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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
My fitness since the start of summer has been a little bit of a roller coaster. I feel much fitter than I have in the past 5 years - thank you morning swims - but I'm still having issues with a chronic hip issue from a decades old injury that turns into a knee issue when aggravated. The short description is that i broke the cartilage in my pelvis playing hockey at 17, and when the 3 parts start to rotate independently it can cause my hips to roll in, which in turn pronates my knee and makes it grind. Luckily my mom is a PT so I have a number of stretching and strengthening exercises to get my pelvis back into place and hold it there. But I'm so sick of making a ton a of progress in my fitness activities (running, biking, etc) only to have everything go off and stay an issue for months on end. I'm still relatively young so I can bounce back, but I'm worried what this trend looks like in my 50s and 60s.
The lead up to that rant was that I was in a great period all spring. I was putting in long rides on my bike, I was swimming 2-3 miles a day, everything felt great! And then we babysat my nephew for the weekend. Just walking like 10 miles shook everything off, which compounded over the next few days, and now I'm stuck off. Biking is much more difficult and a little painful at the end of rides. I can't get the same height on my jumps when I play volleyball. I'm slow and off when I play soccer. The only sport that seems unaffected is swimming, which thank fucking god, I'm not sure what I'd be doing otherwise.
Does anyone else have this issue with a chronic injury? Has anyone been able to overcome their chronic injury? I'm just so sick of having to nurse myself back to health every 6 months and then try to regain the fitness lost during that period. I want to feel soreness from physical exertion, not mechanical problems again.
I am not a PT or doctor, but lifting has helped me with lower back issues, e.g. bend over to pick up an empty box, tweak my back, and spend a week+ recovering.
I can deadlift 175kg now, and have stopped having back issues that last longer than half a day at most (and with much less pain).
I would consider a lifting program perhaps, but talk to a professional first. Some will say to avoid it, others will tell you to do it at all costs...so maybe get some different opinions. If you can bench, squat, deadlift, and overhead press are musts in my opinion, because they are compound lifts and will apply to every day life more than just doing a million curls or hip thrusts.
Lifting tends to increase the strength of connective tissues more than other forms of cardio heavy exercise, which might help you in the long run.
Thanks for the advice! I might see if a trainer would have time to meet up at my local gym and walk them through my injury and see if they could come up with a solution.
I used to lift quite a bit (though I never got up to 175kg on my dead!) and I ended up tearing my medial meniscus with a combo of deadlift and squats. My chronic injury gives me a variable leg length difference and it means I load my legs differently and can strain them. I do upper body lifting (mostly bench, OHP, rows, pullups/dips, etc...) to supplement my other activities and try to rely on biking to fill in the bottom half - with varying results.
Ah, I worked with a guy with a similar issue due to a motorcycle injury. That makes things harder. Maybe single leg leg presses or the same on a standing squat machine (the one with the shoulder pads)?
I'm on week 3 of consistent training. I'm really happy with how my coach worked with me through the early summer. Understanding that I needed some time doing other activities, supporting me and rolling with the punches. Checking in when I went quiet for several weeks and just keeping the training on track.
I'm encouraged to see my e1rms approach my peak strength meaning over the fall/winter I can likely make some good progress.
The down side is biking is harder now. Starting to feel much more sore/achey sooner than I was before. Accumulated fatigue from more consistent lifting. Fortunately I'm not really noticing much impact the other way around. Lifts feel good even a ay after decent mileage on a bike. And the cardio gains are real. Some rep schemes that were hitting me quite hard in May are feeling easier to recover from intraset.