Neglected Blog

I've been meaning to update this forever! I've done tons of work in my yard and around the house and I haven't posted about any of it. I will soon.

I also haven't posted about my workouts. That's because they are virtually nonexistent. My foot is better, more or less. It turns out the the magic cure is a pair of very expensive shoes - the ugliest shoes on the planet - made by MBT.

I told you they are ugly! One month of wearing them though and my plantar fasciitis is almost nonexistent - just like my workouts. I still haven't made it back into the gym on a regular basis. I've been going to yoga on Monday evenings on most weeks.  Why is it so hard to get back into once you're out of the habit of going? It used to be so easy to work into my everyday schedule and now...

Watch for new posts in the next week or so.

Listening To The Universe

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not religious in the least. I do not believe in God. I believe in religion even less. However, I do believe in “The Force.” That is, I believe in an energy which connects every living thing across time and space. Further, I think that this force speaks to us, guides us and protects us.

It was pointed out to me this evening that I am extraordinarily stubborn. Much to my chagrin, I have to admit that this is a fairly accurate statement. I have been injured in one way or another for quite some time now.  At best, I have ignored these injuries and at worst, I have complained about them bitterly. I supposed it’s not surprising then that these injuries, which started out somewhat mild, have progressed to the point where I have to choice but to address them.

I think that the Universe has been trying to tell me to slow down and take care of myself and my body. I think it started out as a whisper and I ignored it. After all, I am pretty stubborn.  Now that whisper is more like a bad 80’s hair band playing in my living room.  I have no choice but to listen.

So, I’m listening. I am going to start looking at my injuries differently. That is, not as the bane of my existence, but as an opportunity to take care of myself and start healing my body. After my last post, I took 30 minutes to stretch and I’m surprised at how much better it made me feel. Not only did it make my body feel better, but it calmed my mind too. Considering that my stress level has been rising at a break neck speed, as evidenced by what feels like rocks in my back, I need to relax.  Big time.

I’m not any good at this. I don’t know how to relax. I don’t know how to slow down. I’ve never been able to meditate and any time I start a stretching or yoga program I do it for a day, two at most, and revert to my old ways.  At this point, this kind of behavior is no longer an option. I hurt all over. My left foot, my right ankle, my right knee, my hips, my lower back, my mid back, my upper back, both of my shoulders, and my neck hurt. I can’t live like this.

What, exactly, am I going to do about it? First and foremost I’m going to take better care of my body. I’m going to look for a decent yoga class to go to once, but ideally twice a week. Once upon a time, I did have one I liked to go to, and it did wonders for my body and mind. I’m going to stretch on my own for 60-90 minutes a day. Yes, that’s a long time, but right now I have that kind of time and no excuse not to do it. I will also continue to, or rather be more consistent about icing, massaging, and stretching my left foot. Second, I’m going to clean up my diet. My diet is not all that bad right now, but it could be better. Wheat bloats me to no end and makes me feel puffy and soft. Wheat is out. I often try to avoid it, but have been backsliding a lot lately. Also, my alcohol consumption has been slowly but surely increasing over the course of the last 3 weeks.  I tend to drink less when I’m exercising regularly and since I haven’t been doing that I’ve been drinking more. This has got to stop. I make the worst decisions about what to eat when I’ve been drinking. So, I’m going back to my old stand-by rule for alcohol: no more than 2 in a night an no more than 4 in a week. Finally, I haven’t been drinking nearly enough water – back to 2-3 liters a day.

I could probably use to do more, but this is enough for now and a darn good start. I just hope the Universe agrees.

Puddle of Misery

I haven’t posted in a long time. This is why.

I am working on various projects around the house – all in various stages of completion, but none of them far enough along to post about. I’m hoping that a few of them will come together soon so that I can share what I’ve been working on. Seems like even the smallest projects take forever to complete.

In other news, I’m rather depressed. I missed going to my chiropractor last week because I was in all day workshops in Florence last week. I thought that keeping off of my feet would help the plantar fasciitis, but it is worse this week, even though I wear my new tennis shoes with special insoles religiously. I’m really frustrated with it. I haven’t had a workout in over 3 weeks! I feel like if my stupid foot is going to hurt like this I might as well be high on some exercise endorphins. See, I’ve recently come off of one of the two anti-depressants that I was on, Zoloft. Exercising really helps with the depression and not being able to work out is making me pretty miserable. Not to mention flabby. And as if that wasn’t enough, my right knee is starting to hurt from trying to keep my weight off of my left leg. I feel like my body is just breaking down on me! I’m only 37 years old. WTH?? I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I know that being on my feet working on my house is probably what is making my foot worse, but I can’t just lie around! It would probably be in my best interest to just go into work every day and sit at my desk 10 hours a day. But summer II starts in 2.5 weeks and once that happens I know I won’t have any time to work on the house at all.

So, that’s it. I’m a puddle of misery today. Most days I don’t feel quite so bad, but seems like today I’m having myself a little pity party. It happens to the best of us, right?

Temporary Training Split

I cannot, for the life of me, imagine not doing any exercise at all. I understand that Body Rock is off of the table as it requires a ton of jumping around, etc. HIIT and Hills are off the table, too, since they are both rather hard on feet. Thankfully, my job doesn't require me to do a whole lot of running around, so it's not like work is going to get in the way of the healing my Plantar Fasciitis.

Considering that I can, more or less, stay off of my feet, I see no reason why I can't do some traditional strength training, provided that I avoid lower body training that involves being hard on my feet. While normally I would loath being relegated to the University gym, it is summer, which means that the gym is relatively empty, and I can get my workouts done efficiently.

