Therapy is hard!

One more PT session today. Started on the elliptical; this time I heard her say 10 minutes. Then adductor, abductor, and knee extension on the machine, 4 x 15 each leg. Then 4 x 10 leg press, each leg. Then 5 x 10 leg extension. Had to get a pillow and put in front of my shins; I have several bruises there, and the pad was right on top of them. Then to the free-standing. Started with the med ball bounce + balance. Actually felt like I was doing well on that one; trying really, really hard not to drop the other foot. Then 4 x 10 single-leg deadlift; did it on both legs so I’ll be equally sore. Across my back was hurting on that one, right across the middle. Probably rounding my back and not using my glutes/hamstrings enough. Then 4 x 10 bicycle/hamstring stretch thingy. That actually took an hour, and I was sweating pretty good in there, too.

I asked about lateral movements and jumping, which I’ve still been wary of, so they had me do ski jumps (both feet jump together from side to side) down and back a taped line, then grapevine running straight ahead (right leg touches on the left side, left leg on the right) down and back. LOL, I was having a hard time with the latter because I couldn’t get my brain and my legs to cooperate; tripped myself a few times. But overall it did a lot better than I’d thought it would. They said everything’s looking good. I have one more appointment scheduled for next Thursday, but I can call and cancel if my knee seems to be doing really well.

Still need to do some easing back in and some strength/cardio training to get back up to snuff. But it’s getting better!!

No more snow!

It snowed again today. 1-2 inches. Ack! Stop! Tired of snow now! I was excited back in December when it all started because we hadn’t had a white Christmas in a while. But it won’t go away, and I’m getting annoyed with this weather.

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Tim is reluctant to let me roll still, so he said he wants me to be able to do the warmup before letting me roll. I tried, and actually did make it on jogging. High knees, my brace stopped me from getting my knee all the way up; butt kicks, could do. Side-to-side… er… no. Didn’t want to try, so Tim had me sit for the rest of the warmup. I did my exercises on the side again.

I think next time, I’ll throw in lunges or something for the side-to-sides, and then at least try the others. And that might be plenty.

They rolled next, but one of them took forever getting water after the warmup, so Tim did let me in. Newer guy who’s generally been very explosive on everybody, so I was a little apprehensive. But when I told him that I’m coming back from an LCL injury, he said he’d had to have surgery on his just a year or so ago, so he totally understood. I think, though, that made him reluctant to engage much; most of the round was him sitting back and me trying to break his posture. Did try several armbars and a triangle and several sweeps — and even some spider guard — though none were close to doing much; just couldn’t get his posture down. I think I surprised him when he couldn’t dislodge my grip in his collar.

Then I sat and watched a round or two more. Tim had them start from standing, since it was a small class, and I definitely didn’t want to do that yet. Jason the Traveling Judoka was here tonight, and he had some purty throws.

Drilling was upa from mount, two variations. First, when they feed a hand in your collar; trap the arm, bridge, and roll. Second, their arms aren’t handy to attack, so bump them down, swim around and grab the belt, bridge, and roll.

Picked up a new detail in the first — once you trap their arm, bump once to bring them forward & off-balance, and then bridge and roll. Much easier.

On the second, Scott showed me where I was swimming my arm low and so having to fumble for the belt. He showed me instead to come up high and go straight for the belt, and then pinch in with the elbow to trap the arm. Some trouble with that one simply because once I bump them down and they land on their hands, they’re usually almost out of my reach!

More rolling, from standing again. I watched again.

Tomorrow night off (though they’ve started doing grappling during the kids’ TKD class on Wednesday night, so I may start going to help and/or to work with the little TKD girl in our class — she’s way more advanced than the other kids in her class). Might be heading up to the tournament in Richmond this weekend to take pictures and video for a couple of the guys.

Trampoline Fun

PT this morning. He put me on the elliptical to warm up, which I have never been on before. (Never was a cardio bunny, and always figured that thing would find a way to fling me off.) Awkward movement, but it didn’t hurt the knee. I went for 10 minutes, and then started working backwards. Backwards is hard!! He came in a few minutes later and asked how long I’d been going. I said it was on thirteen and a half minutes, and then he said he’d only wanted 10 minutes. Oops. I couldn’t count today…

The adductor machine next, for inside and outside hip, 4 x 15 each leg. Then single-leg deadlift (I think) — start standing on the injured leg; bend forward until hands are on the ground while simultaneously bringing the other leg straight out behind. Holy. Cow. Ouch. Glutes, especially, hurting. (So, of course, I liked ’em!) 4 x 10 on the right leg, and I interjected sets of 5 on the other leg to rest.

