Shoulder Update

I hurt my shoulder in early March in a hard ski fall - directly onto the shoulder while moving at a pretty good speed.

Four weeks ago, the doctor used X-rays and ultrasound and decided it looked like just a bad bruise to the rotator cuff - the supraspinatus muscle. He gave me a cortisone injection, and had me schedule a four-week follow-up, but he thought I'd cancel the appointment. The cortisone helped, but within days, the pain returned. I feel like I'd had a small improvement overall, but not a lot. For example, with a good warm-up, I'm able to crank out push-ups, which were almost impossible before. But, the pain is still there and it's been getting tougher to sleep at night due to pain.

Yesterday was my follow-up appointment - an appointment I'd never even considered cancelling.

After a discussion of symptoms and some strength tests, the doctor pulled out the ultrasound machine again. This time, the swelling was gone from the injured area, giving him a better look at the tendon. It looks like I have a partial tear to the tendon. He suggested a number of options for treatment. The most conservative was physical therapy alone. Next on the list was PT plus a series of Traumeel injections. Traumeel is a homeopathic treatment that can be used in various forms - pills, ointment or injections. Next was platelet rich plasma treatment, which I've had done on a torn hamstring tendon with a good level of success. PRP is not covered by my insurance and will cost about $1000, so I'll pursue other options first. Last was a referral to a surgeon, but the doctor didn't think a surgeon would even want to see me given the low level of the injury.

I opted for PT plus a Traumeel injection. Before he started the injection, the doctor asked me how I do with uncomfortable injections. Between a prior PRP treatment and a Synvisc One injection, this guy seems determined to cause me pain. He used ultrasound to guide the needle and did a series of injections that was quite uncomfortable. He told me my shoulder would be sore afterward and it certainly is. I'm also supposed to take it easy on the shoulder for a few days and I have some pain medication to help with the short-term soreness and to help me sleep.

After the appointment, I got out for a run with my wife and the dogs. I ran about 2.5 miles with them and then went out for another half hour alone, taking it pretty easy.

Today, I think I'll walk the dogs if the rain isn't too bad after work.

I'm planning to ski tomorrow, but I certainly don't want to fall on my shoulder.

Work You Weakness - Burpee Mania

I've been waiting for this workout ever since the last one. Here is what I saw on the board yesterday:

Work Your Weakness:

20 Minutes - every minute on the minute - pick two movements and do 1-5 reps of each ten times - ten sets of one and then ten sets of the other.

Then, 12 minutes as many reps as possible - pick two more movements and do as many of each as possible, alternating between the two.

I hate burpees. CrossFit burpees are worse than what I used to call a burpee, because they essentially incorporate a push-up:

I had been planning ever since the last work your weakness workout that I was going to use the first 20 minutes to do burpees - so a single movement, 5 reps, every minute on the minute - 100 burpees. The coach said that we were supposed to do two different movements, but I explained that I hate burpees, I need the practice, and it would be brutally hard. So, she said to go for it.

As expected, it seemed easy for a little bit. At first, I was doing five reps in 23-25 seconds, but then my time started to drift up. Near the end, it took me 38 seconds to do my reps (18th or 19th set, I think), but I made it through.

Then, as I was gasping on the floor, I remembered that I had to set up for the second half of the workout. For the second half, I alternated 4 Turkish Get-Ups with 10 Abmat sit-ups. I don't know that the sit-ups are a true weakness, but I don't do them that often, and they paired well with the get-ups.

This was one of the toughest CrossFit workouts I've ever done, in terms of just being gassed. I'm not sore today in any way, just tired. Very tired.

Today, I have a follow-up appointment with the orthopedist about my shoulder. It's been 8 weeks now since the hard ski fall that caused the injury, and it's still bothering me. Four weeks ago, I got a cortisone shot and it seemed to help, but the shoulder has gradually gotten worse over the last two weeks. It's still better than a month ago (I couldn't do push-ups or burpees properly a month ago), but not right.

After the appointment, if the weather allows, I'll do a nice easy run for an hour or so, maybe with one or both of the dogs.

