Christmas Comes to Buttcamp

When I left the Long Track Life after updating on Wednesday, I was bummed.  Very bummed.  I had been on restricted lower-body activity--no rowing, no squats, no Burpees, no anything fun--for 10 days, and I had just gotten word that the restrictions would be extended until my right leg matched my left in mobility.  Which, when you're as inflexible as I am, could be a very long time.  I was afraid I was looking at a very, very long time of no skating, no CrossFit WODs, and no fun.

So after I whined extensively here on the blog, I called my surgeon. I wanted to know if my recovery was on track; if the pain I was feeling was expected, and if I truly needed to restrict my activity in order for my leg to heal properly.  It's not that I don't trust my PT; I do--he's the one who was finally able to cure the low back pain that I'd had for seven years, so I know he knows his stuff.  But I was desperate for a different opinion, and anyway he only put the restrictions in place in response to my complaints about the amount of pain I was experiencing, so I figured that if we found out that the pain was to be expected at this phase of healing, then maybe the restrictions were unnecessary.

So I got an appointment with my surgeon for Friday afternoon, and to cut to the chase, that's exactly what he said.  Healing is progressing fine, pain is as expected, no need to limit activity at this point

Let me repeat that: No need to limit activity at this point!!

Well, he still doesn't want me to try skating until I can run further, but other than that I can do pretty much anything I want. In fact, he even said--although he appeared somewhat baffled by my discussion of my hamstring being too tight to do things like deadlifts and cleans--"well, if you can't pick the bar up off the ground, pick it up off something higher."  Hmm, I think he just gave me clearance to do hang cleans and hang snatches!

So, elated with my newfound freedom, I went home and checked the SISU site for the Saturday morning workout.  Saturday is Büttcamp day at SISU--but of course everyone ignores the umlaut and calls it Buttcamp.  Buttcamp workouts generally have more people than weekday WODs so they're usually team or partner events, and they tend to be more cardio-oriented than strength.  I haven't gone to many Buttcamp workouts because Saturdays are either my day off of workouts, or race day.  But now I wanted to work out as soon as possible, and I particularly wanted to do some of the newly-approved lower body movements.  So when I checked the next day's Buttcamp workout and found Cindy, I felt like Christmas had come early.  That's right, Cindy, the same Cindy that I had been so delighted to do the day before Thanksgiving...and before my activity restrictions.  20 minutes of 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 air squats.

Friday night I was as giddy as a girl getting ready for the prom (I imagine.  For the record, I never went to prom.  So I'm guessing).  I got my clothes all laid out for the morning, I signed in on the online checkin to reserve my spot, I prepped my protein shake and shaved my hands. (No, I don't have hairy Hobbit fingers; I have calluses from all the pullups I've been doing lately, and it's best to shave calluses down with a razor to help prevent hand rips.)  Then I made sure my spiffy new WODGrips hand protectors were packed, and went to bed with visions of squats dancing in my head.

There's that pink again.

And Saturday Buttcamp was everything I could have wanted. From the moment Coach Tyler introduced the workout with "Who here has done Cindy?" and one of the guys responded with the inevitable quip "Who's Cindy?," through the warmup that included rowing that--surprise surprise!--didn't hurt this time, to the 20 minutes of Cindy, it was a complete blast.  I was partnered with a woman who has only been doing CrossFit for a couple weeks, but she did an awesome job and in fact sometimes she did her reps so fast that I wasn't done resting yet when it was my turn.  Despite having to take turns doing the reps, which forced rest time, I ended up doing a few more reps this time than the last time I did Cindy--8 rounds 3 reps versus last time's 7 rounds 23 reps.  I'm crediting my speedier pullups for the extra reps--I actually did the first 3 sets of 5 pullups unbroken, which is a PR for me (kipping, of course; I still can't do more than 3 strict unbroken).  The only tiny fly in the ointment was breakfast; I'm so used to doing low-intensity workouts that I didn't worry about finishing breakfast less than an hour before Buttcamp.  Bad plan...even with my super-slow-and-careful squats, the WOD was intense enough that I spent several post-Cindy minutes lying on my back regretting breakfast and trying to make sure it didn't make a surprise reappearance.

