Sharla's Log

[Sharla]

Of course my plans for this week are not going to be what I would have expected.

My flatmate was dumped by her partner today and is getting on the first flight tomorrow to go back to Sydney and stay with her parents.

Poor thing is soooooo upset!

We'll be up late packing her things and she'll send a truck for her furniture later.

Ironic thing is she had it trucked here less than six months ago and since I own a basic if modest lot of furniture already and her partner had nothing it's just been sitting at his place only to be moved back again.

Sucks - she was a really good flatmate, the one time I went swimming with her was awesome and we got along really well.

Now I have to get a new flatmate in which sucks!

[Scrap]

Do the ressistance work before the Stretch, much better contraction before expansion.

[Sharla]

Do the ressistance work before the Stretch, much better contraction before expansion.

Ok thanks Scrap i will do!

I have been thinking lately there's probably a lot I don't know about how and when to stretch. I'm definately a stretch beginner so any advice is greatly appreciated!

My now ex-flatmate Sarah gave me my birthday present early since I drove her to the airport to move back home this morning.

She gave me a book about exercises including stretching and strethening techniques that can be done with a fit ball! How did she know!

[Sharla]

Monday and Wednesday swam. Workout was 20 X 100 m with a little warm up and cool down.

Monday no fins - Wednsday I remembered all my gear.

Monday didn't do any butterfly. I attempted it but without the fins I couldn't get the power I needed to do it properly especially since the pool was 50 m so that would be the minimum distance really.

Everything else I could do for 100 m lots without any problem. I am using that distance to work at a reasonable rate, with reasonable form, have a short recovery (forgot watch - not timed) and go again.

It worked out to about 7 hundreds of freestyle and backstroke and 6 hundreds of breastroke. The session felt good because it sort of stretched me out with the backstroke and got all my muscles used to swimming again but wasn't very aerobic.

Wednesday using the fins I did 5 hundreds of backstroke, 5 hundreds of freestyle, 5 hundreds of breaststroke and 5 hundreds of backstroke for the first 50 and butterfly for the second fifty.

This DID get my heartrate up. I've decided being inexperienced in using fins is probably the reason there have been a few doubters on here RE the ability of swimming to train the aerobic system.

I think it's the same when you put a bike on a trainer thingy - the higher the resistance the less aerobic you can make it. I'd completely recommend training with fins to anyone and anyone who's ever swam in a club will know they are a standard piece of swimming equipment!

I swam twice this week because mum and I have been juggling her car so it's been convenient to pick her up after work, sleep at her place and drive her to swimming at 6 in the morning so I can have the car for another late night etc.

So i've kinda dropped the 1 swim, 3 runs per week rule already but I think I can be flexible on that as long as I train with fins to make it really aerobic. Feel pretty good afterwards

[Sharla]

Ok I don't have great training to report unfortunately.

I presented my final seminar on Monday and stayed at uni from Saturday morning until it was over on Monday afternoon to get it done.

I was really worried about it. Seriously considered getting a friend to phone in with a bomb threat on the buliding so that they would have to evacuate and i would get out of it.

Problem is that the main friend I have who i think would be most likely to do that for me is another PhD student and I think they'd recognize her voice! Plus it would be a little suspicious considering the building is used for lectures almost exclusively and my seminar was one of few on for that day.

I also got a bit of a cough that's going around - probably out of being run down by uni work.

The seminar went ok in the end and now that's over hopefully things might ease off a little. I mean I still have work to do but my scholarship money has run out so my first priority will still be job hunting and if they don't feel i'm doing enough work at uni it's just stiff bickies really!

I ran into Kristine at a job recruiting agency. I was going for an informal interview with the science recruiters and she works there in another department.

I have ehard from her a couple of times since I left. The basic summary being that sparring is going well because she has to be included with the others more now. The same way i was before she joined the gym ironically enough!

I don't blame her and i know she ultimately wants the same thing I wanted - to train and feel like she's getting somewhere. Still i can't help feeling a little annoyed that at the end of the day.

She's the chain smoker and the coach/ her boyfriend is not really all that keen on letting her compete anyway but I had been training and competing long before I joined the gym.

