Update

Sorry that I have been silent for the past few weeks. If I was doing something, I would be posting but I’m not so I didn’t. I’m going to be starting up training again so I figured it would be best to explain what has been going on as of late.

I did something to either my back or hip at on the first event of the June 8th contest and it was painful enough that I scheduled to meet with my chiropractor Monday of that week. He said that the SI joint was just “locked” and wouldn’t adjust. He had to use a special table that used my own weight to help with the adjustment. The discomfort wasn’t going away fast enough and I knew going too many days with 12 ibuprofen tabs was not healthy.

The tipping point was when my left glute, hamstring and erector just spasmmed while I was helping move equipment around for my sister for her event training. The earliest I could see an orthopedic doctor was the end of the month so I went to clinic in the meantime to get x-rays and some kind of diagnosis. They thought it was my lower back muscles and prescribed me a 12 day taper of anti-inflammory steroids. Messed with my adrenal system a bit as I was very anxious and felt like I had to keep moving around. It seemed to help though as the pain was greatly diminished and the chiropractor was finally able to adjust my hips and back without the gravity table.

I was somewhat worried about what the orthopedic doctor would say as the last time the doctor just touched my leg and told me I had ruptured the tendon. Day started off wrong when the x-rays weren’t mine on the disc the clinic gave me. Didn’t seem to matter though with the doctor’s assessment. She was very professional and listened/addressed all my concerns. She thought it was lower back as well and that I may need PT for like three weeks at the most and was hopeful that I wouldn’t even need to come back for the follow-up appointment the following month. She only really wanted me to go to PT to make sure it wasn’t a bulged disc (unlikely) because I was getting hip pain and some twitching in my glute and hamstring on that side. The prescribed me a tiny dose of muscle relaxers to go with the steroids. The only thing I had done during this time was going for walks.

The physical therapy stuff however is a different story.  The first session was just me filling out forms, touching my toes and talking a lot about myself. I glanced at her clipboard and noticed that she had put me down for 8 weeks of PT. I’m already thinking screw that on top of feeling like I wasted a session. I asked if I can do any upper body stuff and she said no, that she wanted to control what I put back in to my training. I left frustrated and waited until the following week’s session. I did stuff this time, but it is all stuff I could do at home. Had three sessions this week and each time I asked if I could have any kind of time frame where I can start putting in upper body stuff. I was getting frustrated and feeling soft. Working out is huge part of my life, something that keeps me going.

Two things happened with today’s session that made me decide to stop the PT and do my own thing. The first was that I felt like I was being dragged along. I used this place when I did in my hamstring 2.5 years ago and they saw me once to show me the exercises and scheduled a follow-up the following week. Two sessions total that I had to pay for during my entire hamstring recovery. This time, I’ve had to go for all the sessions to the clinic with no real updates. I tell them I’m feeling better but I’m not sure if it is the stretches (which I already do on my own when I’m healthy) or extended time off I have been taking to rest. I asked Wednesday if I could discuss possibly adding stuff back to my routine and she said we can see Thursday. Thursday came and by the end of the session, they were telling me my session was over and trying to have me go out the door. After being told by the PT’s assistant that “she doesn’t need to talk to you today” I was getting a bit frustrated. I did end up talking to her and she essentially told me that she doesn’t know how I can integrate back to normal training and that a strength coach is needed.

That brings me to the second thing; the strength coach. This whole time, she has been trying to sell me on a local strength coach. I had told her that I had already dealt with three strength coaches and that while I appreciated that work and services they did for me, they ultimately didn’t work out as the was the distance issue and I was either having too much work or too little work. She said she trusts this guy and wanted to hook me up with him since he has strongman training. I finally got the contact information today and I thought I had heard about this guy before (not in a positive way). And I right as this was the guy who had been taking down Jenkins’ posters, disparaging his training methods and facility as well as attempting to steal his high school athlete clients. With that, I said I’m done. If I need the follow up with the ortho, I’ll do that but I’m done with the PT.

So where does that leave me now? I haven’t just been sitting on my duff and moping. Been doing a lot of reading about training, listening to interviews about training and messing with my routines. But I got to build myself back up for training. Going to be doing high rep stuff to work on the hips, abs and lower back for stability for the next few days and will do so on my off days from the gym. Going to do at least 2 weeks to at low percentages to get back into it as well. 60% one week, 70% for the second and possibly another week at 80%. After I get back to doing my gym work, I’ll bring back in events the same way. Might aim for a contest around mid-October but got to see how my body handles this.