Hip update (the saga continues...)

I hate my hip muscles. So I saw Olga, the massage therapist, on a weekly basis for about a month. I've responded very well to her treatments, but I could tell there was stuff going on. She asked if I was seeing the DO, and I then realized I hadn't seen Dr. Craddock in a very long time. So I made an appointment with Dr. Craddock, the DO, for last week. Seeing him was a good idea, because he found my pelvis to be all kinds of screwed up. He worked on my lower back and shoulder as well, and I felt so much better leaving the office.

However, the day following his treatment it felt like things were.... off. I was sitting at work and without thinking I stretched, flexing my glutes. This resulted in a very loud, heavy, "Thunk, thunk, thunk" sound emanating from my lower back and hips. Although I felt much better, I worried that I had just undone Dr. Craddock's treatment, and the feeling that something was off increased.

After some phone tag, I finally talked to him and he recommended another session on Thursday. So I saw him yesterday, and he commented that my tailbone and hips were definitely not in the right place, but they were very out of whack in a very different way. This is actually a good thing, as it means Dr. Craddock's earlier treatment worked on one thing, but left an underlying issue unresolved, which he would now treat.

So today is the day after the second treatment, and I feel something is still amiss. I feel like one of my muscles is tight from the the adjustment, and that is causing pain, and I think I know just which muscle (or at least which group) it is: my hip adductors.

It's a bit of a story (it always is), but I think I know why these little, but very important, muscles are giving me fits.

Back in Dec-Jan, I was seeing Dr. Bills and Olga for my hip. Dr. Bills found a lot of issues with my adductors, found they were very tight. I told Olga this, and she paid some attention to them, but at some point I mentioned how Dr. Bills was working on them, and so it seems that she stopped working on them (I guess they are rather uncomfortable to work on) and let him do it. I saw them, and then saw Dr. Craddock as well, and then I was pain free and it was awesome.

So I was pain free for like six weeks, and I thought myself cured. Honestly I don't know if I saw Olga in the time but then the pain started to return. I didn't take care of myself, and so the pain had returned. I started seeing Olga with more frequency, but there was specific pain in my hip, and it def felt like the hip adductors. By the second or third treatement, I told Olga about the pain and she apologized, saying that she thought I was still seeing Dr. Bills and had left that area alone. She started working on it and it felt much better. However, something was still off and so I decided to see Dr. Craddock (this is where the first paragraph takes place).

My point is I now know what tight adductors feel like, and that's what I currently have. This also tells me that Dr. Craddock's treatment is slightly incomplete (although it was awesome on my lower back and shoulder) on my hip.

There was a time earlier this year that I saw Dr. Craddock followed by Olga later in the day. The schedule was actually unintentional, but I think it was what really put me on the right track. I have another appointment with Dr. Craddock three weeks from now, I'll see if I can schedule an appointment with Olga then.

In the mean time, I'm doing a lot of self massage with a tennis ball on my adductors, hoping this will help.

It seems I happened upon some magical combination of treatments earlier this year, and it's been a process to figure out what that combination was. It seems that Dr. Bills treatment was helpful at the time, but is no longer needed (I hope), and now it's just some combination of Dr. Craddock and Olga.

God I hope that I can figure this out, because although I've lived with this pain for years now, the fact that I KNOW it doesn't have to be this way is driving me crazy.

Had my physical

So it was time for the yearly physical, and I was happy with the results starting with the ok and moving up to the unbelievable:

My cholesterol is ok, the total is 180, with the HDL being 55, triglycerides at 63, and LDL at 112. It's ok, but I'm not happy with it. I think I need to do something to my diet for this one, but I'm not sure what.

My vision is waaay better then I thought it was. I thought the years of being a desk jockey would render me at least slightly near-sighted, but in fact I have better then perfect vision: 20/13

To be honest I'm a bit floored by this, but it also makes me think of that commercial where the man proudly says, "I have special eyes."

My blood pressure is now in a good place: 117 over 74. This is great because it was much higher at this point in time last year. I'm so glad I'm no longer on Concerta.

I now have proof that I am in fact an athlete. My resting hear rate was measured at 44bpm. That. Is. Ridiculous. My heart rate is usually in the upper 50's, but you don't get a heart rate in the low 40's without pushing yourself. And it's amazing given the short workouts we do in crossfit. This also explains why after a workout I don't feel that winded, I just feel weak. Time for my muscles to catch up with my cardio system.

So now I know I have the eyes of a hawk and the heart of an athlete. This really does make me see myself in a new light. I'm getting closer and closer to where I want to be. I can taste it, and it tastes good.

Strict press 5 rep max

So it appears my shoulders have gotten weaker. I've been having some issues with my left shoulder, always finding it out of socket and whatnot. The shoulder likes to roll out of socket because I have a weak supraspinatus, so I've been doing supraspinatus exercises throughout the day, but it hasn't made any noticeable difference yet. Anyways, because there seems to be something off with my shoulder it's been hard to push it, and so I think it's gotten weaker.