I care about my conditioning even if I'm not always perfect but in general i gear my lifestyle more towards health than most people especially when i have something to train for.

Also I've ran into a few people since i left the gym and they all talk as if I'm just taking a break and i'll be back. I explained my reasons for leaving but i find myself explaining how busy i am every time i run into someone from my old gym as if i need an excuse for not being there!

I've decided i want to train in a boxing gym again. I don't know if it's possible here just yet. I know my old coach will automatically hate any coach who takes me on.

Not because he was ever really very interested in coaching me but i was useful for working with kids and his girlfriend. Also I think he'd take it as an insult that i would leave and claim that he taught me everything i know. I may have learnt a couple of things from them but everything is way way short of reality since i've been in different clubs and taken a lot of outside information and inspiration from places like the forum.

Also I'll be getting everywhere by pedal power so i'm not sure how often i'd realistically be able to make it to a gym further from my house. I'm not sure how coaches will feel about taking someone on for as little as 3 sessions a week.

I also can't predict whether or not i'll be getting back into competitive form so it's hard to walk into a more serious gym without yet knowing what my aspirations for the next six months would be.

All this seems like a lot to ask from any coach! I'm going to give it a go though. I tried to call Dave from Cove's gym this morning but i think 10 am on a Saturday may have been an inappropriate time to call because his phone was switched off after a couple of rings!

To change the subject a bit I've been doing some research. I have access to a journal called Spine through uni. I don't know why i've never searched it before!

I found an article that links prioreception and being too right handed to many cases of scoliosis! I am extremely right eyed and I do have scoliosis! I'll look up the exact quote later and insert it so it makes more sense. Double checking my old x-rays though it seems to hold true for my situation.

All this stuff Scrap works on with priorection etc actually has a direct link to my scoliosis! I suspected it was linked to my posture and balance etc but i didn't realize just how direct and known the link was! Why the hell haven't any of my physios or chiros ever pointed it out!

So now I'm trying to be more left handed. I'm also covering my right eye more. I bought sunglasses and stuck a black piece of paper on the inside of the right eye. I find even the soft eye patches a bit uncomfortable after a while and they look weird but i think i can get away with this more for every day activities.

I'm typing with it now so that would explain the many typos I'm making!

[sourpuss]

Sharla, I don't think you should worry too much about not being a good time investment for a coach. I think any good coach would want a dedicated and focus athlete in their gym 2 or 3 days a week over someone who doesn't train as hard 5 days a week. Maybe just explain your car situation and that you can only make it a few times a week but that you work hard and are serious. If that's not enough for them, then maybe it's not a gym worth going to.

[Sharla]

Thanks Sourpuss,

I'm going to investigate my options. I spoke to my bro this afternoon. He's an electronic engineer (got into a profession with a future unlike myself) and is helping me make up some new software for image analysis and data collection.

He's a bit against me going back into training now saying that it won't be just three sessions a week but three boxing sessions with 6 or 7 conditioning workouts to support the boxing. He also said i use sport to avoid doing what i should do sometimes. Damn it he knows me too well!

He is all for me going but against me starting within the next month. I'm going to make some calls and arrange to start in a couple of weeks. That is going half way i think and in the meantime I can work out the most time efficient way to do the conditioning workouts I'll need to do.

It will let me get some key prac work to get images we need to finish designing the first draft of this program too. Then my bro is off on his late honeymoon over Christmas. His wife is German so they are having a second marriage and honeymoon over in Germany with her family.

I'll ring around now before i loose confidence in the idea and woss out again though!

Ok so onto the scoliosis stuff - I have a quote from the article here for anyone interested. Note AIS is Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

SPINE Volume 31, Number 19, pp 2237–2242

According to Goldberg et al,19 lateralization is the asymmetric
organization of the cerebral cortex; in patients with
AIS, the brain is significantly more lateralized than in
healthy control subjects. Lateralization is the asymmetric
arrangement of the cerebral cortex and domination of the
right side (98% of the subjects were right-handed), which
provides a possible reason for the significant discrimination
between the samples of participants without spinal changes
and those diagnosed with AIS. The contribution of such
lateralization can be confirmed by the AIS pathologic pattern
analysis; the right thoracis curve is the primary one,
and it is followed in a compensatory manner by the left
lumbar curve.

