Asphalt Junkies Spring 2013 - Closed (Page 64)

Dirk thanks for posting this I think you sum up how your effort should be pretty well. I know Warren mentioned some of this yesterday as well. I need to do a better job of pacing myself and finding my sweet spot so to speak. I will definitely be focusing on this for the next test.

Samantha -

That sucks! I know you are working hard to fight through this and I can't imagine how frustrating this all must be. I'm sure you have heard it all by now and i may have already mentioned this a dnwill mention it again...

My husband hurt a back muscle last year while lifting weights. He went to his primary care doctor, who put him on a mild anti-inflammatory, gave him two pages of stretches to do, and told him to take a break from the gym for awhile. He nursed the injury for about 3 months before feeling it tighten up again and ended up revisiting the doctor for more meds. Then, about 6 weeks after he was bending over the tub to turn the water on for the girls' bath and the muscle knotted up like crazy. He ended crawling to the living room floor and laid down without moving for several hours. He saw an urgent care doctor the next day. The doctor put him on a strong dose of a pain reliever (Hydrocodone) , a muscle rexaler (Flexiril) and an anti-inflammatory (Naproxen). He was pretty out of it for about a week. The doctor basically told him that the muscle needed to be truly relaxed to heal, otherwise it would keep tightening back up. My hubby was out of the gym and doing everything right, but in order to function like a normal human, he was still putting stress on the muscle.

After sticking to the meds for 10 days (they also made him gain like 6 pounds) and taking two weeks off from the gym, he eased back into stretching and was back to his routine within a month. He has had no problems since. I am not an advocate for meds/drugs, but now I see how they are truly designed to work. 

We got to use our legs and hamstrings to walk, drive, stand - you name it. I don't know if my husband's experience helps, but I know he kept doing and trying. I hope you can find what is causing the pain and discomfort.  

Jen, every little bit helps, thanks

The other thing is at times when I'm talking to my PT I find myself thinking it would be nice to have someone who does have extensive experience working with athletes.  I can't really explain it, but for example, I was like I just don't feel good mentally when I miss a workout, it seems like she didn't get it.  She was like "why?" like why do you feel you have to do it.  And it was something I couldn't really explain.  Again, I understand stretching is important, but it's like I HAVE to get in my bike/run over stretching, if I had to pick...  It's like it becomes stressful thinking about how I have missed workouts, or the thought of not doing all my planned workouts... which I know you guys understand!

Maybe a way to work this in would be to alter your plan.  A training plan is great, but it must be flexible to deal with things like this.  The goal is to get you to the start line in the best possible shape/fitness level you can be.  Training through and neglecting an injury isn't necessarily the best way to do that.  Perhaps you should alter your training plan to incorporate your stretching and rehab as a focus in addition to your sbr.

Don't get down! As all injuries you'll get better eventually and be back to your old routine.  We don't do it because its easy right?

I totally understand. When my husband went into Urgent Care, he got lucky and ended up seeing a doctor that specialized in sports related injuries. My husband's primary care doctor is a family physician who just had a baby, so while she was helpful, her treatment was conservative when my husband needed aggressive and only what I can call "in your face" medicine. My husband went to three chiropractor's before he found one strong enough to adjust him and give him good therapy.

We have different doctor's for insurance reasons. My girls and I see the same family doctor and I love her for my girls, but I can barely tolerate her as my doctor. She does not treat athlete's and offers no insight of female related training concerns at all. She has told me to watch what I eat cause my weight is teetering on becoming a diabetic - uummm, I might be 5'1" and weigh 131 pounds, but have you seen my legs? She didn't even test my body fat or BMI. When she asked me how much I work out - I gave her a quick breakdown on my work/trainng/mommy schedule. She basically looked at me like I was a bad mother at that point. I also gavbe her the rundown on mental issues in my family and she told me that prayer would remedy that issue if I ever have those issues. Don't get me wrong - I am a woman of faith and believe in the power of prayer.    

This is a very important point.  In order to have optimal results for what we're after (very different than the general population) I think it is actually VERY important to have a PT, and other professionals as required, who are well versed in the endurance athlete's world.  We present some different problems and requirements than a typical person.  I am positive my recovery from some early injuries was greatly helped by the fact that my PT is a triathlete, and my ART guy really understood triathletes and our world.

And maybe it's worth some discussion, but stretching isn't obviously something which has as much benefit as historical thought.  Just a little light food for thought!

Awesome insight Dave! I prefer running out of all three and having to scale back running when dealing with this irritable IT band issue and have really been able to focus on improving my pull while swimming.

Samantha - Aren't you dealing with an elbow issue too? Has your PT been able to suggest alternatives for training purposes?

It is funny you should say that... I feel like her answer to everything is stretching... I ask what may have caused this or that, it seems like the answer is always "from not stretching"... or what will help with this or that, "stretching"... my main thing is the original problem mainly stems from my hips not being aligned properly, so I don't think focusing solely on stretching is going to alleviate the problem long term... it's like every session I have to mention this, THEN she looks at how my hips are aligned... if I don't mention it, she won't look.  And like I mentioned, there is obviously something that goes on in the session that aggravates the hamstring... but I don't know if anything different is being done?  I am kind of glad I will be seeing the other PT on Monday, hopefully I'll get somewhere with that.... Or else I'm seriously consdering going back to my chiro/ART specialist.  Really the main reason I haven't gone back there is because of cost since insurance won't cover it.

I am very happy for my massage therapist. I never feel like more harm was being done than good!

