The title change of my blog to "Breaking Banul" has become kind of prophetic. I have been suffering from an old....old....super old injury on top of my sports hernia this past week. A couple of weeks ago I strained my back doing Zercher squats with a 115 pound sandbag. The strain didn't happen all at once. On the first day I went to use this particular bag I slipped a rib out of it's spinal socket trying to lift the damn thing off the floor into the Zercher position. I did my sets and felt a pain near my shoulder blade afterward.
The next day I paid a visit to my chiropractor. He plopped the pesky rib back into place. Looking back, I think the rib pain may have masked the initial damage lifting too much weight caused. Later that day I did hill repeats climbing a little over 3,000 ft. of elevation in about seven and a half miles. At one point in the run I had a slight twinge in the spot but didn't think anything of it. I get these twinges every so often.
A little backstory: I fist damaged the disc to my lower spine while playing tackle football when I was about 16 years old. I was tackled awkwardly and the weight of the tackler came down on my shoulders hyperextending my lower spine. Lots of ouch. Then about nine months later I was in the passenger seat of a Ford Mustang that was hit by a freight train. The impact either aggravated the same spot from the tackle or an area close to it. These two events created a weak spot in my back that acts up every now and then. In the decades following these two events, I've had a myriad of things aggravate the old injury. Lifting tool boxes, violent sneezes, slipping on ice, landing from a big jump, etc....
For the past week now I haven't been running or lifting weights. The up and down pounding of running was irritating the injury. I would feel fine, go for a run, then wake up the next morning with a stiff lower back. And I mean STIFF !!!! Then the following day the pain came. Grrrrrrrrrr.
The beginning of my injury coincided with the first major snow we've had in South Central Indiana this winter. It's a lot easier to miss runs when there is ice and snow all over the damn place. Instead of just laying around I have been working on flexibility. Stretching my hips and glutes seem to alleviate the pain in the spot. Turning my focus to stretching and yoga poses has been a habit I have been trying to get into. Recently at work, if there aren't any customers, I'll drop behind the counter into the pigeon pose. Doing this has helped the back pain. I hope to continue the habit after my back has healed.
I paid a visit to my chiropractor and he adjusted my spine. I felt like the injury had healed enough but a spinal manipulation would help relieve pressure off the area. One "pro" of visiting him is that he is always saying that I am "in tune" with my body. The manipulation helped. On the drive home I thought of how I felt like I have been constantly falling apart since mid-December. One "con" of being "in tune" with my body. Ugh.... One bright side is that I'm hoping that a nice side effect of this back injury is that my athletic pubalgia injury gets a huge opportunity to heal further.
So here I am on my day off. About three more inches of snow was dropped overnight. I hadn't planned on running or lifting weights today. I spent about an hour stretching and have been mostly resting. Doing nothing is kind of nice. I wouldn't want to make a habit of it.
Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
New Year.....Old injury
So I recovered from my first 50 mile race and went into recovery mode. It took several weeks for my right shin muscles to heal. When they did I attempted easy runs to get back in the habit of running. This lasted about half a run. I got a bug in my butt to attempt to run faster. I spent most of the last year just doing the grind of long distance running. I needed something different. Why not just go for shorter, faster runs? So this lasted a couple of weeks......and then....
Somewhere along the way I irritated my lower abdominal tissue where they attach to my pelvic bone. And by irritated I mean I created tiny little microscopic tears where the connection occurs. This is called a sports hernia, a hockey groin, or athletic pubalgia for you Latin fans out there. I always love how I get "non-running" running injuries. (I'm waiting for the day when I'm doing an overloaded Bulgarian deadlift and get a running injury !!!)
I had this injury two years ago but it was more severe. I couldn't run without severe pain happening. I spent several months doing physical therapy and taking prescription anti-inflammatory pills. I healed up, got better, and gradually built up my miles. The injury was some weird thing that happened because my core was weak. Physical therapy built that up and I started going to personal training at a local gym.
The sports hernia came back towards late December. I would go for runs and then hours later a soreness would creep in. Sometimes a dull ache. Other times a sharp pain. Sometimes a blend of the two. Not good. I waited a couple of weeks to see if it would clear up. Some runs would be fine....others the pain would come afterward. There wasn't any consistency to the symptoms...or so it seemed.
I noticed that faster runs where I pushed my speed were the times when the pain was more severe. Could trying to run faster be irritating my lower abdominal muscles? All evidence seemed to say so. This revelation sucked.
I went to my doctor. He said it was likely that going from the slogging pace of an ultra to more of a 5k pace could have caused weakness in the tissue resulting in the tears. He also said that as long as the pain wasn't present while running that I was on the mend. This meant I could keep running.