I've always been aware of my weakness in overhead press, one reason why when Jerry asked us to make goals for the year I listed one handstand pushup. Well, it seems that I'm not the only one so Jerry's starting us on a strength cycle for shoulder strength. I'm pretty excited.

Monday we found our 5 rep strict press max, then rep out at 80%.

Back in November my max was 120, so I wanted today to be 125. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, I only got up to 110. The ten pound decrease was a little disheartening, but my shoulders just didn't feel that strong today. The record for the rep out set was 16, so I made it my goal to get 17. I rested a few times near the end, but 85# was light enough that I got 17. Honestly I think I might've had one more in me, but mentally I was already celebrating reaching my goal. For my shoulders the strength drops off so quickly, what I can easily do at 105 I can't do at 115. Like the difference in difficulty is huge. I guess that's what happens when you're exercising small muscles. ...I would also like to note that I did a better job of keeping the core tight, up preventing an arch in my back. It's still difficult to engage my core like that, but as long as I keep progressing, the sky's the limit.

Badger

So we did Badger, which has special meaning for me, because it was basically my first crossfit workout. When I did my third Badger, I did a great job of posting how big of an improvement I had done from my first to second to third time, so I don't feel like I need to start from the beginning. Last time I did this (almost two years ago) my time was 53:13, but we did hang squat cleans. Today my time was 53:11 with from the floor squat cleans. I'm not a big fan of the fact I only lowered my time by a freakin' 2 seconds, but it is what it is. Lately my hip really has started to bind up again. I haven't enjoyed talking about it but it's been pretty bad. Yesterday I actually didn't want to workout because I didn't want to cause myself further pain with the hip. That's a little scary. I also haven't fully recovered with my lower back. It's to the point where it's a ghost of a pain, but even a ghost means it's not 100%. However, I decided to do this wod and just really focus on having proper technique, so it was more of a skill day. I think I did a great job of making my last squat clean as proper as my first one, and each one was done properly with the abs taking on more of the weight than the lower back.

Here is a clip from the last time I did Badger:



So appearently today was my first actual Rx'd badger, I had no idea. This morning I simply had no energy, it was frustrating. The front squat element was ridiculous on my hip, I tried to do a good job on keeping the squat proper, to make sure I didn't dip my right hip down farther than my left. Regardless I think things are getting better with my hip. I see Olga once a week right now, and it's like I never saw her in the first place. I think it's because I would workout sometimes the day after seeing her, appearently that's not a good idea.

Whatever the case, I feel a bit broken, I wonder if I'll ever get back to that point where I was experiencing no pain at all. That month was just awesome, it was like the best thing ever not experiencing that dull ache in my hip. I thought I had it licked, but it looks like the journey's still not over yet.

I really want to attend a mobility cert.

Cindy

So today we were supposed to do a combo of Grace and Cindy. I thought about doing the weighted part but I had to be honest with myself: if I could still tell my back wasn't right just standing (and I could) then I wasn't ready for heavy clean and jerks. So I did just a straight up Cindy today instead. After searching the blog, I think this is the first time I've ever done a straight up, regular Cindy. Sure I've done weighted Cindys and Cindy getting stronger, but never just plain ol' Cindy:

AMRAP 20 min
5 pull ups
10 push ups
15 squats

I just barely got in 13 rounds. My shoulders weren't so hot from yesterday's wod with was pull up intensive (did either 80 or 100 pu's). My grip strength is def my weakest link. My hands are the first to go, so I need to work on that somehow, maybe get one of those squeezers? The butterfly kip is really starting to come along, partially because I found a great video clip teaching it by Speiler:


After the wod I got a chance to teach the butterfly kip to someone. She said mine looked so smooth she wanted to be able to do it as well. I seemed to be successful because after the fifth try or so she started to get the hang of it. A good morning indeed.

Still dealing with the back

So I worked out on sat and subbed out any weight bearing exercise for something else, like instead of push press I did ring dips. Felt "fine" when all was done. I use the quotes because although I didn't feel worse, I still have that damned pain in my back/side. I also want to note that doing 20 Double unders is becoming less and less of a problem. On the last round I was able to really focus and did all 20 DU's unbroken, like no sweat. I'm very happy about this.

Kayaked on the Potomac on Sunday for two hours and everything felt fine.

Woke up this morning with very, very little pain. Today's wod as Rx'd involved heavy deadlifts, so doing the alt wod was a no-brainer. It was a 20 min AMRAP and had some KB swings. I tried them out for the first couple of rounds with light weight but I felt my back being used, so I did GHD's instead. I had no problem doing this because my abs hurt for 5 days after last Monday's wod "Nabby" where I did 100 GHD's. Guess I let the abs go, and I don't want to do that again, especially if it helps with my hip pain.

So right now as I type this my left lower back still smarts, still have a knot there that I work on all the time, my hip is still in pain but I think it's getting less due to seeing Olga on Wednesday followed by a rest day, and my left shoulder doesn't feel quite right. I don't know if it's out of socket or what but something is a little off.

Feeling a little banged up right now, but so far it's nothing that I haven't seen before and can't handle. I just need to stay on top of my foam rolling and simply take care of myself.