So basically i think it's no coincidence that I have a slight scoliosis and am also dominantly right eyed. I guess it could be possible to be right eyed first for some other reason and then to get a scoliotic curve but since my mum also has scoliosis i think it's genetic.

Oddly enough mum doesn't get back pain although she looks a lot more hunched than me as i've deliberately worked on my posture and she hasn't! I'd like to work out what else is different between the two of us.

She is not a good runner compared to me (even for her age) despite being quite powerful as a cyclist and swimmer. I think that may have something to do with the unbalanced movement described in further sections of the article. I think her balance is probably effected more than mine.

Scoliosis is not supposed to hurt so i guess with me that might come from the Post Schermanns disease or step spondidylilolisthesis my chiro thinks i have.

I should say i know all this sounds extreme but all of these things are supposed to be as bad as they are going to get by the time people are at my age. I don't expect any of these things to worsen and technically if I can be involved in sport now I guess that won't change for back related reasons. I'd just like to make it more comfortable and avoid it flaring up as much as possible really.

So according to this article it all begins in my brain! That's kinda hard to battle!

I guess i have to deliberately train the left side and instead of having some expectation that it will be cured after a certain amount of time just accept that i will always need to do it.

Perhaps with enough work i can get my brain to rewire itself but i would compare it to someone crippled from a car crash trying to rehabilitate. Possible but likely to be time consuming. Plus I guess I can also expect it to take a while for the muscles involved to even up.

I think perhaps I need to come up with a 5 year plan.

I can be a woss and get discouraged when i don't see results quickly so i think i will have a better chance of success if i expect it to take a long time from the beginning.

So as per usual i have a lot of planning to do!

[Scrap]

Sharla, its genetic, but impact plays a part in the problem cycleing and swimming have not got the impact of running. You need to stretch a lot, muscle imbalance wont help the problem only agrivate it. Ill get back to you.

[Sharla]

Thanks Scrap - I appreciate your opinion and since what you suggest for me is uncannily more correct the more i understand I take on any suggestions you have to offer!

I have recently found something on the net called the three dimensional Scoliosis treatment according to Schroth:

http://www.easyvigour.net.nz/pilates...2Treatment.pdf

I haven't had a chance to read through it much yet but the basic idea i think is to using breathing techniques and an awareness of the shape it makes your rib cage.

Have you heard of it Scrap? Any good?

[Scrap]

Have not Im afraid, but the problem can be Helped. Cant get to sleep tonight so I popped in here. You will have to work from the hips up, your body is overcompensating all the time and that wont help your problem I shall return . Oh I assume its upper yes.

[Sharla]

Thanks Scrap!

Yes it's slight but i think the curve is gently to the right and then to the left lower down to compensate i think. Looking at the x-ray the curve to the right is more gentle over a larger number of vertebrae and the curve to the left a bit more pronounced but it's hard to tell because the x-ray doesn't show the lowest portion of my spine.

The article said that a curve to the right with a conpensating curve to the left is normal for scoliosis. I've had 2 physios and 2 chiros tell me that i have scoliosis but no one has ever really explained where it is down to a particular region so i'm trying to tell from the x-ray alone and i'm not sure i'm interpreting it correctly.

I do often feel that stretching muscles attached to or in my hips makes me feel better overall so what you're saying makes a lot of sense.

[Sharla]

Uni has still been a little insane.

Things like having job hunting appointments during the day but still a full days work to do at night have made a mockery of my time managment skills and ability to have a consistant training program.

I'm ashamed to admit that part of it is mental also. I've realized I always need a plan for the morning. When I don't have one i pfaff around 'planning' things and it ends up being a procrastination exercise which takes up a lot of time. Then before i know it i've wasted half the day.

So from now on i'll be doing 30 mins of exercise every morning either before or after breakfast depending on how hungry I am. I think i've found before a banana and a coffee are a good pre-exercise morning snack. The caffiene gives me the kick i need to wake me up early in the morning and the banana enough to put off hunger pangs whilst not feeling too heavy or making me sleepy again.

Buying some banana's today. Luckily they're also relatively cheap here.