Back to the adductor machine for leg extensions, 4 x 15. Then the trampoline + balance drill: balance on the pad on the injured leg. About 4 feet in front of me, he’d propped a mini-trampoline against a chair, and then he handed me a small medicine ball. I had to throw the med ball at the trampoline so it would bounce back to me while I balanced on the pad. 2 minute rounds. That. Hurt. So. Much. But it was also a lot of fun. 😀

One more machine — leg press, but he unhooked the foot pedals from each other. 4 x 10, each leg, bringing my knee first all the way to my chest and then pushing out.

Last one, lie down and shoot your hips up straight, then prop them up there with your hands. One leg at a time, keep it straight and lower your foot toward the floor behind your head until you get a stretch in your hamstrings. Another owie one, mostly core related. I was supposed to use ankle weights on it, but they were just slightly too heavy and kept pulling both feet down.

We talked for a minute afterward, and he said I’m doing well. He thinks I may need one more week of PT, but he’ll decide for sure on Friday. He was also glad that I’d rolled on Saturday and that the knee had done well, and he said I should drill and even roll a little (if it’s feeling up to it) before Friday and let them know how it holds up.

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Blogs, blogs, blogs — I’m still discovering lots of new BJJ blogs! My Blogroll page is continually updated with them.

Also, another me being really slow: if you find a blog in a different language, you can subscribe to it in Google Reader and then select “Translate into my language” under the Feed Settings. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough that you can get the gist of it.

PT this morning

Had another PT session this morning. Pretty much the same as last time, though she increased the weights, I think. Balancing on that little pad continues to be very hard! New PT this morning, and she did a little more poking around my calf/back of knee, since it was bugging me this morning. She said there’s a little knot back in there, and that that’s probably causing my issues. I have no idea when it showed up.

During the biking, I asked her about doing interval sprints (30 seconds) on the bike. I’m thinking of ways to get my cardio up before getting back in to full training. She cautiously said I could try, though she suggested a 10-min warmup and trying a single sprint the first time. As always, stop if it hurts. (Also, I creamed the pace bike — finished almost a mile ahead. Competitive streak? What competitive streak? 😉 )

Also, she said my knee is coming along well. The pain in the LCL area will probably stay around for a while, but therapy-wise I’m doing well.

Forgot to add — she also spent most of the session asking me about jiu-jitsu. 😛

Fearless

Large class tonight, lot of new guys. I did my drills on the side again. Tried balancing on the crash pad again, but the knee would only do 1 set. I also threw in 3 x 10 Russian twist/pushup superset, and followed up with 2 x 1 min prone cobra. Evil! Especially after the pushups; my shoulders weren’t happy.

I took the medicine ball and balanced my weight on it with my hands, then worked on sliding it backwards until I was kneeling. Most of my weight was on the ball or my left leg, but I did get into a full kneel. Whoot! I slowly eased some weight over to the right; didn’t take too long for it to hurt, though it was in my calf and not in the LCL region. So did some calf stretches, too.

The little girl had her TKD class tonight, so she didn’t do ours. She watched, though, and Justin pulled her in to drill the guard pass. I talked to her toward the end of class for a little while. She’s so cute! And fearless. That’s how I would describe her in one word: Fearless. She’ll go after anything; she doesn’t care how big the guys are or how they’re playing.

And I realized as I was talking to her that I didn’t want to say anything to take that away. I didn’t want to tell her to be careful who she rolled with. I didn’t want to say anything that would plant the idea that there was something here to be afraid of. I even caught myself earlier in the week, when she asked about my knee, trying hard not to say who did it or to imply that it could happen to her. I want her to retain that innocence and not to worry.

Because I do that in plenty for the both of us. I see her on the mat attacking the spazzy guys, and I realize that I want to do that, too, but I’m afraid. Of injury, mostly; I’m all too aware that my joints are fragile and that my face doesn’t like getting pummeled. I’m overly cautious usually, playing defensively and guarding against injury, because I worry over things like LCL sprains. And even though I know better, I play a might could game in my head and so stay away from anything even remotely frightening. This is also something that has been cropping up outside of the gym, too.

(I had a more in-depth chatter here, but my internet cut out and it didn’t save. Bah.)

Not that I want to be reckless, but I don’t want to be so afraid and so preoccupied with what might happen that I ignore what is happening. So “Be Fearless” is going on top of my goals list for this next year.