: gains and successes vary from person to person

23 June 2012

Barefoot running shoes in the gym




barefoot-shoe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So did I mention I am currently training on a 3 month joint mobility/yoga/bodyweight circuits program?

No, well it came about after I came out of hospital a couple of months ago (5 days stomach decompression after my small bowel decided to stick itself together). I was feeling pretty crappy; weak, beaten and humbled by life forces. I wanted to start training again but having not eaten for a week and been on such a vast amount of pain killers it was impossible for a few more weeks. During that time I contemplated where I wanted to go physically. Something I dont usually do-for me it has always been about training as hard as possible to get as fit and strong as possible to lift more, run faster, box for longer. My mantra to push myself when I was flagging on hill sprints or whatever was “Are you dead yet? no? then go faster”

I decided I wanted a body that didnt ache and grumble from all the sports injuries I carry, that I wanted a good base fitness and strength but that I really wanted to be limber and agile and quick and light over anything else. So I designed an experimental program to test on myself. Each month the exercises change but throughout the experiment the protocol stays the same.

I am training on a 4 day cycle: A rest day, a medium day and 2 hard days. Everyday I do joint mobilisations and yoga-these are the tedious sections for my mind and it takes a lot for me to focus on this type of training. I force myself to do it, today is day 33 and I am pleased to say I have made huge gains in this department, my yoga poses particularly. I can feel the benefits already walking around with a much fuller range of movement, I feel more limber and natural.

The two hard days are tough but very short. Last week I ramped up the exercises and introduced some different ones so my session is longer and harder. This really works for my psyche as I enjoy the nature of these very tough physical challenges. I can feel myself getting much stronger-it is a different strength from the gains made through weight training, more subtle and a general feeling of overall strength rather than the muscle soreness you feel in isolated muscle groups from weights.

This training doesn’t fatigue me, I don’t at all feel that I am doing too much. Its hard when I do it and then afterwards I feel fine and can get on with my day without feeling too tired. Historically when I was training hard this wasn’t always the case.

As the sessions are studio based I have bought a pair of minimalist shoes. Barefoot shoes. An oxymoron? No it is a thin skin of a shoe that covers your sole to protect it from the ground but still allows the foot to move and flex organically. I like the way the sessions are without equipment and so very natural feeling and I feel connected to the ground in these shoes. I have started using them a little for running in too, I would love to use them more for this but having taken about 3 years to completely fix my plantar after I injured it from running literally barefoot on road and other hard ground for years I have kind of been a little worried to risk it again.

Anyway lets see what happens, the shoes are quite disgusting looking and I may be too self aware to wear them in public! I am looking eagerly forwards to the next 51 days of my program and will report again soon.

 

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