Yesterday i did manage to do this with a run in the morning - easy half an hour. In the afternoon I did another session with a walk and then easy jog warm up for 400 m intervals (X6) then jogged home again.

Today (Saturday)

Decided 2 runs yesterday was enough impact. Morning session was inspired by Scrap and the fitball stretches book my flatmate gave me for Christmas. The book had 'cardio' workouts on the ball which didn't inspire me at all. They were basically sitting on the ball and doing little boucy actions and really not training anything as far as I could see.

However, the idea of using balls for cardio did make sense in a different non-vertical layout.

Now i'll try to describe this in ways only Scrap and his deciples will understand because while this is a very inferior version of what Scrap has patented it is still similar.

Basically having the balls positioned so i had to balance my movement but i'd never manage it without something to hold onto so i rested my head on a kitchen chair with a little padding for my head and neck. I could reach back and grab the chair to avoid falling off but also needed something at the other end to stop everything rolling away.

I wanted to bang my elbows in but i'll have to rearrange things for that next time. I have a semi deflated ball which is smooth and a vertually fully blown up one with little pointy bits on it that stick out.

I thought the pointy bits would be good for having grip but when i tried to bang my elbows in all it did was give me a dead/funny elbow so i think i'll swap the balls next time.

Looking at the HR data right now it was pretty low the whole time. Definately makes sense in terms of the lactate shuttle discussions we've had. I did 30 minutes at a moderately fast pace but seeing my heart rate really wouldn't climb i think this is not an appropriate way to use it.

I think it was good for working against the imbalances which must be underlying my scoliosis. I had to try to stay balanced or fall and the movement mimicks something which is usually much higher impact where i really want to avoid those imbalances.

After that i did some light back and abdominal work on the ball with my feet on a wobble board. Three sets of each, chest on ball lifting arms up and out to the side with light weights for my back and crunches for my abs.

It was definately light because especially with the ab work i must naturally use one side more than the other since it was virtually impossible to stay balanced. Plus the board would slide away too because i must not have had my weight going straight down on it with my knees bent at a right angle. I hope the neighbours couldn't hear me swearing!

Finished by holding a plank with my forarms on the carpet and feet on the wobble board. Still difficult and much harder than the plank on firm ground but easier than the crunches!

Overall I'm happy with this as part of my anti-scoliosis plan and i think if i'm going to be honest about what i know of myself i really need to do something everyday regardless of how busy i am.

I just don't have the temprement to deal with having no physical activity and even if i only have a little time off i'm always semi convinced i can't get my fitness back again once i have time off.

Today i worked something completely different to yesterday and i'd consider a walk ok for some days so i insist on having decent recovery time but i can't do nothing.

[Scrap]

Sharla, one way of doing what I think youre doing is use the bed

[Sharla]

Sharla, one way of doing what I think youre doing is use the bed

Yeah i agree thanks Scrap.

I don't think i have the right type available to me at the moment. I think i'll buy one maybe after Christmas when i have a bit more spare cash.

I was hoping that this would be similar to the bed but also work on my imbalances a little more.

I know your complete patented version is very good at this because it has more range of motion than the bed and whoever uses it can see how they might need to work harder to get their weaker side working the same way as their stronger side. I know it really hurt when i used it for less than 5 minutes which was shocking!

I'm not sure i know how to stop myself cheating when i use the bed version and while i don't think it would aggrivate my imbalances and it is still shock free i was hoping the balls would force me to begin to correct them?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts on that Scrap!

So other things to report - quite a few!

Sunday

2 hr walk. Didn't feel like the impact of a run was good and wanted to get outside so a 2 hr walk was nice - might aim to do tha every couple of weeks over an extended time. I have some parkland areas along a little stream called the Torrens which travels over 12 km at least in each direction towards and away from my house so i'm lucky that way. For longer fortnightly walks i'm tempted to go to national reserves not far from Adelaide though - as long as i can avoid walking alone in snake and bushfire weather which will be frequent in the Australian summer!

Monday

10 min walk, 30 min jog -run. It became more of an effort towards the end with a few inclines and i did feel like i got a workout here.

Tuesday

off - i had good intentions but left it to the evening and didn't get home from uni until after 11 pm. Must make a rule to do a session in the mornings without fail.