Below you will find my new training split outlined and explained in detail. A couple of notes:

• I've chosen some of these exercises specifically because they keep me off my feet, not because I think they provide optimum results.
• I only do dumbbell exercises for my shoulders, otherwise they hurt.
• Normally, I wouldn't do either of the leg exercises I have in this split, but my choices are pretty limited while I heal the plantar fasciitis.
• Normally, I would not do nearly so much direct arm work, but as I can't really train legs, I need to do something to keep myself from going crazy.
• There are 6 days of training in this split. 3 days of traditional weight workouts, and 3 days of traditional weight lifting using Body Rock type training intervals. I have NO IDEA if using this type of interval training with weights is going to work for me at all - this split may see major revisions soon.
• At this point, I'm not sure how many days it will take me to complete the 6 days of training. To start, I think I might train 3 days in a row, take a day off, and repeat.

Day 1 - Horizontal Push/Pull

Super Set - 5 sets, 5 reps, 311 tempo, 90 seconds rest
A1. T-Bar Row
A2. Flat Dumb Bell Press

Super Set - 3 sets, 8 reps, 301 tempo, 60 seconds rest
B1. Cable Row
B2. Incline Dumb Bell Press

3 sets, 12 reps, 321 tempo, 60 seconds rest
C. Weighted Crunches - various types

Day 2 - Light Legs/Arms

Super Set - 3 sets, 10 reps, 301 tempo, 60 seconds rest
A1. Leg Extensions
A2. Lying Hamstring Curls

Superset - 5 sets, 5 reps, 311 tempo, 90 seconds rest
B1. Seated Dumbbell Curls
B2. Dips

Superset - 3 sets, 8 reps, 301 tempo, 60 seconds rest
C1. EZ-Bar Curls
C2. EZ-Bar Lying Tricep Extensions

Day 3 - Vertical Push/Pull

Super Set - 5 sets, 5 reps, 311 tempo, 90 seconds rest
A1. Parallel Grip Pull Ups
A2. Seated Dumbbell Presses

Super Set - 3 sets, 8 reps, 301 tempo, 60 seconds rest
B1. Pull Downs
B2. Seated Arnold Presses

3 sets, 12 reps, 321 tempo, 60 seconds rest
C. Weighted Crunches - various types

Day 4 - Horizontal Push/Pull

Super Set - 4 minutes, 6 rounds of 30:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
A1. T-Bar Row
A2. Flat Dumb Bell Press

Super Set - 4 minutes, 4 rounds of 50:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
B1. Cable Row
B2. Incline Dumb Bell Press

4 minutes, 6 rounds of 30:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
C. Side Crunch

Day 5 - Light Legs/Arms

Super Set - 4 minutes, 6 rounds of 30:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
A1. Leg Extensions
A2. Lying Hamstring Curls

Superset - 4 minutes, 4 rounds of 50:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
B1. Seated Dumbbell Curls
B2. Dips

Superset - 4 minutes, 4 rounds of 50:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
C1. EZ-Bar Curls
C2. EZ-Bar Lying Tricep Extensions

Day 6 - Vertical Push/Pull
Super Set - 4 minutes, 6 rounds of 30:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
A1. Parallel Grip Pull Ups
A2. Seated Dumbbell Presses

Super Set - 4 minutes, 4 rounds of 50:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
B1. Pull Downs
B2. Seated Arnold Presses

4 minutes, 6 rounds of 30:10 intervals, ?? reps, max effort
C. Crunches - various types

Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar Fasciitis is a condition where the flat band of tissue connecting your heel and toe (ligament) becomes irritated, torn, and inflamed. It is super painful and I have it in my left foot. In particular, the arch of my left foot hurts like, like I don't know what. Aside from tearing the ACL in my right knee, I've never dealt with something quite so painful.

To heal Plantar Fasciitis, you are suppose to stretch it, massage it, ice it, take some NSAIDs, and basically stay the hell off of it. In other words - no killer Body Rock workouts. This is would probably be enough to make me cry if I wasn't already crying in pain. To keep from re-injuring it, you need some shoes (all ugly BTW) with killer arch support and to continue to do stretches to keep it loose and supple.

Here is my plan to treat this stupid thing so that I can get back to Body Rock ASAP.

Stretching - I'm going to do calf stretches on the stairs 3 times a day. I'm going to use my Gym Boss for this (at least I can still use my favorite toy), setting it for 12 rounds of 30:30 intervals. I'll stretch my left calf for 30 seconds and then my right calf for 30 seconds and repeat.

At first I was dubious that calf stretches were going to help the bottom of my foot, but I've already done this once today and it makes my left foot scream in pain.

Icing - After I'm done stretching it out, I'll ice it for 20 minutes using a small frozen water bottle. This is to help bring down inflammation. It also hurts like hell. I also have a cold pack that I'm going to bring to work with me so that I can ice it throughout the day.

Massage - After perusing the Internet for a few hours I've decided that self massage can greatly speed up the healing process. While holding back my toes, I'll rub from the ball of my foot toward my heal. This will help loosen it up and increase blood flow. This is also hella painful, but the more you can take, the better it is and the faster it will heal. I'm thinking 2 times a day for 20 minutes is a good start - once in the morning and once at night.

NSAIDs - I'm going to start taking Aleve 2 times a day to help with the pain and inflammation.

Shoes - New workout shoes are definitely on the menu since I'm holding my old pair at least partially responsible for this debacle. I'm still researching at this point, but my preliminary research says that New Balance makes some pretty great shoes with the kind of arch support and fit that I need. I'm also going to look into getting some sort of orthotic inserts for my regular shoes. I've looked at buying special orthopedic shoes, but they are all so unbelievably ugly, I can't bring myself to do it.

So, obviously, no workout today. Sucks.