But other than that it was fun, fun, fun. I tried to explain my joy to Hubby Jim when I returned home, but I could see he didn't get it.  Maybe it's weird that I find doing pullups, pushups and squats until I almost puke to be fun...but I do, and I'm thrilled to be able to do it again.  And I'm really hoping that, now that I have the surgeon's assurance that my healing is on track, I can finally get off the Recovery Rollercoaster that I've been riding for the past couple months and make steady progress towards full-on CrossFit and skating.

Which would truly be the best Christmas present ever.

Pity Party Number...oh, I don't know...Twenty?

If this post had bullet points like the last one did, there would be a lot more in the "bad" category than the "good."  In fact, pretty much everything from last week's "good" category has now moved into the "bad."  When I went to PT the day after I wrote my previous post, I complained to  PT TieGuy (remember, he's my old skating coach Coach TieGuy's brother) that my leg hurt a fair amount, a fair amount of the time.  Now, I'd cleared with him pretty much everything I was doing, before I started doing it...but when he had me run through the whole list of what I'd been up to in workouts--Burpees and squats and rowing and running and box step-ups and a little skating dryland--well, he told me to stop it.  All of it.  No Burpees or squats or rowing or dryland or box step ups.  Oh, he did let me keep the running...all 200 yards of it that I can do.

Apparently, I've been overdoing it a bit.

Really, I think it would have been fine if I hadn't fallen five weeks ago...but I did fall and it's not fine.  I have read of other people with my injury who were running 3-5 miles at this point in their recovery, so I really don't think that what I was doing would have been out of line without that additional fall. But I did fall and apparently my hammy was not happy with my increasing its workload, so I'm back to extremely limited lower body work...except that now, I can't do elliptical or go swimming for a cardio workout because I, in my infinite wisdom, decided I was far enough along in my recovery that I could cancel my Lifetime Fitness membership.  Oops.

We did figure some things out at PT today, though.  It seems that the inner thigh pain I've had ever since the injury is likely the hamstring muscle that I tore (as opposed to the one that I tore off the bone, which is reattached at a location away from the pain), which is still healing. And the pain on my outer thigh--again, away from the attachment site--is likely from walking with a limp for a couple weeks.  And, of course, the pain at the attachment site is, well, from the attachment.  So it's nice to have that all explained.  Even if it does still hurt.

Bottom line, though, is that I'm not allowed to do anything fun--no Burpees or squats or skating or rowing--until my injured leg has the same range of motion as my non-injured leg.  Which, based on current stiffness, could be at least a month if not more.  I had hoped that in the ten days of rest I'd taken since my last PT appointment, my hammy would have improved enough that today my PT would have lifted the restrictions.  But he didn't, and so, upon hearing that, I reacted with my usual cheery optimism and appropriate coping behavior.

In other words, I swore extensively and then went and ate a donut.  And an ice cream cone.

So for the foreseeable future it's back to my upperbody workouts at CrossFit, with a little jogging and maybe some elliptical if I can find a time to get to the cardio room at the high school (free for school staff!).  On the plus side, my pullups are coming along nicely...I did 75 kipping pullups in a WOD the other day, mostly one at a time...and given the 7 pounds I've put on since I hit the recliner, I'd say that means my arms are pretty strong!  Which is good, because until I can start skating and doing lower body stuff at CrossFit, my arms are going to be responsible for keeping me exercised, sane, and out of the cookie jar.

I hope they're up to the job.

Time for More Bullet Points!

Recovering from an injury isn't nearly as much fun to write about as, say, training for a CrossFit competition or racing in a long track skating meet.  There are a few high points--like doing Cindy Rx--and a few low points--like slipping and falling again; but usually there's not enough to write about to fill a whole blog post.

So enter, once again, the Bullet Point Post.