Wednesday

Today I walked for nearly 50 minutes along the Torrens before running back. I intended to walk an hour but came across an area where i could hear a guy going solo loudly. It creeped me out because i could hear him somewhere in the bushes but i couldn't see him. It's not uncommon for women to get attacked in the parklands so i decided to turn around at that point.

I like to think i could be more able to handle myself than most women enough to be inconvenient and noisy and escape. I wouldn't hesitate to eye gouge or elbow eye sockets but i know i have friends who probably would not be able to bring themselves to seriously maim a person in self defence. I think they would panic and try to push and struggle abut not even think of more vicious options for defending themselves. I like to think i wouldn't be like that especially as an adult but i'll avoid the situation and run away first if that's an option and that's what i did.

I wasn't attacked but it's well known that many streakers and perverts will have esculating behaviour so why continue on a path that might bring me within arms reach of someone like that - i would be silly to take the risk!

Ran back 10 minutes and then did intervals. 8 one minute hard running efforts with 1 minute recovery walk except after the 7th interval i had a 2 minute recovery. I could see in the heart rate zones that i was not fully recovering after each interval.

Ages ago just after i hurt my knee i went to a body composition dude to get my body fat and muscle composition analysed and to get diet and training advice etc. I was put on an exercise bike with a heart rate monitor etc to measure aspects of my fitness. The basic result was that my endurance and lung capacity etc at that time was way above the average for a male. In endurance terms i was a very strong athlete but my recovery for short efforts was not really that great.

I think this has something to do with ego. I have resented admitting that my heart rate has not returned to a low enough level to train sprint recovery before doing the next interval.

So today when i could see after my 1 minute recover after the 7th hard interval my heart rate was still high i bit the bullet and decided to accept my recovery takes longer than that for that effort. of course over time it will improve and i'll recover hopefully in less than 30 seconds for that effort but it won't happen if i don't walk and allow the recovery. I'll be training endurance like i always have.

[Sharla]

On another lifestyle note I'm going to ad some mroe person info into this log entry. I was not going to go into it but decided it was silly since everyone has been in this situation and the stigma towards it is part of the problem. Especially i believe with young Australian men. They don't admit to having trouble with depression to the point where we have the highest youth suicide rate in the world. The attitude is to tough it out before you talk to anyone.

I got a lot out of an interpersonal skills workshop that was put on at my uni by a psychologist. She talked about dealing with conflict in te workplace which i've had more than my fill of with my supervisor since starting my PhD. I decided to follow up with a one on one session i could get for free through my mum's work agreement.

Basically i guess i've always thought of depression as being a really severe debilitating thing. I'm finding now some days i don't want to face the world. i do get out of bed but i press the snooze buttong more times than i should and little chores seem overwhelming. Thing is my mental outlook is not different except it could be a little negative and i have to give myself more pep talks to achieve what used to feel easier.

The psychologist did end up validating my feeling that i really need to exercise and i can't just drop it because it is part of my coping strategy to deal with the long days at uni and being relatively powerless with an irrational supervisor. To perform at my best nd take action i need to take rather than just aving a victim mentality and wanting to hide i need to exercise. I need the seratonin.

I need to do it outside sometimes also i think. I have read that air outside tends to have more negatively charged components which are better substrates for seratonin so that partially explins it. I think being around trees and hearing the birdlife and enjoying the nice weather we have now is pretty good.


I am the type of person who enjoys simple things in life so i'm not going to feel guilty about time taken to do that now. My brother would and he did sit at a desk without exercising so much that he sneezed one day and got a bulged disc so bad that he came very close to being wheelchair bound. it was really excruciating for him to begin with. He had to have painkillers shoved up his arse and could not even push a vacuum cleaner safely for months. Luckily it went down and he can now do gentle exercise again like walking but he came awfully close to being unable to control his own bowel movements at only 32. I believe that is all due to the risk of spending long hours at a desk with no exercise and under stress - tensing muscles up which put pressure on the back so all it took was a little catalyst like a sneeze to blow it. It's not a risk I'm prepared to take!

