Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff - Monday Edition

So I didn't log my training this weekend because well, it was the most frustrating weekend of training in a very long time.

Saturday I tried to pull.  I was excited about pulling Friday, and was pretty pumped to take a run at 550x10 on deads.  I figured 8 was in the cards, but maybe I'd have a +10% day, and eek out the 10.

So I woke up Saturday, ear hurting, drainage, feeling like shit.  Great.  I tried to do my pause squats, but my quad pain has been coming and going a lot, and I can never tell on any day if it's going to feel good...or not so good.  So it felt really fucking awful Saturday on pause squats.  I literally couldn't get past 315.  Not only because of the quad but because the weekend before, I blew out my calf (on the right leg, same leg the quad hurts on...more on that).

So I start squatting, and the calf is definitely not 100%.  More like about 63.7%.  Everytime I would get into the hole, it felt....weird.  Like I was turning an ankle.  The strangest feeling ever.  It hurt like a bitch.  Nevertheless, I did 10 sets of 3 with 315, trying to make up for lack of weight with some volume.

So I went to pulls, and I knew this would not be good.  Because the deadlift is not my friend anyway.  On this day, she was in full PMS, cut my balls off mode.  My leg and calf weren't too happy with pulls either, and there's nothing worse than to be thinking too much during big movements and not being able to explode properly.  So I shut it down after a few warm ups, and kicked the fucking bar in frustration.

I sat on the floor, and contemplated what to do.

"Just train tomorrow." I thought.

So I wiped off the grimace, went and took some pain meds and went about my day.

Woke up Sunday, feeling bad still.  Ear still hurting, drainage, and some fever.  Kids all feeling like shit too.  Awesome.

I went and did a half hour weighed vest walk.  I figured maybe just getting the juices flowing would help a bit.  And it did for a while, but as the day wore on, the more fatigued I grew and I ended up in bed napping for a bit.

Still determined to push through, I thought I would mix it up, and start off with some front squats.  Not heavy, just light.  Some sets of 20.

barx20 - ok
135x20 - good
185x20 - ok not bad
225x20 - feeling ok
275x5 - what the fuck was that that just popped in my left quad?

I have no idea.  I thought it was a cramp, or spasm.  But apparently, I pulled something in my LEFT quad.

None of this surprises me.  I've been feeling myself shift around a lot in my squats because I'm still not confident in my right leg, because I'm always "feeling" for pain in it.  And guess what?  It's there!

So now, my left hip/vastus lateralus is strained.  So I have (I'm pretty sure), extreme inflammation in my right rectus femoris tendon, and because it's not 100%, my right calf gave way last week while squatting.  Because I was still trying to "hide" my right calf and quad, I then proceeded to strain my left hip flexor.

This is just some beautiful work.

So both legs, and 1 calf are now not in good shape.  Zero fucks given.

I knew I couldn't pull from the floor because of the calf and shit, so I went from the blocks.  I worked up to 635, which was way too much of a grinder, because again, I was "feeling" for shit to be off.

After that I shut it down, limped out of the rape cave and sat on the couch.

"What to do?" I thought.

Both legs are fucked now, and so is my right calf.  I am supposed to do a meet in a month, and there's no way I will be able to squat or really pull for a few weeks.

Part of me wants to see what happens, and part of me wants to just shut it down.  I only plan on about 1 meet a year because it's a big commitment for me to take off of work, travel with the family, and do all the things I need to do in order to relax to compete.

I have a doctors appt this week, to see if I can get a cort shot in the right hip flexor.  If that helps, I might stay on track.  If the doc says I need time off (that seems to be the biggest help with this particular injury) then I may shut it down, and just do the Spring meet with Pegg.  I don't know....I'm about as frustrated as I can remember being with training in a very long time.  Which is weird because the first week of meet training was the best first week I can ever remember having.

I know all the right answers.  Take the time off, let it heal up, rehab it properly, then do what I need to do.  But I'm still pissed about missing that meet in Spring of this year, and very frustrated with not being able to compete.  Add to the fact that I can't train like I want to and I feel like setting homeless people on fire.

Not throwing in the towel, just venting my frustration.

And speaking of injuries.........

Injuries - 

I probably get...20 injury questions a week.  My first question is always "did you get SLL?"  I ask this because I wrote everything I know about rehabbing injuries in that chapter.  It's not a sales pitch.  However I won't lie, I'm quite fucking annoyed at this point.

I had 17 injury questions in the last week.  SEVENTEEN.

Some of those people had bought SLL and their injury was not covered in it, all I had to was say "page 129".  For the ones that had not, I write shit so you can read it.  So buy the book, or don't, but spend that  money at the doctors office.

Not only that, as Jamie and I both discussed, we are not doctors.  I'm going to the doctor to see about my hip this week.  I'm not messaging some other guy that lifts weights about it.

I get something in the range of 100-200 questions per week, and I do my best to answer them all.  However I spent almost a year on SLL, for the purpose that if you had a question, that book probably had the answer.  Yet I still get questions on shit that is in that book.

Another strong-15 testimonial - 

Sent in from Daevid......

9 for 9 with 4 PR's.

You can read the whole thing here 

That's it for today.  I'm working on trying to figure out a plan of action to rehab and stay in this fucking meet.