Sunnyday's Training Journal

**PeterCas** · 03-04-2015, 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by Sunnyday

For me it is helping immensely. I have had plenty of docs discourage me from chiro, and I have had plenty of chiros do very little for me over the years. Hard to say in your case whether it would help or not. Meeting several pro athletes who go to this guy and swear by him, I had to give it a try. I'd say find someone by word of mouth and give it a try. But I wouldn't just pick somebody without a recommendation.

Reading your training journal is what sparked the idea.

I'll ask around and see if I can find someone in Hong Kong.

Thanks for the advice, Sunny.

**Sunnyday** · 03-05-2015, 12:14 AM

Originally Posted by PeterCas

Sounds rough. I remember reading about your scoliosis. Was the scoliosis a contributing factor to the degenerative joint disease or is this something completely separate.

Sorry for all the questions. Just curious and love to learn about these types of injuries and how they affect people.

I've read about your hip pain in your training journal before...but did not realize it was part of a much bigger problem. Really sorry that you have to deal with that.

Amazing that you're still able to train as often as you do. Warrior

I'm not sure it's so much warrior as it was taking the time to learn my own body over the years- what worked to relieve pain and discomfort and what didn't. I had so many docs telling me to "rest". But all the rest did was make me feel worse physically. I noticed that moving not just a little but a TON helped a lot. I found that stretching 2-3x per day helped, not the 3x per week as suggested to me by the docs and PTs. And that sitting for extended periods of time, like a 90-minute commute to work, made it worse. I found weight training almost by accident when a doc told me I couldn't run anymore. And then in time I found that training heavy AND intense with tons of volume made me feel best. But I take even one day off and I'm right back to square 1, takes me at least a week if not a month to get back to baseline. So that's why I do what I do - to manage the pain and discomfort.

I suspect the scoliosis came afterward actually, or it was made worse by an injury. When I was 5 I had a very large TV fall on me, knocking me backward, and the corner hit me at the front/top of the left leg at the crease. The TV fell off a dresser and the fall was enough that it broke the TV. That seems - to me - to have triggered the whole mess. In the early '70s nobody took x-rays of a kid with a big bruise who could still walk and run. But that area has never been the same since. When I was 12 and diagnosed with scoliosis, I remember the doc took an x-ray and I remember seeing the x-ray where my left hip was rotated forward and inward. It was THAT obvious that a kid could see it. But nobody traced it back to an injury, they all said it was just the way I was built. I suspect being stuck in that position due to a lot of soft tissue damage, a chronic psoas spasm, and adhesions, my body would have to compensate even as I grew. Explains why while on track in school I could never really get the hang of hurdles and why even though I love running, it always felt awkward.

My whole life everyone I tried to tell about the pain and discomfort called me a hypochondriac or they offered me drugs. So for all my adult life up until last year I took drugs to just get by. In the meantime, my right side very slowly and gradually completely took over for everything my left side was supposed to do. And any time my left side was needed for a 1-sided move, my body compensated with quads-only. Chiro marvels that when I met him I was using my quads for adduction and not my adductors. Now that the weakened muscles like my glutes, hams, adductors, etc are learning to adapt, my quads still try to take over and it results in a sudden quad, back, or hip flexor spasm that I would describe equal in pain and discomfort to a bad foot cramp. The sudden spasms will continue until I can get back in the gym every day for several weeks and train like a maniac, then they will subside again until the next time I'm forced to take time off or forced to sit for extended periods of time. In the mean time, it's ice packs and Cryoderm multiple times per day to get through it.

Originally Posted by PeterCas

Reading your training journal is what sparked the idea.

I'll ask around and see if I can find someone in Hong Kong.

Thanks for the advice, Sunny.

Hope you can find someone. At the very least, try to find a good massage therapist to do some soft tissue work on the spazzed out muscles. He/she if they are worth their salt ought to be able to give you some good stretches for the times when those muscles act up on you.

And wow, that my journal would spark more than a few laughs. Cool.

**PeterCas** · 03-05-2015, 12:35 AM

Most would take the drugs, be miserable and complain. Awesome that you were smart enough to try and manage the problem by keeping active.

Your story just reminds me of what a mess the medical industry is. Most doctors are so ready (for obvious reasons) to point you in the direction of your local pharmacy. It's really disgusting if you ask me.

Great story. Thank you for sharing that with all of us...and YES, you're journal is very helpful. An inspiration to anyone that says they are just "too tired" to get to the gym today.

**Sunnyday** · 03-05-2015, 12:48 AM

Thanks for following along.

I agree with you that it IS disgusting. I have way too many stories.

