Training Log Archive: Wyatt

Nothing at all. Leg hamstring had various points of sporadic minor pain/weakness, but was generally pretty good, esp. given the pain during exercise the day before.

warmup, plus 3 x 150 yd intervals, w/150yd rest
3:01, 3:05, 3:10
9:16 total, 19:02 btwn

I think I was wiggling my legs a little too much on the 2nd interval, as my leg was a little sore once or twice during that interval, and during the rest laps afterward. But it seemed to largely recover. Not to 100% though, so I iced when I got home.

Plan:
1/13: Ultrasound, and No Cortisone after all
1/13-1/17: Swim-only
1/18-1/25, start ramping up isometric strength*, add some light water walking, and keep swimming


1/18: 1x, do 10x 10-second zero-pain isometric holds at straight & bent positions, both-legs for symmetry (L-leg first, then R-at same (low) effort)
1/19+: 2x per day, do 15 x 10-second holds, each side separate

1/26 reassess, but generally:

when isometric strength is at max.-effort, no-pain, try hamstring curls on machine, high rep, low weight, increasing only when if can be done with zero-pain.

2/4-2/10: If hamstring is feeling near full strength, try a few short runs?
2/11-2/17: a few 20-60 minute runs?, max intensity 3, trying at least one forest runs.
2/18-19: GA A-event...

Although the GA & FL events can drop off the racing schedule if hamstring isn't ready to race.(or drop to non-Blue, and easy, rehab training run effort, if hamstring is ready for that, but not racing...)

Just got back from the Dr. Nazarian Ultrasound. Generally good news. They were able to localize the pain quite specifically, to the muscle-tendon junction of the Semimembranosus (or was it Semitendinosus?) hamstring. And they didn't see anything wrong with it - which means there is no visible scar tissue, or tear - where visible means about 2mm... It's just a normal 'strain' that needs normal strain treatments - and there's no reason to believe a cortisone shot would do anything to help the recovery (although it would hurt less for a week or so.) Now for some web research on the variety of recommendations for treating such a sprain.

Open questions:
Ibuprofin or not? Hamstring curls, or light walking/jogging? Low-reps, or higher-reps with less weight? Short jogs, or long walks?

I'm still planning on swim only for the next few days, but then I'll probably want to start some walking/short-jogs, and/or hamstring strength...

C • Good news! 2

2-week trial membership expires on 1/19, so I'll have to try to switch to the other membership then...

Saw Dr. Bruce Hopper, a Sports Medicine Phisiologist. He said it's apparently a Chronic L Hamstring Strain (yep), and a good next step is a fancy active Ultrasound (not an MRI). In the active Ultrasound, they have me move the leg and use the affected muscle to help see how the muscle moves, and it'll help see where the muscle, scar-tissue, and muscle-gaps are. If that confirms a lump of scar tissue that isn't healing well (has gaps btwn the scar tissue and the muscle when I tense the muscle), they'll inject cortisone during the same ultrasound office visit. The cortisone is supposed to make the scar tissue more flexible, so that the muscle can move more without re-tearing at the edges of the scar tissue. Something like that.

He said that might take a week or three to get in to see the fancy-ultrasound-guy (Dr. Nazarian @ Jefferson at 909 Walnut in Philly), but I was frelxible/eager/lucky so I'm seeing him at 1:45p tomorrow.

More swimming is up for this afternoon and tomorrow morning... then after the shot I've gotta be extra careful for the next few days not to strain the hamstring (lest I rip it apart ala the (minor) cortisone risk :). Then I'll probably just swim for another week and try some slow ramp-up of hamstring strength activities.

C • sounds promising 2

25 laps - 5 warmup, then 20 swim. Pace varied from 6:00 to 5:40 for each 5 laps... A little more kicking than yesterday - just because it didn't hurt at all, not to try to do something hard.

Check out that Max. HR! That was swimming one lap hard, mostly dragging the legs, in 1:06 (after some other swimming.

I think I can do this swimming thing, for cross-training/fitness while my hamstring does its thing.

BTW I couldn't find a pull-buoy, but I could hang my feet/ankles on a noodle and drag that. I think I can swim with little leg motion and keep the legs afloat though as the noodle thing was a little awkward.

Did ~12 minutes of swimming, and 8 minutes of water aerobics. Couldn't find my old goggles and swimming w/o them was tough on the eyes. So I bought some afterwards, for tomorrow.

Oh, and I found a free 8-week Bally's pass to extend my 2-week pass (via an web ad of all things - not on AP.) See here: http://health.discovery.com/convergence/bodychalle... if you'd like a free* Bally's pool/gym for the next 8 weeks... (*assuming you feel strong enough to resist the required first-visit sales pitch.)

C • Pull Buoy 1

A max. HR of 135? Clem was right. Boxing is pretty good. Plus, extrapolating from my water exercise thing that faster easier movement was good, basically any faster, repetitive upper body arm exercises were good. I'm sure some of the strange stuff I did was a boxing drill of some kind. (The rest may have just been strange :) I also did some 'rowing' and bench presses on the weight machine, with low weight - just a few minutes of reps. The repititve bench press hit the 120's too...

L-hamstring was better today than yesterday. I had a more normal day physically - only stairs were walked in a slow/careful mode, and probably not even every time - and my leg hurt less. No sharp pains, and only a little light burn, and/or very light pain/weakness. (By weakness I mean that sometimes light motions (of, say walking, or leaning while doing arm exercises) made fairly normal muscle-soreness-like mini-pains along the lines of what I'd previously have expected with much harder exercise.)

How am I doing on my 1/5 plan?
- No stretching? - check. Even rowing with legs flat on floor I could feel the hamstring, and while it asked for a stretch, I haven't even been tempted for the last two days.
- No hamstring exercise? - mostly check. Even walking around normally now causes some exertion-based-pain, but that's better than 1/6, so...
- No massage? check. It hasn't been nearly as achy today as it was on the 6th & 7th, so the urge to massage it is much reduced.
- Heat & ice? some. Still doing this maybe once a day. Yesterday & today it was alternating hot/cold packs.
- Cardio work? trying. Still haven't found something I can do regularly, and intensly enough w/o boredom. Perhaps after another few days or week of 'healing', I'll be able to swim with some very light kicking which will help with some cardio effort.
- MRI? have doc' appt for 1/12, and ask for MRI then.

C • I'm glad to see things are get... 1

Walking back and forth in the 'walking/rehab' lane at the pool, while boxing the water and doing other arm exercises, with an HR monitor. The boxing was the best cardio work actually touching 120 for bit, and generally in the 110's. (Still 1, but at least something.) Basically the faster the motion and (accordingly) the lower the resistance, the better the workout. At least among the things I was doing today (e.g. open hand was harder, but lower HR, than a fist.) Hopefully I didn't overdo the slow walking in the water part. I certainly tried to avoid really using my legs for anything harder than walking around on land would be - but that was still useful for HR, as it probably adds a few BPM to be walking instead of sitting or leaning against a wall.

C • HR while swimming 9

Hamstring was 95% in the morning, slowly degrading to a mild burning/light-aching by the evening. Definitely improved vs. the 6th (the worst day) but not much better than yesterday.

Got a doc' appt. for Thu. "Rothman institute" which apparently has their own MRI... (I skipped an appt. on Dec. 29th with them - in retrospect, I probably should've gone, but I was on an apparent up-trend then so I didn't...)