Sharla's Log

[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.