Low Carb Blues/Flu

I try to eat a fairly Paleo/Primal diet. But, I have my weaknesses that don't fit into these eating modes, three of them in particular:

High quality bread

Potatoes, especially mashed potatoes

Beer

Recently, I've stopped drinking all alcohol, so the beer hasn't been a problem. But, there has still been bread and potatoes. Amazingly, ice cream isn't a problem. I like it, but I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I do eat some dark chocolate on occasion, but controlling how much chocolate I eat is not a problem. Desserts are a take it or leave thing for me. In a nice restaurant, I'd rather finish a nice meal with a cheese course and some Port than a sweet dessert. Of course, the Port has sugar in it, and any bread or crackers with the cheese have carbs as well. And cheese is OK for some people under the Primal umbrella, but not for the Paleo types.

So, now that my brother challenged me to lose some weight with him, I simply stopped eating bread and potatoes. Many low-carb eaters have a rough transition when eliminating carbohydrates, and it's often called the low carb flu. It tends to last a week or two, depending on how many carbs you were eating and how hard you try to exercise.

Last night at CrossFit, I just felt lethargic. We started with some mobility work and then some medball work. After that, ten minutes of rope jumping, which went pretty well. I can't do double-unders yet, but I'm working on doing streaks - trying to be consistent enough to do 100 reps without screwing up. Last night, I did that a couple times in 10 minutes of work.

Then some bar hangs with knees up or in an "L" position to stress the ab. And then the main WOD was as follows:

7 minutes, as many reps as possible

3 thrusters

3 pull-ups

6 thrusters

6 pull-ups

9 thrusters

9 pull-ups

....

I think the pattern is pretty obvious there. I thought I would get pretty far through the round of 15, given my weight of 65 pounds for thrusters and band-assisted pull-ups. As it turned out, I felt exhausted and only got through the round of 12, and never even started the round of 15. I think I had the lowest rep total in the class.

Within a week, I'm sure I'll be feeling better and I'll be able to exercise better on low carbs, which will hopefully get the fat burning going.

When I start bike commuting next week, this is how I hope my typical weekday will go:

5:00 a.m. - wake up, cup of coffee

5:30 - 3 mile walk or run

6:30 - breakfast, shower

7:00 - On my bike for the half hour ride to work

8:00 - Ready to work

5:00 - Leave work by bike to go to CrossFit - about 5 miles

5:45-7:00 - CrossFit

7:15-7:45 - Easy bike ride to my rented room.

8:00 - Shower, dinner, sleep

Repeat.

On the weekends, I hope to do longer runs with my wife, and then start hiking in the mountains once the trails are clear.

But, plans mean nothing without fastidious execution.

Sibling Rivalry

Yesterday, I was talking to my brother by e-mail. We both started lifting about the same time, and our progress has been very different. At first, he had me killed in the bench press and the squat, and I had him in the deadlift. Then, I finally caught him in the squat, but he made progress in the deadlift while I stagnated there. He referred to my new deadlift PR of 365 pounds as "a ton, well, not literally".

He told me that with the nicer weather, he's been getting out to walk for a few miles most evenings. He ran cross country years ago and just doesn't enjoy running any more. His real love is tennis, but a chronic injury has him at a point where he needs risky surgery to even have a chance of playing tennis regularly again. So, he lifts, walks, and does some other training in the gym. He's been playing around with Intermittent Fasting (IF).

I ski, run sometimes, lift, do CrossFit, cycle some, etc.

Both of us try to eat a Paleo/Primal diet, but we both love things that don't mix well with those diets. It's simply a never ending struggle.

When I see pictures of myself at my lowest adult weight, 165 pounds in the summer of 1987, I can't believe how skinny I was. And yet, I remember thinking even then that I was fat.

Yesterday, I was complaining to my brother that my weight has been steady for a year, but basically near my lifetime high weight. He had dropped from over 250 pounds to 205, eating Primal/Paleo, but over the winter, gained ten pounds back.

