A day on the trails (pictures)

Last weekend I spent a few hours out at a local park, walking the trails and just enjoying the fresh air. It was a beautiful fall day in southern Ontario. The air was crisp, there was lots of laughter and I packed an amazing lunch - butternut squash soup, chicken on foccacia bread, cheese, and olives and banana bread and grapes for dessert. I also dug my old school camera out of a cabinet, dusted it off and took a few pictures. Here are a few of the better ones:

Endurance

Started a new phase of personal training this week. We have moved into the endurance phase. Mondays I will be doing Olympic style weighlifting (which I have been doing for a bit), Wednesday will be high cardio day and Friday will still be boxing, just ramped up cardio. Monday was fine, I got thought the workout fine. I was feeling great after my massage the night before and was stoked at the fact that for the first time in 2 years, there was no pull in my back when I did the moves. I woke up Tuesday and my hamstrings were sore, and this morning they were screaming at me to not move.... Ouchie, really, really sore - but off to the gym I went anyway. Todays workout started out with two treadmills..... the first at 2.5mph - 0 incline and the second was at 4mph and a 15 incline. For the next 30 minutes I went back and forth 1 min on the "hill" and 1.5 min on the "flat" Man, my hamstrings were killing.... but all the pain aside. I did it, and that made me happy...... next back to the personal training centre - step ups on to a step (pretty low) my goal was to do 35 step ups in one minute. 5 x....... did it, but was spent after the 5th round...... I thought I was done, but my trainer called out..... come on back to the training studio...... here I had to run back and forth across the room one way with a medicine ball above my head and coming back with the ball at shoulder height...... 5 rounds at 2 minutes each.... the pain was killing me.... my face was purple, my shirt drenched but I did my best, I didnt' give up.... I finished with 5 x 30 sec sets of crunches. Man, today was a tough day, but I know that a year ago I would not have been able to do this in the alloted time and two years ago, this would have only been a dream.

Righting a lifetime of wrongs

This last week has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. (food wise, I suck, but that is a whole different post). I know I've posted in the past about back pain, and the degerative disc desease that has held me back and continues to hold me back. I have been told so many times by my trainer that the muscles in the back of my legs (hamstring) are shortened and tightened because of trying to protect my back from injury for so many years. He has also told me the I have a "tight ass" lol, and then follows it up with "and I don't mean that in a good way". It seems that there is a lot of scar tissue in my back and the facia (sp) in the muscles from my lower back to my hips, buttocks, and hamstring mucsles have all been affected to the point where I have constant pain whenever I work out. The stretching exercises I have done over the last few years have helped but I'm nowhere near back to normal (whatever normal is). Last weekend I decided to book a massage treatment. A very good friend of mine is a massage therapist and has been offering massages to me for years. I finally took her up on her offer because I have been having major stiffness in my shoulders and neck from a. working on a computer all day, b) boxing and doing quite a bit of weightlifting and c) a summer filled with mountain biking ( my shoulders seem to absorb a lot of the shock from the rides) as well as a mishap in the summer where I fell off the bike and jammed my shoulder pretty good. Last Monday, i got my first massage, my shoulders and neck where extrememly tight (I have to stress extremely here) and I also had work done on my hamstring muscles up to my hip/buttock area. Afterwards, I felf pretty darn good, but the next morning I was getting ready for work and BAM- I felt a little pain in my low back area and I knew what was to come. I litereally broke down in tears and was thinking about what I could expect since this has happened to me pretty much at least once a year for the last 30 years. The pain would get worse throughout the day to the point where I could barely walk - my left hip would be twisted upward so that it would feel like it was right under my armpit. I would be unable to lay down in my bed for fear of not being able to get up again.... and the next month or two were going to be complete hell. In actual fact, I did get really sore by the end of that first day, and my hip did feel like it was under my armpit, but I was still able to walk fine, I was able to sleep in my bed and get up without too much trouble and by Friday, I was able to make it back to the gym - and complete a pretty decent boxing session. This to me is victory. All of the hard work at the gym, all of the core work, plank postition, sit ups, bicyles have all been work it because I feel like I may not be able to ever stop my back from "going out" the stronger my core is the more capable I am to manage it and my body is now able to heal better and faster. I mentioned the massage therapy only because I am not sure if the back injury has anything at all to do with my massage - it could be coincidence or it could have something to do with all of the scar tissue, muscle movement etc from the massage. I am going to stick with the massages (once a week for the next month) and see how I'm feeling at that point. I did notice, my shoulders felt very loose while boxing on Friday, and my warm up on the eliptical didn't cause major and instand muscle burn in the backs of my legs. I have spent so many years letting my back problems hold me back and I feel like I am finally ready to do whatever it takes to fix this issue and make me stronger in the gym, and in my life.