End of September

A quick update…

I’ve been receiving twice-weekly acupuncture treatment on my Achilles tendons.  It’s hard to say how much actual good it’s doing beyond resting  and stretching them.  Still they are healing and I feel confident I can begin running again next Monday.  I am promising myself to be cautious about sprinting for awhile and will resist the urge until I feel absolutely certain I can sprint and not risk quick injury.

Over the past few weeks I have been focusing on the discus and have found a bible in a paper written in 2002 by Dan John, “The Contrarian Approach to Discus”.  If you are interested you can download it here.  He breaks the complexity of the event down to simple steps stressing technique (and overhead squats!).  It reminds me a bit of the “think system” developed by Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man… Mr. John is NOT an advocate of throwing the discus when you are first learning.  It’s all about footwork and stature – Holding the Stretch – across the circle.  You end up working on squats, turning without using your hips, walking an inverted “7”  and twisting on your feet. You throw a powerball into a wall over and over again.  You throw a tire from overhead over and over again.

Additionally I am learning to do the Olympic lifts.  These are stressed by Mr. John as well as many other track coaches and athletes I have been reading – not only for throwing events but for sprinting and jumping events.  The reason I am learning now at age 53 is that when I was being coached in sports, lifting was just becoming accepted as a good thing (you know that old fear of becoming “muscle bound”).  But instead of lifting free weights we were put on the brand spanking new shiny Universal machine – not much chance of getting in any deadlifts, squats, cleans or snatches on that!

Even with years and years of lifting for baseball I never learned the Olympic lifts.  I need a little real-life coaching.  One of the young dad’s from my daughter’s soccer team was a football player.  He was demonstrating the lifts to me between games last weekend.  His form looked impeccable to my eye and so I might try to get together with him for a lesson.

So, after 2 months of solid workouts I am down nearly 10 pounds and much more toned.  Aside from the Achilles and a recent strain in my left forearm I’ve been injury free.  I quit drinking alcohol 3 weeks ago and am way better for it.  Sleeping has been much better and my sex life is even livelier!  I’ve cleaned up my diet a lot and have begun eating more small meals rather than the big 3.  But I find that after a especially hard workout I am pretty much wiped out for the day.  I haven’t learned my limits yet (as my Achilles injuries attest to) and overtraining is  more common than it should be.   Hopefully I will have less exhaustion as I get in better and better shape and learn the limits of my aging body.

Acupuncturing the Achilles

A week ago I strained my left achilles tendon while doing 200 meter sprints.  This is an old, recurring injury for me that began a few years ago on the baseball field and caused me to miss a number of games over the course of two seasons.  It also cost a small fortune in rehab bills.

All of the initial strains happened in the same way:  playing against the San Quentin convict team.

We’d get to the prison at 4 pm for a 5-ish game which was pushing it for nearly everyone of us with a job.  There were three checkpoints you had to clear to get into the prison yard – and you had to come in as a group, no stragglers allowed.  At each checkpoint you were carefully ID’d and you and your gear painstakingly searched before passing on to the next check point.  12 guys with baseball gear and the lousy d-base systems in the Cal prison system and it would take FOREVER to get in.  When we finally did get on the field the convicts had been warming up for an hour and were rarin’ to go.  You’d have about 10 minutes to warm up which had to be dedicated to the all-valuable throwing arm, then as soon as you’d hit your first ground ball or gapper – OINK! – goes the achilles.  Never a full rupture, thank God, but really really sore and of course you’d grind out the game until the sun set then straggle (as a group) out of the prison and to the Right Spot in Richmond Point.   When you’d get off your bar stool an hour later you were crippled. At least that’s how it went for me.

My physical therapist was really good.  The ultra sound and his exercises worked and eventually I’d get back to playing again.  Usually about 2 weeks after the injury, if I were smart, did my exercises and didn’t push it.  But re-injury was always in the back of my mind and it happened again and it was worse than the first time and INJURY IS A DRAG.

So the flair up last week – years later – has me very bummed but determined to fix this once and for all.   I am doing those stretching and strengthening exercises I was given by the therapist but today I decided to visit my acupuncturist and have treatment done on the tendon.

I had been seeing him for my neck and left shoulder but the treatments have worked (!) and I am pain free there (15 years of neck pain basically gone!!!). We discussed the tendon and the nature of the injury and history all that and got the needles working.  I was looking forward to avoiding the pain that sometimes would be associated with the shoulder/neck treatment.  Calves and ankles, I thought, this can’t hurt.

Wrong.  It did. Not good pain either.

But it did subside and afterward I was given an herbal balm to apply.  Smells funny but feels good.  I go back on Friday. We’ll see how it goes.  I know rest is necessary and the exercises will definitely help.  I’m hoping these pins and needles unblock whatever bad shit is happening down there and get the ankle chi flowing!  Make me fast! and painfree…

Who Is That Coach?

High school class was on the field today. The teacher was showing the kids proper running form, most of it sitting down.   I wanted to join in and did for a minute from a distance but became too self-conscious.  The drill was pretty goofy looking andI didn’t want teenagers thinking I was square.   I could see them thinking, “we have to do this but that old man?! what a square!” (Kids still use that word “square”, right? 🙂 )

I’ve seen this coach before, many times actually from working out on the track last year.  He is really a “typical” sort of gym coach yelling things like, “if you don’t get those arms at 90 degree angles I can break them into position for you, you better believe it.”  He did say this, and it sounds cruel but it was obvious he was joking and his actual attention and concern for his students is commendable.  I don’t mean to suggest any wrong doing at all on his part, only that he behave like most of the coaches I’ve ever had.

When the class ended, my session also ended and I drifted over to them as they were leaving the field in hopes of speaking to the coach and asking if he is the track coach – he certainly seems to know something about running – and if he is what we might arrange for him to give me some one-on-one instruction and/or perhaps seeing if I can work out with the track team in the spring season.  He pulled one of his students to the side to discuss her hamstring injury (not injured in class, mind you) and so I didn’t speak with him.

But I will.  I need some coaching and if he can’t or won’t help me, I’ll bet he knows someone who can.