This update is a couple days late. I was unable to get time this weekend to update this blog so now is the time. Saturday was set as a day for a long or in my case just a longer run. The goal was to go for 50 minutes and get some time on tired legs. That definitely worked. At about the 45 minute mark my legs felt heavy but in total I went for 55 minutes. Also, there were sessions for inversion both before and after the run of 5 minutes each and with 12 inverted sit-ups each. After that, my back was feeling really good. An additional benefit is that my right hip that has been bothering me is feeling better also. I am too chicken to have the Doctor check it out for fear that he will find that the socket is so worn down that a new hip would be needed. My brother has gone through that and I don't want to. I am still going without the glucosamine and am not feeling any ill affects from it. There is just the normal soreness that comes with the beginning of any training after an extended rest period. That is good.
Today it was up early for another 35 minutes on the rat wheel. This time upping the pace a little from last week. The plan is for periodization with a 10% increase during the weekly runs for three weeks then backing down on the fourth. The pace was a little quicker then last week in the same amount of time, with my heart rate staying the same if not recovering quicker. These are all goods signs. On another note, the inversion experiment is off. I will be looking for other means of loosening up my back and neck. So for now it is back to the crunches and planks for core work.
Let Pain Be Your Guide
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Improvement Already
Day 3 Session 2
My legs were a little sore when morning arrived yesterday so the best thing for me was to skip the workout. There has been one thing that I was going to track along with the inversion therapy and that is the elimination of Glucosamine from my dose of daily supplements. It is kind of by accident that that happened but I figured why not give it a go. Glucosamine has been part of my daily supplements for years. Matter of fact, I can't remember when I first started to take it. I ran out a couple weeks ago and from past experience should start feeling it by now.
My history with Glucosamine started when knee pain started to affect my playing basketball. Someone recommended it and so I started to take Glucosamine/Condroitin supplements. After a couple weeks of taking in and apparently having the glucosamine build up in my system, my knees started to feel better. From then on I've taken it with rare exception. Those exceptions came when I would run out and just be too lazy to go get more. After a couple weeks of being off it, my knees would give me issues again and I would then head out for more. About a year ago, while reading up on Glucosamine a number of studies pointed out the lack a evidence that the Condroitin had any benefits. They also stated that Glucosamine Sulfate showed slightly better results then Glucosamine Hydrochloride. At that time I switched to strictly Glucosamine Sulfate with no adverse affects and a slightly lower out of pocket expense. And that is where I'm at to date.
Today with the inversion, I stuck with 5 minutes inverted broken into two sessions, prior to running 2.6 miles on the treadmill. I forgot about the inverted sit-ups prior to running but was able to incorporate some movement of the lower back, upper back and neck. During this I could feel some loosening in the neck and upper back and it appears to be heading in the right direction. The reason for breaking the inversion into two sessions was that the stress on my ankles was more severe then previously. Next time I will be looking at how the cuffs are fitting and aligned.
During my run, there was not the usual leg stiffening that occurs during my early morning workouts. This is a very good sign. Once again after the run, I rested and then inverted again for two sessions totaling 5 minutes. This time I remembered the inverted sit-ups and was able to complete 10 of them with deterioration in form so I did not increase the reps.. With the sit-ups and the twisting of the three regions the time flew by.
So far today there has been no soreness or stiffness. I can crack my neck and upper back when there is a need to alleviate that tense feeling. That is one of the side effects that I was looking for. As the therapy continues, hopefully the need to "crack" my back decreases as the alignment and loosening of the vertebrae improve.
As a side note and I doubt if it is related to the inversion, I've started to have some G.I. issues. Hopefully it is from an external source but only time can tell.
Maybe next time I'll post some pictures of the inversion table and the movements. That is if I can get someone or someway to take them.
Let Pain Be Your Guide…..
