Shoulder Injury Update

Last week I made a gripe post about my damn shoulder. I do have some sort of good news today. It's starting to heal. A bit.

Thats my normal range of motion. Left arm is fine for the most part. 

And this is where my right arm is. I'm even cheating a bit by tilting sideways. Still much better than last week...

Yeesh. I forgot it was that bad. Better a memory to be honest. 

I do still have a major concern. Since the lateral delts are firing better I can raise my arm sideways with no major issue now. I just need to work on that end range. What is bugging me is this- the front delt;

I am Left side is my left arm and everything is how it should be. Right side, however, is in bad shape still. Arm is almost appearing to 'droop' lower and obviously the front delt aint firing hardly at all. It still triggers up till about 90 degrees then it gets a little rough. It's a very weird feeling dealing with it.

I'm hoping a few more visits to the chiro can clean this mess up.

Cleveland Indians are about to get sued

For 9 F%$#ING BILLION DOLLARS!!!

Are you absolutely shitting me? It's said the flood gates are now open after the Redskins situation and I think Heath Ledger said it best.

Seriously this barely started and it's already out of control. If you are so damn offended then sue and petition to get the name changed. But 9 billion? You may as well say "we want money. Thats it. Just your money."

Next up-

Italians suing Nintendo over Mario Brothers

Every white person suing black comedians. Seriously just watch one black stand up and I guarantee there will be a white joke in there.

Nintendo again getting sued for Samus in Metroid for 'unrealistic expectations of women'
....same for Lara Croft

Latino's suing over that Spanish-American War

Japanese for the same thing. Then blacks suing whites for slavery.

Mothers against "Yo' mama" jokes.

The Blackhawks should probably get sued as well.

Who else? Im sure there are plenty of schools out there with some sort of perceived derogatory name. The shitstorm will never end.

This won't end if we don't stop it people. Besides if the Native Americans want to be treated just like everyone else then, well, I got some bad news for those casinos.

Wouldn't be another week of training without a new injury

Seriously. This shit's getting old. This week has been garbage ever since Sunday. So check this out-

Exhibit A is what good range of motion should be. Exhibit B on the hand...no bueno. I in all honesty cannot get my arm farther up than that. And Im even tilting to the left to 'cheat' it up there a bit.

So what happened? Apparently committed the heinous crime of sleeping. I woke up Sunday and felt some pain in my neck and a little bit in the shoulder. Figured I just slept on it wrong like I often do. But then the day went on and it just got worse. And worse. And sure enough I was in agonizing pain. I haven't felt crippling pain like this since my bout with sciatica when I blew my back out. It actually very much felt the same except in my shoulder.

Luckily I already had an appointment with the Chiro Monday afternoon just to get a tune up and instead Im going in there with legitimate gripes about my body. We moved me around and didn't notice anything off. Palpated here and there and said everythings where it should be. Then the x-rays came. This is where the concern drew up. Apparently instead of a gentle curve in my neck the spine makes a straight line. To the point one or two vertebrae seem to been tilting inward. Which could mean degenerative discs. Great.

He put me through a quick adjustment focusing on the neck. I actually felt a little better right away. I scheduled a follow up and was on my way. Actually felt like I got something done. Right until about 10pm that night. Best way I can describe it is something like this:

That bad.

So the better part of my morning was spent in bed trying to lie completely motionless so as to not aggravate the damn thing again. Only left to go to throws practice at 10 to which I then slapped a bag of ice on the shoulder to see if that would have an effect. It actually did a little bit. I tried doing some exercises as well to see what I could actually do and surprised that not everything is lost. I still thought it was pretty pathetic when I couldn't hold a 5lb dumbbell at full extension without my arm dropping down.

One curious thing to note is the over compensation of the right latimus whenever I picked something up. It seems the delts are so out of whack right now that my body is just clawing at other muscles to do the same work. Hopefully that little tidbit of knowledge can help my doc figure out whats wrong. Fingers crossed.

Farmers walk - A first real go

Yesteday was my first 'real' go at hitting some heavy farmers walks. My hands and I are still fighting. They got beat the hell up. Especially my left hand since my grip is still trying to catch up from surgery. Looks to be a few blood blisters in there. Nothing major but they're there.

I wish

The thing I can't with these is the havoc it wrecks on my palms. I've been researching a stronger hold on the handles yet it's like the meat in there gets squished against the knuckles. Im really hoping thats normal starting off and can get conditioned eventually. Hopefully.

Best I worked up to was a few short sets of 425 with the trap bar. Managed to get across the gym which is roughly 15yds or so. My hands just hurt like hell from that. Attempted a few a reps then switched to two standard bars with 45s on either end. Got 3 good sets of about 20yd shuttles with those. Then my forearms had enough which really made me realize I absolutely need to train these up before the comp in a few weeks. 

Getting better at pullups

Well I can't really be too happy with the rest of my training but I will say that my pullups have improved substantially.

