Sharla's Log

[Sharla]

Thanks Scrap I'm just fumbling along trying to get my groove back at the moment though - nothing inspirational about that but the encouragement is nice.

Today a 2 hr stretch. I have a few more of these sessions in my new program. The program I based mine on worked in 2 week block. So every 2 weeks it is changed. I have 2 days of these 2 hr stretch sessions before going onto each new 2 week block, plus one or two a week. Two runs each week are substituted with swims so i only do 2 or 3 runs a week - hard track intervals or compound sets.

Basic reasoning behind this is because i think tight muscles here and there are my most limiting factor. Not that I couldn't improve pretty much everything. My morning stretch is ok but it is not really enough time by itself i think. Plus there is a lot in my PNF stretching book I want to learn more about and a 2 hour session gives me time to get into them.

I'm deliberately not putting a routine to paper for the stretching session. I'm just going to stretch where i feel i need it most and hold stretces as long as I need to and repeat them if I need to. I know my tightest points and favourite stretches now.

Today most notable apart from my lower back (always the first thing i stretch) - right psoas, right abductor and right piriformis.

I got sun burnt the other week on my neck. Was wearing a loose top and the neck line fell more to my left side. I can see clearly that my right shoulder is higher than my left and in the front of my right hip i have a little tendon which sticks out a bit more on the right than the left.

All connect i think - from my hips up. I sometime get a click from my neck when i'm trying to do a retarded looking wiggle to release tension in my right hip.

Also my left hamstring which i knew about but still can't picture how it connects to or is influenced by the tight points in my right side.

I have a basic strength training program in mind - still very much wobble board etc based for better posture. I'm going to get into a routine with the other stuff before I start it though because if I start it but can't manage my time well anough to handle it all at once I'll just get pissed off at myself and not stick it out. Taking insurance measures to deal with my wossy side!

[Sharla]

Did my medley swimming sprints today.

Medley order = butterfly, backstroke, breastroke, freestyle - 4 different sprints to each set.

25 m with 30 seconds break.

6 sets of the above with only 30 secs break between sets, wearing fins.

Then recovery breastroke and backstroke without fins until I felt fully recovered (or as much as I was going to get).

Then I did two more sets of the medley order sprints with fins and a cool down swim without fins again to finish off.

Felt more explosive today than last time and I could up the volume significantly too. I think the stretch yesterday did me good!

I want to up this workout by a set per fortnight until i am doing 2 blocks of 6 sets and then I'll shorten the recovery time between sets.

An ex coach (in Japan) used to say you can train your second wind. He made me do something similar with hard bag rounds separated by some recovery speed ball work.

I'm thinking it might be another type of lactate threshold workout as long as I don't up the sets or decrease the recovery time too quickly and turn it into a long swim.

Also noticed parts of my stretching book have tips on how to check for muscle tightnesses.

I checked my quads and they are both tight!

You check for quads by sitting on a table and straightening your legs out. You should be able to straighten them all the way out and I'm a little off.

Having said that post swim checking again it's not so obvious! Maybe I've got it wrong .........

Nope it hasn't changed - don't do it on a soft chair - table is best i think.

[Scrap]

It could be the upper hamstring whats stopping the movement.

[Sharla]

Oh Right - yeah i did look at the section for hamstrings and they were a little limited definately. I really wouldn't be suprised if that's a big part of it. Thanks for reminding me Scrap.

The test they had in this book for the hamstrings was lying down flat and you're supposed to get your leg to be able to rise to a 90 degree angle - I can almost do it but not quite.

I don't really understand how they use the seated leg extension one as a test for the quads because i think they're contracting in that movement but that is what the book clearly states. I guess they say functional assessment not quadricep length - but they recommend stretching the quads.

Interestingly they link tight quads to lower back and knee pain so whether they're the cause of this limitation or not i might get into stretching them as a preventative thing since I know i'll be prone to both of those problems.

Still you're ight and it doesn't completely make sense so I googled it to see what tests were online for the Quads and I found a different looking one for quadricep length in the diagrams of this article:

BioMed Central | Full text | Reliability of measures of impairments associated with patellofemoral pain syndrome

There are all sorts of tests i haven't heard of in here - I'll have to read this one now!

[Sharla]

Ran this morning - 2 X 1600 m repeats with 4 min break between them.

Felt sluggish - was sluggish!

I had a 15 min warm up but maybe it was too gentle, also choose the wrong terrain i think.

I ran on a really sandy track around a horse paddock which is on a hill - half the time it's up hill.

Even with all that taken into account I think it was a bit sloppy - perhaps I haven't fully recovered from my swim sprints yesterday.

Next time I'm going to pick a nice oval or flat running track and warm up with a bit more energy!