My legs were a little sore when morning arrived yesterday so the best thing for me was to skip the workout. There has been one thing that I was going to track along with the inversion therapy and that is the elimination of Glucosamine from my dose of daily supplements. It is kind of by accident that that happened but I figured why not give it a go. Glucosamine has been part of my daily supplements for years. Matter of fact, I can't remember when I first started to take it. I ran out a couple weeks ago and from past experience should start feeling it by now.
My history with Glucosamine started when knee pain started to affect my playing basketball. Someone recommended it and so I started to take Glucosamine/Condroitin supplements. After a couple weeks of taking in and apparently having the glucosamine build up in my system, my knees started to feel better. From then on I've taken it with rare exception. Those exceptions came when I would run out and just be too lazy to go get more. After a couple weeks of being off it, my knees would give me issues again and I would then head out for more. About a year ago, while reading up on Glucosamine a number of studies pointed out the lack a evidence that the Condroitin had any benefits. They also stated that Glucosamine Sulfate showed slightly better results then Glucosamine Hydrochloride. At that time I switched to strictly Glucosamine Sulfate with no adverse affects and a slightly lower out of pocket expense. And that is where I'm at to date.
Today with the inversion, I stuck with 5 minutes inverted broken into two sessions, prior to running 2.6 miles on the treadmill. I forgot about the inverted sit-ups prior to running but was able to incorporate some movement of the lower back, upper back and neck. During this I could feel some loosening in the neck and upper back and it appears to be heading in the right direction. The reason for breaking the inversion into two sessions was that the stress on my ankles was more severe then previously. Next time I will be looking at how the cuffs are fitting and aligned.
During my run, there was not the usual leg stiffening that occurs during my early morning workouts. This is a very good sign. Once again after the run, I rested and then inverted again for two sessions totaling 5 minutes. This time I remembered the inverted sit-ups and was able to complete 10 of them with deterioration in form so I did not increase the reps.. With the sit-ups and the twisting of the three regions the time flew by.
So far today there has been no soreness or stiffness. I can crack my neck and upper back when there is a need to alleviate that tense feeling. That is one of the side effects that I was looking for. As the therapy continues, hopefully the need to "crack" my back decreases as the alignment and loosening of the vertebrae improve.
As a side note and I doubt if it is related to the inversion, I've started to have some G.I. issues. Hopefully it is from an external source but only time can tell.
Maybe next time I'll post some pictures of the inversion table and the movements. That is if I can get someone or someway to take them.
Let Pain Be Your Guide…..
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Inversion Therapy
Over the years I've suffered from back pain. Recently the thought entered my head as to if I was loosing leg strength due to the impingement of the sciatic nerve from my back injury. So after a little research, I set out to purchase an inversion table and do a little of my own decompression therapy. Well, my wife put an end to that stating that it was not something that she wanted around the kids. Therefore, of to plan B. I borrowed an inversion table from my buddy Dan. Thanks Dan. And seeing that Dan is probably the only one that reads this blog, here to ya…. My plan is to document what I am doing, feeling and planning to do for inversion therapy. Most days it will be very short, some days, I'll get long winded, sorry for that.
A little background: the injury to my back occurred years ago when I was young and dumb as opposed to be old and dumb now. While water skiing after a couple pops, I took a nasty wipe out that bent my ankles back up to my shoulders. When the pain didn't go away after a few weeks, I started to seek medical advice. Diagnosis was muscle spasms and muscle relaxers were prescribed. After a couple more weeks of no relief, I went to a chiropractor. There he found my lower back, upper back and neck all had issues. So off we went for alignment session 3x a week for 6 weeks. My neck and upper back started to feel better, but my lower back was feeling worse when I walked out of the office then it did when I walked in, so I stopped. I lived with and got used to the pain for years. Finally a medical doctor had a MRI done and that showed a severe herniated disk at L5S1. To avoid surgery I went through a special back pain physical therapy course which finally started to help. To this day, I still do some of the exercises. That was until began to wonder about the loss of strength. This brings us back to date.