He prescribed anti-inflammatory pills and said to do my physical therapy exercises from the last time this happened. Three weeks passed and I had a check up. Some minor pains were present but overall he was pleased with my healing. He said to stop taking the pills on a daily basis and take them as needed.
For the last month I've been in a strange place with my running. I've been running less and concentrating more on my weight training and core work. I signed up for the Mountain Mist 50k way back when my training was going awesome before the OPSF 50 miler. I had to back out of that. Pretty much donated money to an Alabama running club. No biggie.
My legs, core, shoulders, and back have all gotten stronger from this shift from running less to strength training more. Sometimes my running has become more challenging because my quads were fatigued, and sometimes downright DOM'd, from that mornings squat workout or doing weighted sled drags. I slowly got more excited about going to the gym than going for a run.
I don't know why this has been happening. Maybe because I can measure my progress in the gym better. Weights are easy to gauge progress...This week I'm squatting 60 kilos.....two weeks later I'm doing 80 kilos. Progress !!! How do you measure progress in running? By speed? Oh, great. Trying to get faster fucks up my pelvis and causes pain. Hurm. Thanks a lot universe.
So for the past few weeks I've been trying to find a balance between strength training and running. I also have to squeeze in the physical therapy core exercises plus some more advanced ones that I've thrown in for the extra challenge. So my weekly mileage has suffered, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. My weight training has picked up...It's a good substitution. I keep trying to convince myself of that. I want to remain consistent with running and not all the 2014 work I put in just fade away. Who knows? We'll see what 2015 brings. It sure is off to a challenging start.
Somewhere along the way I irritated my lower abdominal tissue where they attach to my pelvic bone. And by irritated I mean I created tiny little microscopic tears where the connection occurs. This is called a sports hernia, a hockey groin, or athletic pubalgia for you Latin fans out there. I always love how I get "non-running" running injuries. (I'm waiting for the day when I'm doing an overloaded Bulgarian deadlift and get a running injury !!!)
I had this injury two years ago but it was more severe. I couldn't run without severe pain happening. I spent several months doing physical therapy and taking prescription anti-inflammatory pills. I healed up, got better, and gradually built up my miles. The injury was some weird thing that happened because my core was weak. Physical therapy built that up and I started going to personal training at a local gym.
The sports hernia came back towards late December. I would go for runs and then hours later a soreness would creep in. Sometimes a dull ache. Other times a sharp pain. Sometimes a blend of the two. Not good. I waited a couple of weeks to see if it would clear up. Some runs would be fine....others the pain would come afterward. There wasn't any consistency to the symptoms...or so it seemed.
I noticed that faster runs where I pushed my speed were the times when the pain was more severe. Could trying to run faster be irritating my lower abdominal muscles? All evidence seemed to say so. This revelation sucked.
I went to my doctor. He said it was likely that going from the slogging pace of an ultra to more of a 5k pace could have caused weakness in the tissue resulting in the tears. He also said that as long as the pain wasn't present while running that I was on the mend. This meant I could keep running.
He prescribed anti-inflammatory pills and said to do my physical therapy exercises from the last time this happened. Three weeks passed and I had a check up. Some minor pains were present but overall he was pleased with my healing. He said to stop taking the pills on a daily basis and take them as needed.
For the last month I've been in a strange place with my running. I've been running less and concentrating more on my weight training and core work. I signed up for the Mountain Mist 50k way back when my training was going awesome before the OPSF 50 miler. I had to back out of that. Pretty much donated money to an Alabama running club. No biggie.
My legs, core, shoulders, and back have all gotten stronger from this shift from running less to strength training more. Sometimes my running has become more challenging because my quads were fatigued, and sometimes downright DOM'd, from that mornings squat workout or doing weighted sled drags. I slowly got more excited about going to the gym than going for a run.
I don't know why this has been happening. Maybe because I can measure my progress in the gym better. Weights are easy to gauge progress...This week I'm squatting 60 kilos.....two weeks later I'm doing 80 kilos. Progress !!! How do you measure progress in running? By speed? Oh, great. Trying to get faster fucks up my pelvis and causes pain. Hurm. Thanks a lot universe.
So for the past few weeks I've been trying to find a balance between strength training and running. I also have to squeeze in the physical therapy core exercises plus some more advanced ones that I've thrown in for the extra challenge. So my weekly mileage has suffered, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. My weight training has picked up...It's a good substitution. I keep trying to convince myself of that. I want to remain consistent with running and not all the 2014 work I put in just fade away. Who knows? We'll see what 2015 brings. It sure is off to a challenging start.
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