Fixing my back, First post.

Last Tuesday I really hurt my back doing something that usually is a breeze for me, back squats. The fragility of my back has been getting worse lately and Crossfit doesn’t seem to be helping much. So today I visited a massage therapist recommended to me by a friend. The difference with David Dressler (RMT) is that he really focuses on looking at the root cause of the problem.

Anyways this is a summary of the things we found out:

1. My back is all twisted up, there are various places (will get more information on what section next week) that are curved
2. My lower back has a big twist in it, which is the reason why I can’t do a deadlift. My trainer says my lower back looks like it is seized, that’s why I can’t dead lift safely. Turns out it is because of of the disks is twisted and it doesn’t bend there. Hmm…
3. There is a twist in my hip so my left leg is shorter by about a quarter to half an inch than my right leg. This apparently is the root cause of the problems in my back. Since my hips are not level, when I lift, my back is not straight. The body naturally tries to keep the head level so in order to do that the spine forms into an S.
4. The muscles are now unbalanced so one side is stronger / weaker than the other. This further worsens the imbalance.

So what to do…

1. I need to deadlift less weight, and if I do deadlift, switch my grip. I usually have an left underhand, right overhand grip. I should change that, and do double on the other side to work on the imbalance.
2. Keep a journal of all work outs to see how they are affecting my back. Keep a record of all massage therapy sessions to see what kind of progress we’re making. I’ll use this blog, recording the work out, and observations of any pain or back aggrevation I felt.
3. Stretch and be more aware of the pain I’m feeling
4. Do exercises that strengthen the symmetry, watch out for imbalances.

What was interesting:

1. At one point the massage therapist put wedges at different locations under my hips. This realigned and straightened them correctly. I can’t even describe the feeling, it was like low pain for 20 years just went away, and there was clarity… like getting glasses.
2. Take care of yourself. It has been extremely frustrating not being able to make advances and even losing some gains at Crossfit. I hate making excuses, but sometimes a different approach and opinion helps. Listen to your body. There is a certain amount of pain, but not chronic pain. Ultimately you have to be your own best guide to what your body can take and what you need. Take expert opinions with some skepticism.

Even though today’s massage session was agonizing and not enjoyable it was very helpful. My massage session is on Friday and I’ll have a week of Crossfit before that. That’ll give me some time to find workouts that helps improve symmetry.

Dec 17, 2008

Diet was mediocre today… well it was down right terrible by Zone standards. Breakfast: 2 eggs, some chicken, some spam (mmm) and a slice of toast.

Lunch: Sante Fe Chicken salad @ Earls (extra chicken + avocado). In the future I gotta order this with just extra avocado, twice the chicken too much.

Dinner, some beef stew that dad made. Good! I also rotisseried a chicken with the new counter top oven. Oh it came out awesome. Tastier and jucier than chickens from Safeway. I gotta wait for there to be a sale on chickens and roast some more. This weekend I’m planning to roast a lamb leg… I’m drooling already.

I ate a few cookies and a peanut butter chocolate ball. Janet our neighbor was also baking up a storm of sweets for X-Mas. Pretty good, a little too sweet for my likes. But still tasty. I’m trying to have self-control! I really am! *not*

No Crossfit today. Tomorrow there’s quite a work out.

Dec 16, 2008 – Nasty Girls

Diet was ok today. I ate an ok breakfast. 2 eggs, some cheese and the last of wraps. Lunch was a simple omelet. Two eggs, 1/2 an avocado and some seeded, chopped tomatoes. Dinner after Crossfit was a chicken and some fruit. I was way too lazy to cook. Today’s Safeway chicken was good.

Work out:

Nasty Girls – 21:51 (terrible time).

I couldn’t do the muscle ups, so I subbed for pull ups / ring dips instead. So it worked out to 3 rounds of:

• 50 squat
• 21 pull ups, 21 ring dips
• 135lb hang power cleans

Fell off the Wagon… and it ran over me.

After coming back from vacation and dealing with a rush of work, it was easy to fall off the wagon. At least I’m done all of those damn burpees now. Lately I feel like all I’ve really been doing is making excuses about not sticking to things.

However, health and fitness is a renewable resource and tomorrow is another day. It is amazingly easy to get off track and here are my reasons and things to watch out for:

1. Keep a rhythm. Going away for 2 weeks, having nothing really to eat except for rice, noodles and other yummy foods really affected my good eating.
2. Stick to a plan. I stopped planning out my meals and I haven’t really measured anything.
3. Be vigilant. I’ve gotten complacent.