Day 1
This morning was not just the beginning of my inversion therapy; it is also the beginning of my training for the summer triathlon season. So, after setting up the inversion table I got on it and flipped to a complete inverted position. There was a instant feeling of relaxation in my lower back, but no change in my neck or upper back. I hung like this for about 5 minutes before I did 10 inverted sit-ups. The sit-ups caused a little muscle sorness in my back so I laid back down and hung inverted for another minute. I then got off the inversion table and got on the treadmill for 35 minutes of intervals. That was 2 minutes walking and 3 minutes running. During the walk my heart rate would drop to about 120 bpm and during the running it would get up to 158 bpm. The intervals got me about 2.5 miles on the rat wheel. I then sat down for a couple minutes to cool down before getting back on the inversion table for another 5 minutes and 10 inverted sit-ups. This time my back did not tighten up during the sit-ups and still no difference in my upper back and neck.
Going forward, the plan in to increase the inversion time by a minute each session and do an addition 5 inverted sit-ups every session. Once I can get to 30 minutes and 50 situps life should be good. The other indicator I am looking for is the ability to crack my back and neck. While training for the bike legs, my neck has been getting stiff and feel like it needs to crack and I haven't been able to crack it to get any relief. Hopefully the decompression during inversion loosens things up and allows more movement. Time will tell.
Disclaimer:
I am by no means a medical professional. Everything I do here, I am doing at my own risk and only to myself. I have discussion this with my doctor and he said I could be an experiment of one. His final words were "Let Pain Be Your Guide" so if I start to hurt more, I'll change things up or stop completely. If you try any of this there are no result guaranteed or implied.
A little background: the injury to my back occurred years ago when I was young and dumb as opposed to be old and dumb now. While water skiing after a couple pops, I took a nasty wipe out that bent my ankles back up to my shoulders. When the pain didn't go away after a few weeks, I started to seek medical advice. Diagnosis was muscle spasms and muscle relaxers were prescribed. After a couple more weeks of no relief, I went to a chiropractor. There he found my lower back, upper back and neck all had issues. So off we went for alignment session 3x a week for 6 weeks. My neck and upper back started to feel better, but my lower back was feeling worse when I walked out of the office then it did when I walked in, so I stopped. I lived with and got used to the pain for years. Finally a medical doctor had a MRI done and that showed a severe herniated disk at L5S1. To avoid surgery I went through a special back pain physical therapy course which finally started to help. To this day, I still do some of the exercises. That was until began to wonder about the loss of strength. This brings us back to date.
Day 1
This morning was not just the beginning of my inversion therapy; it is also the beginning of my training for the summer triathlon season. So, after setting up the inversion table I got on it and flipped to a complete inverted position. There was a instant feeling of relaxation in my lower back, but no change in my neck or upper back. I hung like this for about 5 minutes before I did 10 inverted sit-ups. The sit-ups caused a little muscle sorness in my back so I laid back down and hung inverted for another minute. I then got off the inversion table and got on the treadmill for 35 minutes of intervals. That was 2 minutes walking and 3 minutes running. During the walk my heart rate would drop to about 120 bpm and during the running it would get up to 158 bpm. The intervals got me about 2.5 miles on the rat wheel. I then sat down for a couple minutes to cool down before getting back on the inversion table for another 5 minutes and 10 inverted sit-ups. This time my back did not tighten up during the sit-ups and still no difference in my upper back and neck.
Going forward, the plan in to increase the inversion time by a minute each session and do an addition 5 inverted sit-ups every session. Once I can get to 30 minutes and 50 situps life should be good. The other indicator I am looking for is the ability to crack my back and neck. While training for the bike legs, my neck has been getting stiff and feel like it needs to crack and I haven't been able to crack it to get any relief. Hopefully the decompression during inversion loosens things up and allows more movement. Time will tell.
Disclaimer:
I am by no means a medical professional. Everything I do here, I am doing at my own risk and only to myself. I have discussion this with my doctor and he said I could be an experiment of one. His final words were "Let Pain Be Your Guide" so if I start to hurt more, I'll change things up or stop completely. If you try any of this there are no result guaranteed or implied.
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