As of next Tuesday I'll be 14 weeks post surgery.  Here are some of things that are going on lately:

The Good

• On Friday Dec. 5, 102 days after my injury, I was finally able to do a workout at full intensity.  I've done some of the WODs in CrossFit in the past couple weeks, but I've always had to be slow and cautious so I haven't felt like I've really "done a CrossFit workout" yet.  Even Cindy, although it left me a bit breathless, wasn't truly full effort--I was super cautious in the squats.  So I really haven't gone all out yet...until Friday.  The  6x250 meters rowing with 1 mn rest between each row that I did on Friday certainly felt like a "real" CrossFit workout!  I had to sit on my nice little butt pad on the rower seat, and my leg hurt a little, but I was able to row as hard as I could.  When I unclipped my feet after the sixth set and basically rolled onto the floor to assume the classic Post-WOD Roadkill pose, I was able to rediscover the weird masochist joy of completing a high-intensity workout.  Man, I've missed that!
• New things I've done recently:  stepping up on the 20 inch box with my bad leg leading; jumping rope; doing weighted squats (just 35 pounds for the back squat and 15 for the overhead, but still--weighted); rowing (I had done it before my slip-and-fall three weeks ago, but it's been too painful to do until just this week); running (well, jogging 100-200 yards at a time); and dryskating (well, I did 8 strokes with each foot and then my bad hammie said "enough").  So I'm still making progress.
• My kip seems to be improving.  A little.  I've never, despite a lot of very good instruction, been able to figure out the kip.  And until I started competing, I didn't care.  I had heard that kipping is hard on your shoulders, so I didn't even try--I stuck with strict pullups with the band.  But if you're going to compete you need to be able to kip in order to complete the high number of pullups that you might find in a competition WOD.  So, after working on strict pullups for the past 6 weeks to strengthen my shoulders, I'm now trying to kip again.  The coach gave me some more instruction at my personal training session on Thursday, and it might be starting to click--on Friday I did 4 kipping pullups unbroken.  Hey, it's a start!

The Bad

• There are still many movements that I'm unwilling to attempt.  Some, like climbing the rope, would be fine if nothing went wrong--but like Hubby Jim says, you have to consider the failure mode, and flailing around in a rope-climb-gone-bad could cause all sorts of problems.  Also in this category are handstands and double unders.  Other movements make my hammie hurt just thinking about them: deadlifts, snatches, cleans, kettle bell swings, wall balls, toes to bar (not that I could ever do those anyway), and walking lunges.  Oh, yeah--and skating.  Actually, skating lands in both categories--I'm sure I'd be able to just wobble around in rec-skater mode, but if I slipped or lost my balance or fell, really bad stuff could happen.  On the other hand, I can't even imagine being able to get into "real" speedskating position right now, let alone being able to actually skate.  So there's still quite a ways to go.
• Yesterday I went to the Oval to watch the American Cup/John Rose Open long track meet. In addition to watching some good races and talking myself hoarse updating all my friends on my hamstring issues, I managed to find myself spending money at the Cascade Speedskating booth set up in the lobby (no, that's not the "bad" thing!).  I bought a jacket and a pair of full-zip bibs to wear to the starting line of cold outdoor races.  When I  tried on the bibs, my first thought was "man, that's some poor quality control.  The left leg of these bibs is a lot tighter than the right."  A couple seconds later, of course, I realized that I had just answered fellow speedskater and hammie-avulsee Steve's question from earlier in the day..."Is you injured thigh still a lot smaller than your uninjured?"  Um, I guess it is!
• Recovery is still definitely having its ups and downs.  I was pretty bummed after doing a couple CrossFit WODs in my new "slow and careful" style, and realizing how much fitness I've lost--not just in my legs, but in other areas like my core (although, yes, my pushups and pullups and ring dips are progressing nicely).   After Thursday's personal training and Friday's rowing WOD, though, I'm feeling more optimistic again.

The Ugly

• The day after I got back from my parents' place, where we spent Thanksgiving, I stepped on the scale and realized that I have now officially gained back all the weight I had lost last spring in the SISU Nutrition Challenge. Enough said.

So there you have it...the current state of Operation Hamstring Recovery.