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!