We're both unhappy with where we are. My brother told me yesterday in an e-mail "You're a competitive person. How about a little contest to lose some weight?" I thought it sounded like a great idea. And then, he suggested we each target 40 pounds (I am 40 pounds from where I'd like to be and he is as well). That's a lot of weight - not a short-term contest.

Can we stay focused? Will one of us bail? Both of us? How long will it take? The first ten pounds are easy. The second ten, not too bad. It always goes like that. And then, a plateau, frustration, and a vat of ice cream or a keg of beer.

My ultrarunning buddy Joe was giving me grief last week over my "weight obsession". For people who've never been overweight, I honestly think they have no idea what it is like to be constantly fighting that battle. It's a burden that never goes away, and it tortures you. "This time, I'm going to lose the weight." "I'm going to keep it off." "I'm going to get fit." "I'm going to look OK in a swimming suit/naked/whatever." But, it never works out. Yeah, there are brief victories. My sub-3 hour marathon at 168 pounds in 1995 was pretty sweet after six months of obsessing for one race. In the next year, I gained forty pounds and gave up all that fitness.

My Wasatch finish in 2003 and Hardrock in 2004 were pretty sweet, but the next summer, I got complacent and went to Western States weighing way too much. I missed the time cut-off with 6.7 miles to the go to the finish line.

Today, I don't even care about race times that much. I am just sick and tired of never being satisfied with my body composition. Yet, at the same time, I'm skeptical that I can win. I wish that wasn't true, but I'm being honest. I've been fighting this battle for almost 40 years. I'm tired of the fight. I understand why people would kill for a pill that would solve this never-ending problem.

But, I'm not conceding anything to my little brother. He is a great guy, and maybe we can somehow cajole each other to some significant improvements.

It can't hurt to focus my efforts one more time. Well, it can hurt if I fail, but for today, I'm not going to worry about that.

My workout last night was just over 40 minutes of running, with ten repeats of 60 seconds each. Tonight will be CrossFit.

And, by the way, if anyone who reads this feels like telling me to simply move more and eat less, or that it's simply calories in and calories out, I'll delete your comment. The only people who make those comments, in my experience, are people who have never been overweight and don't know the realities of trying to lose weight and sustain the loss.

Friday Deadlift PR!

CrossFit on Friday was a lot more than deadlifts. But, the highlight of my workout was a single deadlift rep.

We started with our normal mobility work. Then the strength work was as follows:

Deadlifts - sets of 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 - all heavy

Strict Press 5, 5, 5, burnout

For the deadlifts, I started my working sets at 225 x 10, the 245 x 8, then 275 x 6, and 295 x 4. Next, my plan was 315 x 2. But, just a week or two ago, I did 335 x 5 and it felt good. I felt that day that a PR was in the future for me. My current PR was 355. So, rather than racking 315, I put 365 pounds on the bar to try for a PR.

I got the bar off the ground by 2 inches or so and I just locked up. I had already done the 2 hardest inches of the lift, but I couldn't go any further. Oh well, another day, when I didn't already have 28 lifts of 200+ pounds in the past 15 minutes. But, the coach had another idea. He suggested I take off my shoes, which would reduce the distance I had to pull the bar by 1/2" or so. Why not, I thought.

Normally, when I'm doing deadlifts close to my max, I do them with some trepidation, because there is so much tension in my body, that I'm waiting for something to pop or explode. But, my second attempt at 365 was nothing like that. Basically, it was a slow motion version of a normal deadlift. My form was as good as it gets. I got the bar off the ground and it almost stopped where I'd stopped on the previous attempt. But, I kept moving. I was barely aware that everyone else in the gym was watching me go for this PR attempt. The bar kept moving, ever so slowly. As it passed my knees, I knew I had it, and I just kept going. When I got to the top of the lift, I made sure to hold the bar for a couple seconds and be in a fully upright and locked position. I didn't want there to be any doubt that I'd finished the lift. It had been 17 months since I'd done my 355 lift and this was my first rep over 335 this year. I was thrilled.