Two months ago I started with one. One whole pullup. Now I'm up to 9. Also, 3 weeks ago I did a 10 minute EMOM with sets of 5. I finished total reps about 30. Maybe. Today I totaled 47. So close.

So what's the secret?

Every damn day. Even if it's just 20 or less. I still get some pullups in when I'm at the gym. Doesn't matter what I'm doing. Just get them in. This used to be a chore. Only performing 1 or 2 at a time was rough. But over time they got better. And with that getting volume in is relatively easier now.

So my goal now is to hit that 50 mark then add 2 minutes. Also, I'm shooting for 15 in one go. Just a matter of time.

Oh yea, and I'm still over 260. So I'm not getting better because I lost a bunch of weight. That fact could be good or bad depending how I look at it. :/

Homemade air conditioner

For 15 bucks?!?

According to this guy that is a true statement. And apparently it cranks out 45 degrees with a frozen milk jug.

With the insane humidity we get in Ohio I am all about this idea right now. Found my project for tomorrow.

Homemade Air Conditioner DIY - The "5 Gallon Buck…: http://youtu.be/HxSLbpAwibg

Sleds are a Drag

After this afternoons debacle of a work out I headed up to the track for a round 2 romp with the sled. I did have the idea I should get some sprints in first. That is until my foot reminded me how bad the fasciitis was today. My body this Summer has not been coping very well at all it seems. Wrist surgery to kick things off, right foot plantar fasciitis, left pec strain, right shoulder (nothing new there), and my right hip has been giving me issues lately as well.

It didn't help I was barefoot either for the warmups. There's actually some logic there. Shoes can make your feet weak. Last year when the fasciitis sprang up I did a lot of barefoot training and walking on soft surfaces and I noticed the symptoms died down a little. So I took that logic into this evenings workout. Unfortunately I did a bit more damage to the heel last Friday than I thought. During high knees it tweaked again and I almost went down. Then just did a toe/heel walk to try and loosen it up. Seemed to help.

Anyways, so the workout itself was pretty simple. 300lb sled, turf,  and barefoot. Sets of 50yd drags. First round was a forward drag followed then by a reverse drag. Repeat for 300yds total. Wasn't so bad the first 20-30yds but then I lost momentum and damn did that thing get heavy. Just something else I need to get consistent on. Truck pull is one of the events at my competition coming up.

TABATA is the Devil

Long story short for today I attempted to go heavy on bench work. Didn't even get through my warmup sets when something felt very wrong in my left pec. Definitely a strain of some kind. Doesn't hurt at rest but pressing straight away is out of the question right now. Had to switch gears to a pull day instead. Didn't go heavy just a lot of volume work. Sets of 12 and 20s.

Then I had a stupid idea.

Let's do a TABATA finisher! But what exercise? Hmmmm.....hanging row! Yes! But hey I'm awesome at those so let's use a god damn fat bar!

I finished 2 rounds. The rest ended about as miserable as you may imagined it would. My grip gave out well ahead of my shoulders. Suppose I should've saw that coming.

FYI if you are unfamiliar with Tabata it is simply perform work for 20 seconds, rest for 10, repeat for a total of 4 minutes. Or 8 rounds. Get as many reps as possible in those 20s bouts. The simplest exercises turn into a damn nightmare.

Brunswick Girls Rugby Division 2 State Champs

Pretty wild even now. This actually happened almost 2 weeks ago but it's still an amazing feeling. Even got a nice write up in the local papers for it. Not bad for a 1st year coach and a second year team.

From underdog to big dog - The Post Newspapers : Sports

Mondays WOD and 30-Day Challenge Updates

OK, so first off I was attempting a new 30-day challenge in which I tried to knock out the 300 swings workout. Well that failed. Primarily it had to do with this upcoming Highland/Strongman competition I decided to sign up for. All that stone lifting, deadlifting, carrying, squatting, and overhead pressing has got my back all kinds of knotted up and swinging just wasn't helping the cause. Im still on that pullup kick. Up to 8 on one go! Plus I can knock out sets of 5-6 pretty regularly. So getting 30-40 reps in a day isn't so bad anymore. Although, if I really want to see some better growth I need to ramp those numbers up to 80-100 on pull days and off days. Otherwise I feel I may start to stall.

As for everything else I feel my fitness is getting better. 400m runs are not nearly as tough as they used to be. Still rough. Especially thrown in a WOD like todays. Plus I still have those nagging hamstring issues I need to sort out. Feels like they're just weak and need some strength built up.

Swiss Bar Press Jerk - Worked up to MAX 5x185
Bench (still close grip) - High volume warmups and 4x5@229 (actually made weight all sets this time)
Triceps beat down with pullover extensions
40x Pullups mixed in

4 rounds for time
15 pushups
30 heavy rope waves (need to add more next time)
400m run
 (this shit sucked hard) Finished in almost 15 flat.