Well time to get back on the wagon.  I have to admit that I fear quitting Crossfit, about slowly letting motivation and ambition die out. I gotta remember rule #3, complacency is such a danger.

I feel a mixture of disappointment and despair at how bad things have gotten. Anyways, enough of the sob story… this is how to get back on the wagon and get back into shape.

1. Eating plan. Zone works, I hate all the measuring but it works. The biggest challenge is to making sure to have the right foods convenient. I still need to develop a system that works.
2. Crossfit, and fitness. I realize where my weak points are, well pretty much everywhere. I need to go more, however, I want to focus on strength and skills.

When I did my strength progressions (pavels) and went 4 days a week I saw so much improvement. It was measureable. When I stopped going 4 days a week, stopped doing Pavels things dropped off sharply. My trainer was definitely right about “getting laid” is affecting my Crossfit attendance.

Anyways this is a just a back into it blog post. I’ll be blogging more about my progression. On a bright side, at least getting back into it, or the journey, gives me stuff to blog about.

Food Log, Nov 17, 2008

Breakfast

2 sausages, 2 eggs (scrambled), salad with cherry tomatoes

Lunch:

Chicken salad. Spring salad mix, chicken, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and 1/2 an avocado. Plus some balsamic vinegarette. Very good.

Crossfit: first day back… owch.

Protein shake @ Rob’s house.

Dinner: roast chicken from safeway. I wasn’t super hungry, and I felt really lazy. I ate about a drum stick and two wings. Will supplement with a protein shake later.

Protein shake: 1 cup of milk, 1/2 cup coconut milk, chocolate protein powder.

A few weeks in review

Over the past couple of weeks I really feel that my eating has been slipping. One of the big things is that I haven’t been prepared at all for good eating. Since I’m going on vacation tomorrow I don’t really see things improving all that much.

My performance at Crossfit has gone up by a bit. I rarely feel out of energy or feel like puking. I noticed that I’ve slimmed down a bit, but lately I feel really lathargic, which is an indicator that my diet hasn’t been very good.

Another thing that needs to be improved is my consistancy. I eat breakfast way too late, don’t get enough sleep, and dinners are starting become whatever is convenient. Defintely not going in the right direction. These are the improvements that need to be made:

1. Get up earlier. I’ve been battling a long strain of insomnia… falling asleep at 4:30am and waking up a few hours later. If I can only fall asleep around 11:00 and be up around 7:30am that would be ideal. When I get back from Asia this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
2. Having the good foods available. I’m ok at preparing foods in batches for the week, however the problem is that my measuring hasn’t been good. I need to create a recipe book of stuff that is good to eat.
3. Improve the use of ingredients. Use coconut oil to cook instead of olive oil.
4. Eat more good fats: avocado. I think I’ll make a decent sized batch of guacamole to eat with eggs and salsa in the morning.
5. More green vegetables.
6. More consistency.
7. Creating a weekly eating plan.
8. Stick to the eating plan.

Oct 26, 2008

Breakfast: Turkey sausages, 2 eggs, salad

Lunch (late, at 3:00 ish): McDonalds…. cheat!

Late night: Protein shake and a pear

Oct 25, 2008 – lots of party.

Breakfast:

Salad with fried turkey, one egg. Got up pretty late so this was pretty much lunch.

Snack: protein shake

Dinner w/ friends.

This was a potluck dinner. Lots of wine, lots of good food. Lots of carbs but that’s ok. The cake… homemade and excellent!

Crossfit party: write off. Drinking drink. drink.

Oct 24, 2008

Looking at today’s eating it is evident that poor planning = poor eating. Not only did I likely snack on a bunch of random things throughout the day but it wasn’t even all that healthy. The slide down is slippery and fast!

Breakfast: omelet (cheese, ham, roast beef) and a salad

Protein shake w/ coconut milk:

Lunch: a bit of curry… and something else?

Protein shake:

Dinner: Left over curry (butter chicken, home made) and ground beef.

Snack: bag of nuts.

Oct 23, 2008

Breakfast: Salad, Eggs, roast beef and an orange. 

Salad: chicken, cherry tomatoes, avocado (mmmm)

After Crossfit: Protein shake w/ Darth Erkel. Lots of rice milk in there (carbs), and a banana.. but so tasty! 

Dinner: Yellow chicken curry with rice. More carbs… ohh I’m sliding. 

Coffee: Tall, decafe latte with no foam.