The rest of the workout was irrelevant, although it did involved some torture with sand-filled mini-med balls and squat snatches.

On Saturday, I wasn't sore so much as deeply tired. I had some shopping to do for Easter dinner for my wife's family, and some other stuff to do, and a run never happened.

My wife and I did get out for a nice relaxing run with one of the dogs on Sunday afternoon. Both dogs wanted to run, but our younger male just got neutered and he's wearing one of those silly lampshade/cone sort of things, so we didn't let him run.

Today, I'm planning a fartlek run after work.

Six months of CrossFit

I was looking at my workout logs this morning and realized that it's been six months since I started doing CrossFit. That seemed like a good time to take an assessment of what I think so far. Is it helping me to get fitter? Leaner? Am I having fun? Is it a good value? Does it fit in with the rest of my life? Should I keep doing it or is just another passing phase?

One thing that disappointed me is that I've averaged only two CrossFit workouts per week for six months. So, in some respects, I don't have enough data points to know the full potential benefits (or risks) of CrossFit. I have been to the gym another 17 days for lifting on my own in those six months, so I've been to the gym about 70 times in six months. I also skied almost 50 days in those six months, plus I've gone for a run on occasion.

Here are my CF workouts by month since the first of the year:

January - 7

February - 1

March -7

April - 9

February included a lot of skiing, a week of vacation, and a lot of stress at work, especially early in the month. To be honest, I didn't feel like going to the gym much of that month, but that is in the past now.

So, what were those questions?

Is it helping me to get fitter?

I think the answer to this has been a definitive yes, when I go. In the past six weeks, I've noticed some significant improvements in both strength and working at my limits (anaerobic threshold, lactic threshold, whatever you want to call it). On Tuesday night this week, as I finished my workout and I was holding onto a door and trying to catch my breath, I realized that this same effort would have had me throwing up a month or two ago. Last night's workout was the same way - lots of burpees which tend to completely gas me, and I got through the workout pretty well.

Leaner?

I haven't stepped on the scale for a while. And, I did fail miserably at the Paleo challenge at the gym. I started out OK in the challenge, and then as work got more intense and I took some vacation time, my diet fell apart and I was drinking alcohol on a regular basis. But, since early March, I have virtually stopped drinking alcohol and my diet is better as well. I'm going to the gym more often and I've started running a bit again. And, I'm getting leaner. I'm hearing that from people at the gym and I can tell by the way my clothes fit. I'll probably never be as lean as I'd like, but CrossFit is helping. I still think that body composition is about 80% diet and 20% exercise, but CrossFit is helping me to think more about what I put into my body.

Am I having fun?

This is a good question. In February, I would have said no. My motivation to go to the gym was pretty much zero, yet I felt pressured by the ongoing Paleo challenge. But, in the past six weeks, my attitude has turned around a lot. I think it's become a snowball effect. I started to go to the gym more, which improved my fitness, making the workouts more fun, which makes me want to go to the gym more. I think the nine days so far this month (#10 tonight) is a good indicator that I've turned some kind of corner.

Is it a good value?

From an equipment perspective, it's cheaper than running. I use an old pair of racing flats for footwear and my warm-weather running clothes. That's it. I was one of the early members of the gym, so I pay less than the newer members of the gym pay. In February, it was not a good value. But overall, I think it is a good value.

Does it fit in with the rest of my life?

This one is a little bit tougher. There are no showers at the gym and I have no shower at work. That means I can't really go there for morning workouts. And, the gym is near my office, which means it is 60+ miles from my home. I can only train there on days when I work in my office. And, the classes late in the day are at 4:30, which means leaving work early, or 5:45, which means getting home at 8:00 at night. So, there is definitely some inconvenience. But then again, my job is inconvenient too and I still go to work.

And, in a couple months, the CF gym is moving to a new location that will include showers. This will be a big boost for me.

I think the no-car experiment for the next few months will give me more feedback. I will be spending less time with my family for a while, but I'll be at the gym more, cycling more and probably running more as well. By getting rid of commuting time almost entirely, going to the gym will fit in much better with my life. I still have to see what effect being gone from home midweek will have on my life.