In July I saw my x-rays and thought that if I continued taking the drugs then I wouldn't know if I was overdoing it, etc, and a hip replacement was in my future. If you didn't know, that has to be replaced every 10 years or so. At 47, given that ALL the women in my family have all lived way nto their 90s and I have one grandmother still alive at 103, that adds up to a LOT of surgery! Uh, I'll take some pain in the gym over surgery any day. If I have to have that surgery down the road I want to know I did everything I could to try to avoid it. And wouldn't it be awesome if I NEVER had to have that surgery and lived that long AND could still make it to the gym every day?

**Sunnyday** · 03-05-2015, 06:29 PM

Snow all day here. Snow plow finally got around to my development around noon, gym was closed.
View from my bedroom window...

image.jpg

Got a call from the county to stay home and travel only in an emergency. Mmmmk. Knocked out a little bit of arm training and some stretching.

Bits of Nick Tumminello's upper body warmup

I have no bench so I just piled up pillows and sofa cushions for an incline and decline. Awkward but it's something.

Incline DB curls ss decline skulls:
10 sets, 15s x 10 ss 15s x 10, 30 sec between sets

Stretched a bit. Played with a little posing too. Woo hoo, woo hoo.

Not much I can do for training at home without cardio equipment or a home gym.

Better than lying around the house and eating bon bons like the rest of the neighborhood.

**PeterCas** · 03-07-2015, 04:31 AM

You still snowed in, SD?

**Sunnyday** · 03-07-2015, 07:07 AM

Originally Posted by PeterCas

You still snowed in, SD?

No, finally dug ourselves out LOL Had no choice really, conference this weekend with my daughter at a camp on the Chesapeake Bay...(yeah in the snow) with 900 other screaming teenagers. No way I could let the kid down.

**Mac** · 03-07-2015, 07:09 AM

Have fun at the camp with your daughter!

What are you going to do without training for a day or two?

**Sunnyday** · 03-07-2015, 07:28 AM

Originally Posted by Mac

Have fun at the camp with your daughter!

What are you going to do without training for a day or two?

Pull my hair out, of course. LOL. It's more like 4 days off. I can't really call Thursday real training. Friday was a complete wash digging out, running errands, and a last minute chiro visit (since I had to miss Thursday). Chiro took one look at me and said, "You're a mess,good thing you came in BEFORE your weekend!" I'm still a mess from a long car ride and sitting/standing in a crowded auditorium from 7-10 last night. Girls were still up in our cabin at 1:30 and breakfast starts at 7:30. I feel like a zombie already. Brought my food in a cooler, too warm to keep inside ghe cabin so I had to leave it outside...in 9 degrees. Will be eating my food frozen but happy that I can stick to my own diet and not eat the cafeteria food they're serving up. It will take me several weeks to get back to baseline after all this time off from training. :-/

**Mac** · 03-07-2015, 07:53 AM

Hang in there Sunny !!!

I went to the gym last night and couldn't get in. It seems my membership expired and there is no one at the gym to talk to or any number to call and renew it.

Fortunately, my friend arrived just as I was leaving as there was no one there to let me in. Seems people don't work out at 9pm. So I may be joining a new gym that took over the location that my current one was in before they closed, for 4 months, and opened in the the current location.

**Sunnyday** · 03-07-2015, 09:12 AM

I guess there could be worse things than having family stuff getting in the way of training. Like having the time to train but getting to the gym and not being able to get in. :-(

**Mac** · 03-07-2015, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by Sunnyday

I guess there could be worse things than having family stuff getting in the way of training. Like having the time to train but getting to the gym and not being able to get in. :-(

Time to break out the dumbbells here at home.

Being a Saturday, I am sure I can get someone to open the door. Maybe.

**Sunnyday** · 03-07-2015, 09:50 AM

Originally Posted by Mac

Time to break out the dumbbells here at home.

Being a Saturday, I am sure I can get someone to open the door. Maybe.

Get in enough of a workout for me please.

**PeterCas** · 03-07-2015, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Sunnyday

I guess there could be worse things than having family stuff getting in the way of training. Like having the time to train but getting to the gym and not being able to get in. :-(

If you're going to miss a few workouts, I would say that's a valid reason. Don't worry, just make sure you kill it when you get back in the gym next week! Waiting for an update

**Sunnyday** · 03-07-2015, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by PeterCas

If you're going to miss a few workouts, I would say that's a valid reason. Don't worry, just make sure you kill it when you get back in the gym next week! Waiting for an update

Going to be a while before I'll be killing it again. One day off is hard enough. My body has tightened up so badly after 2 days off and extended periods of sitting and I have 2 more days to go.