Good luck with the PT Samantha.  I agree on the ART and insurance.  They wouldn't want to help pay to keep us healthy - let's wait until there's an injury and it requires drugs - now THAT we can pay for!  /soapbox.

BTW, if your elbow still hurts (and also as a shameless plug) this is a link to my PT friend's website Athletes Treating Athletes.  That link specifically covers tennis elbow, and I know yours is a little different, but it's a pretty good site for general self diagnosis/massage/rehab.

She and her husband are triathletes and she's the one who got me into this crazy sport, and kept me healthy through many early tweaks.  She's very responsive on facebook as well, so ask her questions if you want to know something specific.

My current "plan" I do feel is flexible actually.  At least in my opinion... it is simply bike 4 times a week, run to keep up with the 100/100 challenge... and it is mostly moderate intensity. So I don't really think it's all that agressive.  I also do feel I am getting a good amount of stretching in most days. 

And yes your last statement is also quite funny to me, because amongst all those negative thoughts I was having, I was thinking I probably couldn't imagine NOT doing all this! (minus the injury!!)  sigh!  LOL

I guess I'm kind of just putting that off to the side for now... no, that issue hasn't really been touched.

Ok Jen,  So if we plug in these values (and I guessed your weight at 135) then we have a CP of 127 watts and your percentages for your workouts on Jorge's plan are:

Now we know why these values killed you when doing that workout!  When you thought you were at 95% of CP, you were really at about 200%!

You're an animal!  (in the good sense).

Samantha, my experience tells me that stretching a muscle injury is a bad idea.  There's a place for stretching during the recovery period, but it's VERY short, VERY gentle and only after healing has taken place to the right extent.

Until then it's gentle movement through a comfortable range of motion that's called for.  Ice, heat and gentle exercises against a resistance band are what I think you should be doing.  In fact, you should be getting ultra-sound and/or muscle stem when you have your PT sessions...but not stretching at this point.

(I'm not a qualified physical therapist of course, but unfortunately there are possibly some physical therapists that aren't either)

She seems to like to massage directly the area which I feel the tension.  I feel like I've heard the same thing that you're saying about the stretching... that shouldn't be happening either?  I am trying to think about what we do each session which might possibly cause this increased tension EVERY time. (which never happens with my massage therapist... hm, maybe I could ask her about that too...)

So really - I was kicking some majoy booootaaaay!

I think I stick with the new numbers so that I may survive the longer than 45 minute sessions!

This is where we need the like button.

I'm not a PT, do not play one on TV, and I've never even slept in a holiday inn, but this is where I was going with stretching. A muscle's first response to being stretched is to pull back, usually in direct proportion to the intensity of the stretch.  What is the intensity of the stretch?  That depends on a number of factors, which include at least how warm the muscle is, how fast the stretch was performed, and how far beyond "normal movement" the stretch was done.

So a fast stretch, or one done with a non-warmed up muscle, can easily have negative consequences due to the muscle trying to pull back pretty had.  If a muscle is damaged in any way, it's almost NEVER a good idea to stretch it.  And there is very little actual evidence that stretching heals anything, or even helps recovery.

Again, [caveat] I'm not really an expert. [/caveat]

I'd say the value depends.  If spend a lot of time with your hip flexors shortened (like sitting at a desk), I'd say there is some merit to stretching that.  If you are old, like, me, I think there can be some merit to stretching as well, though I'd vote for resistance training by a factor of 10 to stay young.  Not sure about hamstrings or why you want to make them more flexible.

I agree 100,000,000,000,000%!!!  I have recently figured this out as I have dealt with my plantar fasciitis.  The taping I have now completed several long runs using applies the principal Jeff is talking about. I believe I was allowing the stretch of the fascia to very slightly heal and then tear it down again with most every run.  I was stretching it more and using all kinds of methods to provide different aspects of stretching the area but none of it seemed to have a lasting positive result.  I used K tape several weeks with limited amounts of success but the pain and symptoms always returned and on occasion worse.....

From the very first time I used athletic tape I experienced an amount of relief that couldn't be ignored.  Here why I think the athletic tape was so successful......

A close look at the bottom of your foot when running would show a lot of flexion from the heel to the forefoot from the time of impact to the time your foot leaves the ground for the next step.  This flexion allows the arch to extend and contract as your foot lands, stretching and then compressing when leaving the ground stressing the fascia on the bottom of the foot hundreds and hundreds of times during every run.  This constant stress would not allow any kind of significant recovery and combined with every day exertion I could never get ahead of the problem.

Then, when I discovered this particular taping method, I discovered how quickly I experienced relief.  And here's why;  The relief came when I DID NOT allow the constant flexion of the plantar fascia over each and every run.  The athletic tape is static, meaning it will not stretch, which provides a platform to run on that will not allow for a constant aggravation of my injury.  As my foot plants with every step, the tape takes the stress from my foot and absorbs the shock rather than allowing my body to absorb the shock.  This method is allowing a slow but consistent recovery and healing.

So, the moral of this story is......If you are experiencing a muscular type of injury you may need to take a deeper look at the particular injury and possibly a less conventional approach to treatment.  However, this should be done under the advisement of a professional or accept the risks, as I have done, with going your own route.

BTW, I thought I was on to something pretty good that hadn't been thought of before related to PF but apparently not.  Jonathan had used the same type of taping, using athletic tape, for his PF.  After I had searched the internet to figure out how to tape PF, I found nothing using athletic tape, only Kinesio taping.  So it appears I am not nearly as smart as I thought I was. Doh!