Should I keep doing it or is just another passing phase?

Well, I just committed to a 3-month experiment that makes going to CrossFit much more convenient. I will have the time to be at the gym. I'll have more time for working out overall.

I will certainly stick with it for those three months. At the end of July, it will be time to re-assess my commute, the workouts I'm doing, and how my entire life is scheduled, I suppose.

But, right now, I'm enjoying the progress I'm making, I'm enjoying the encouragement of working out in a group and with coaches, and I'm looking forward to going to the gym on a regular basis.

Tuesday and Wednesday Workouts plus Bike Commuting

Tuesday at CrossFit:

5 rounds - 90 seconds rest between sets:
These movements must be unbroken
10 Clapping Push-ups
10 Box Jumps 36/30
10 Medball Slams 20/14

5 rounds AQAP:
7 Deadlifts 315/205
21 Double-unders

This was a bit of a change. Rather than doing mobility, followed by strength, followed by the main workout, we did two "mini" workouts back to back.

For the first one, I was still babying my shoulder, so I did the first two rounds as knee push-ups and the last three as regular push-ups. For the box jumps, I can jump 24", but not without resting in a set of 10, so I did 18" instead. And, I did 14# medballs. I don't know if that corresponded to any level, but it's what made sense for me.

In the second workout, I tried to start with 275 pound deadlifts, but halfway through the second set, I knew it was too much weight, and dropped to 225 pounds. Because I can't do double unders (yet - I will get there), I was supposed to do 21 single unders and 7 high knee jumps. It was a fast, intense workout and left me gasping for breath. As I was recovering at the end of the workout, I was thinking that just a few weeks ago, I probably would have thrown up if I'd pushed that hard. I am adapting to the intensity of these workouts.

Yesterday, I took the day off work, but still made it to CrossFit at lunchtime. It seemed like half of our normal 5:45 class was there, which had me wondering if lots of people are working out twice a day. I doubt it, but I know some people do that, at least some of the time.

Last night's workout was more traditional:

Mobility

Front Squats - 8-5-3-1

Strict Press - 8-5-3-1

On the last set, which was supposed to be a single heavy rep, we were encouraged to push to failure. I managed to get three front squats rather than one, and on the strict presses, I set a PR at 115, and then did two more as push presses.

The main workout for me was as follows:

As many reps as possible in 12 minutes:

6 Knee-ups on the pull-up bar

6/side weighted lunges - 18# kettlebells in each hand

6 jumping pull-ups

This workout was based on your "best" ab movement while hanging on the bar. Some people can take their toes to the bar. Not me. Some can take knees to armpits. Not me. I can do a knee raise, so my knees are parallel in front of me, but that's it. I got through 8 rounds plus 6 reps. I felt like I should have pushed harder - maybe more weight for the lunges.

So, yes, my life remains something like sleep, commute, work, work out, commute, eat dinner, relax (read or TV), repeat.

In just over a week, I'm going to mostly eliminate the commute. I spend too much time each week commuting. I spend way too much on auto costs for the commute. So, I'm going to rent a room somewhat close to where I work and where I work out, and stay there midweek for a few months. I'll ride the commuter bus to the office on Monday mornings, get around by bike until Friday afternoon, staying in my rented room at night, and then ride the commuter bus home on Friday evenings. It will mean less time at home, but my wife and I have decided to give it a shot to save some money, save some time, and see how it goes. I'm guessing that this will help me to improve my fitness, work the hours I need to work, and drop some weight.

Hopefully, my wife will find life easier if I'm doing my own laundry and not making the kitchen dirty all week. She should have more time for exercise as well.

We are both on a 100 on 100 team in August and we are each thinking of a road race in the Mad River Valley in early July. I'm leaning towards the Mad Marathon and my wife is thinking of doing the half marathon.

Time to start training, I guess.

Hopefully, the modified commuting schedule and some weekend runs together will get us ready for these races.