As for depression - i think it is too strong a word for me but perhaps a clinical risk for me. It is associated with long term stress and i have been in this crappy PhD situation for 3.5 years and if it was only a job i would have quit and found something else a loooooong time ago! Apparently it's just a chemical imbalance as people get worn down over time.

Normal depression has you feeling sad for a while and then the feelings begin to change. One example she gave was of her friend's mother who has been mourning her husbands death with the same grief and intensity of sadness for 14 years. Apparently this is very un-natural.

I think of it as homeostasis. All biological systems have a level of homeostasis whether it be the approximate number of animals in populations for the health of an ecosystem, your blood sugar level, CO2 levels in the atmosphere etc etc. Levels which are healthy.

Some variation is buffered by the system but if an imbalance is too prolonged or of too great a magnitude it will stop the system for being able to maintain that homeostasis. The system may find a new homeostasis - probably at a less than ideal level or be unstable and start to decline (extinction, diabetes or global warming).

I feel like i am struggling to stop myself for finding a new level of homeostasis as a less active and lass productive, happy person. I don't feel at risk of collapsing or having a nervous breakdown but i don't want to loose the ability to function at my best just because i'm worn down and little things seem harder than they should.

I know these chemicals are in your brain but i don't even really think of it as a mental thing because i don't believe i have an delusions. I think it is just a kind of fatigue.

It reminds me of something I have seen Lord's Gym / Ring Rat write a few times. He said to take feeling sluggish and low of energy over a period of time as a signal you need to step it up. He may be right - it could be you need seratonin from exercise to pep yourself up and correct the chemical imbalance before your level of homeostasis goes down a notch and you have to put more effort into becoming really naturally energetic again.

So i'm taking that on board. I'm also paying special attention to maintaining a good diet and avoiding too much caffiene. i don't drink (alcohol is a depressant in used too much) or take drugs or smoke so luckily i do not have many addictive crutches or comfort things which help in the short term but aggivate the problem overall.

She has also said i should go to my GP to talk about anti-depressants. I have a friend who took a form which just targeted a specific receptor and was very mild. She didn't feel any change for weeks because it was so mild and unlike some of the old school chemicals like Prosac it was not addictive and din't create false emotions - i guess it just helped keep things from declining. It was something she only had to take temporarily as part of a larger plan to stop herself from falling into depression which might make it difficult for her to work and function properly. It was a temporary measure for her and ow she doesn't have depression ro the need to take anti-depressant.

I wouldn't really see that as being too different to taking something like a vitamin pill like iron when i'm deficient. I'd stay away from something like Prosac at all costs but i'm not opposed to something mild which won't have a big effect.

I don't need sympathy - i don't think i'm really depressed int he common sense of the word but i think it's human to feel emotionally run down sometimes and need a well rounded plan to stop it becoming a long term thing.

I think ultimately this is part of the reason i'll always try to be active. I think training somewhere in a bad environment without feeling like you achieve your goals might add to stress but i think people are meant to be active. We are not built to be sloths.

Plus i can even see a reason why depression might have evolved as part of the human condition. Imagine a drought. If you were part of a hunter gatherer society you'd first put a little more effort into hunting and gathering. If that was rewarded with food you wouldn't become depressed but if it wasn't you might consider miggrating.

If you did that but found the drought was widespread and there was no more food in your new location you may have been under stress for a while. You would be skinny and probably a few people in your community would have died.

At this point you've tried everything but mother nature says no food for you! It does not serve your survival to burn up a lot of energy. If you were too active trying to a resolve the situation you would just starve at a faster rate. You need to be lazy and conserve energy to ride things out.

Even if a few people were depressed enough to jump off a cliff that would be bad but it would increase survival chances of others living on the little there is available. When it rains again you'd be so happy that would break your depression.

So rather than being ashamed of depression i'd consider it as a natural chemical thing everyone can experience to varying degress and how you face it as soon as you seen the early signs will determine whether or not it becomes severe. I don't have anything severe at all but if i ignored my flagging sense of vitality i think i would be more likely to decline so i'm facing it as honestly as possible.

I think shame around these subjects and the idea people should just be able to tough things out aggrivates the situation when what people sould be saying is - get some exercise, eat good food and watch a funny movie and take action rather than ignoring any feeling of flagging drive and weariness which might lead to a decline.