Dr. G's Training Journal

[Garrett Smith]

Saturday 2/16/08:

Went on the 2.5 mile hilly walk route, running nearly all the uphills, estimate that I ran 1 mile of the 2.5 mile total.

About 10 minutes after finishing that, I decided to row 1000m pretty hard.
3:36

Tomorrow will be the old "Tabata This".

[Garrett Smith]

Sunday 2/17/08:

~4 mile hilly walk, followed by

"Tabata This": Tabata intervals (8 each exercise) of
Row (Calories)
Air squat
Deadhang pull-ups (I had to based upon my setup)
Push-ups Plus on handles
Abmat Sit-ups with feet anchored

Scores were (I took these easy to set an initial benchmark): 7, 10, 3, 5, 6 = 31

Nothing great, a good full-body workout and metcon. Aggravated some mid-back/interscapular/lower trap muscles. This was probably set to go off because I had paprika in some uncured beef hot dogs yesterday. Also, in a related coincidence, I didn't do any of my prehab/joint mobility stuff yesterday or today....hmmmm. Crap. It usually goes away by the next day.

[Garrett Smith]

Monday 2/18/08:

Neck/trap/whatever in there is still funky. I even resorted to a couple of aspirin last night on top of the topical oils, heat, and a bit of massage from my lovely wife. Skipped any/all working out this morning--came in early to work and did some BodyTalk Access & FastAid, EFT, and an energetic foot bath (plus the normal attempt at Traumeel tabs). At this point around midday, it's 75% better. I'm going for a hastily scheduled chiropractic appointment at noon, just to see if we can move this through a bit faster.

Ever since I started this new detox supplement I'm testing out, I've had some weird pains popping up and then quickly resolving--left hip, then right hip, now my lower neck & trap area. Weird. Coincidental? Who knows. I will say that my normal area of musculoskeletal discomfort, my left midback area, has also been suspiciously quiet lately, which is a good thing.

I'm hoping that this is all for the best, that good things are happening, and that change of any type has its discomforts. I'll hold off on making any judgements until a week from now.

[Garrett Smith]

Neck is still acting up.

This morning I did the full round of R-Phase Z-Health with extra focus. Followed that with laser therapy to the right side occipital/cervical junction and the right superior-medial scapular area (origin and insertion of the levator scapulae). Working out would have been pushing it this morning, especially with gymnastics class tomorrow night.

Forced active rest. I'll take it.

[Garrett Smith]

Yesterday's gymnastics class:

Foot drills plus joint mobility for ankles, hips, t-spine, and neck.

U.S. Navy G&T progressions
Balance beam work--walk forward/backward, stand one leg eyes closed 10 sec., walk forward eyes closed, pass another person on the beam, hop forward on one foot, single leg squat, full circles, jumping half circles
High bar work (finally got a really clean "belly grind", several of them, my wife was excited when I told her, she called it a "long hang pullover"?)
Trampoline--worked on high bounces
Rope--no feet climb
Basic rolls, vaults (tried cat leaps today), and some combos--like "jump to high uneven bar, swing over barrier to dismount, into shoulder roll over low barrier (under the low uneven bar), run to other low bar and lazy vault over it, run to trampoline and single bounce over large pad". That was fun.
Cartwheels
Handstand against wall and free-standing
Parallel bars--basket swings, support swings, support walks, dips
Rings--muscle-up, hanging L-sit to inverted hang to skin-the-cat to inverted hang to hanging L-sit, started exploring iron cross pull-outs
Tuck planches and attempts at elbow lever

Took it easy so I wouldn't aggravate my angry right levator scapulae.

[Garrett Smith]

This morning's workout, specifically selected to not aggravate the levator, was Monday's 2/18/08 CF WOD.

Joint mobility

Front squat warmups: 20kg x 5, 70kg x 3, 100kg x 1
Work sets done on a 3 minute interval
Front squat (10 x 1): 111.5kg x 1 x 10, 90% of current 1RM max

I like to do those workouts as a high percent of my 1RM and keep the weight steady, rather than building up to a new 1RM PR. I also wanted to keep the general "stress level" of the workout a bit lower. This felt good. Did a bit extra hip mobility (both isolated and compound movements) at the start, in an effort to help the scapula/neck area (due to the myofascial chain and specific energetic connections between the two areas). I do believe that helped, along with the laser therapy I did prior to my whole workout.

This weekend I'm going to work a version of today's CF WOD (4 rounds of 400m + 50 squats) into the hill walk I normally do. As there are actually 5 portions of uphills that I run, I'm going to modify the workout to be 5 runs + 40 squats per run. I'll do rowing on the other day.

[Garrett Smith]

Levator scapula still just there, I forget about it most of the time now. I'm still arranging my workout to go around it--no upper body stuff except for joint mobility or dowel work and no pulling from the ground. Simple enough.

So, I went and pulled up another ME lower body workout from the CF archives, the old 10 x 2 back squat workout. I chose to do 80% for all 10 sets.

Joint mobility + scapular stability
Moved hands one finger width closer on overhead pass throughs (shoulder dislocates), so I now have my index and middle fingers inside of the power rings on my bar. Also, my wall handstand is quickly improving again, which is great.

Back squat (80% x 2 x 10): 109kg x 2 x 10, felt really good after yesterday's front squats

Rowing and running this weekend. Will jump into the next Bulgarian cycle on Monday.

[Derek Simonds]

I just got caught up on your journal. Sorry to see you aggravated by your Levator Scap.

I certainly know what it is like to have to work around an injury.

Thanks for getting the probiotics and both fish oils out so quickly. I am going to start the probiotics tomorrow. I am only going to take 1 cap a day for 5 days then after the antibiotics are out of my system (I am done tomorrow) go to the loading dose.

[Garrett Smith]

Derek,
Your plan sounds good (and familiar!).

As for the levator scap, it's almost gone. To be honest, I'm hoping it is some sort of healing reaction (getting worse before it gets better). That would seem to fit this situation better IMO, as nothing I've been doing has been touching it--like it was a process that just needed some time to work itself out.

Otherwise, a couple of days of rest, one day of gymnastics, and two days of heavy squats really isn't that bad of a compromise--nothing like you've had to do lately!

Also, one thing I have to stop doing is checking my rowing form in the mirror at my parents' house--I think that is a contributing factor--I notice that turning my head to the left while going through the rowing pull leaves me with tightness on the right side of my neck during and after. So it could all be my fault to begin with. I'll just turn the rower in place so I'm facing away from the mirror completely.

[Garrett Smith]

The final day on my three-day squat combination:

2.5 miles course, 6 uphill running portions, with 40 air squats done immediately following the first 5 uphill runs.

So, in total, ~1 mile of uphill running and 200 air squats. My version of the CF WOD from 2/21/08 (4 rounds for time of 400m run + 50 air squats). No time recorded, because I didn't care!

I will say this--downhill walking after uphill running and air squats is interesting, to say the least! My quads got a huge pump from the combination. For anyone who saw my post on the comment board for this CF WOD, I definitely made sure to get every single air squat up to full extension!

Left hip and left vastus lateralis got a little funny during the workout. Again, I didn't do my prehab joint mobility beforehand.

"It's not a mistake unless I refuse to learn from it."

Time to start learning.