Hair of the Dog

8/17/18 Log

Weighted Vest Walk
50x1x45 Min

Stretches
Waist, seated butterfly, banded face pulls

Kettlebell warm ups 18 and 26 lb
18x1x8
26x1x8

OHP
95x1x10
115x1x3 (strict)
135x1x3 (strict)

Shrugs
135x2x10
155x3x10

8/20/18 Log

Trail Hike
2 Miles

Carried my 10 lb stone with me. It made for an unbalanced hike. Lifting it one arm then two arms and then doing a bunch of grip exercises with the stone somewhat fatigued my arms 1/2 way through the hike. I hike this trail often, its real close to my house. I don’t know if I ever want to hike it again without my stone, that was pretty awesome, can’t wait to do it with my 26 lb’r.

My lower body seems to be falling apart. The hip flexor issue on my left side that started about two months ago is getting much better. However, I didn’t stop training during the healing process rather simply altered my training (and stretched the shit out of it my hip flexors).

During this period my right side was over compensating for the left side weakness and I started feeling a very very mild twing in my right hamstring, especially when squatting. I’ve been nursing a mild hamstring strain for 4-5 weeks now. The daily weighted vest walks I started at the beginning of August seemed to put more strain on it, but at the same time helped it because it tends to feet good afterwards. Late last week I could feel the strain at times other than when the hammy was under strain from exercise and that was the first time I felt it outside of working out. It progressively felt more uncomfortable each day last week pretty much around the clock.

I thought the hike would be a good “restful” respite from the heavy vest walk after the two days off over the weekend. I think that backfired. My hammy is sore today. I can feel the soreness in pretty much every leg movement. Its not sore to the touch of the skin but I can feel tenderness in the hammy about 1" above the knee.

I’m going to take it easy to let it heal itself. May only ride the stationary on a light setting to get a warm up in and do isolation work for a little while. Sucks getting old!

8/23/18 Log

Stationary Bike
22 Min

Hammer Curls
40x5x10

Standing Scull Crushers
40x5x10

Just trying to keep the blood flowing into the leg.

8/25/18 Log

Stationary Bike
24 Min

Stretches
Banded face pulls

Kettlebell Shoulder Press (standing)
18x2x10
26x3x10

Kroc Rows
40x3x20

Slight limp before this light workout. Hammy felt good after getting off the bike and slowly went back to gimpy while completing the other workouts.

Notes:
It’s been since 8/13 (12 days) since first feeling a light pain in the hammy.

10 days (8/15) since eliminating any heavy weight on the leg.

On 8/18 went for a 2 mike hike with 10 lb stone.

The injury appears to be more serious than originally thought. Reading through hammy injury info I’m seeing that a grade 2 injury would have a recovery time of 10 days to 6 weeks.

The self prescribed rehab plan is to continue to get blood into the leg with light stationary Bike work and accessory work to keep other body parts fresh. Will re-evaluate in a week.

7/26/18 Log

SLOooow Walk
1 1/2 Mile

7/28/18 Update
Really felt the hamstring yesterday. Sore as hell after that slow walk around the neighborhood to the lake. It’s still sore two days later so it looks like I’m going to just rest it until Sunday to see how it feels after letting it rest for a week with no physical activity.

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How’ve you been? Can’t let that hamstring win.

Funny you ask, lol. And thanks for checking in!
I logged in to post an update and also ask those who’ve experienced leg issues to chime in to help guide me some.

Since my last post in late July I went form limpy to almost not being able to walk. For the past month plus I’ve only hobbled around with either a cane or a crutch. Tried just refraining from putting excess weight on the leg but still getting a sweat in on the stationary bike the first week, but that just made things worse. Then went a week with only hobbling around. When it still wasn’t getting better I spent the next week without putting almost any body weight on the leg. That helped but then it continued to be uncomfortable/low-level painful. The next week was more of the same and then on Monday finally could walk regularly albeit still with discomfort.

I despise going to the doctor. The system is rigged and not in the patients favor so I try to avoid it like the plague. Searching for possible injuries the best description of my symptoms, lower inner leg (running along and up the inner thigh area from just below the knee) and behind the knee pain and discomfort it appears there are several possible injuries.

I may have torn a hamstring, but I didn’t have any blood staining under the skin. I can feel something in the lower hamstring area an inch or two above the knee. I could have strained the Sartorious muscle from the extensive stretching trying to stretch my damn hip flexors when they were giving me issues. It could possibly be an issue with the pes anserine behing the knee where the three major tendons connect. Or a knee injury to the cartilage in the knee.

I don’t know what the hell it is but its become a major stumbling block and a pain in the ass. I think the 50 lb weighted vest carries exacerbated the problem. My plan as of now is to give it some more time to heal. I’ve been overdosing on Cod Liver Oil gel caps to keep any swelling down and that seems to help. Since early this week mobility os better and I can feel some form of normalcy but no where near normal.

My plan as of now is to give it some more time to heal and see where it is on a weekly basis. If I need to I’ll go see the doc but don’t want to do that prematurely.

If anyone has experienced a similar injury I’d like to hear about what it was and how you treated and recovered from it. I’m all ears my friends.

Any lump behind your knee, maybe a baker’s cyst?

No there is no bump. In fact it’s hard to directly identify where the discomfort/pain (leading to leg weakness) is entirely. Part of it is lower hamstring area an inch or two above the knee, low pain running up the inner thigh beginning just below the knee, and then the discomfort/pain an inch or so below and behind the knee. There isn’t any knee mobility issues though. I can bend it, twist it, and flex it fine with and without weight.

Sitting with leg stretched can really feel it in the hamstring area. Raising up from and position I can feel it in the knee area. Walking I feel it in all of the areas. For a while I couldn’t hardly walk because my calf was toast. Cray !

Wish I could be of more help. When I “broke my ass” pulled something in there last year it was a literally a paun in the ass. I found some stuff on Athlean X that fixed it. Don’t know if there is anything on there about your situation butbit might not hurt to look.

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I’ll search his site/youtube to see if there is anything related. Thanks!

9/20/18

I’m using my log to monitor the symptoms and dates revolving around my leg injury. Just wanted to get that out there so I don’t appear to be a sissy (I’ve been called worst, lol) posting shit that isn’t training related. I’ll use this info to write up a synopsis for a doc if it looks like that’s the route I’ll have to travel. Right now its maybe kind sorta looking that way.

I’m still feeling a low level of pain in my knee that has slowly started to dissipate but is still present. This is most apparent when I’m raising from a seated position and its location is in the knee about 1 to 2 inches below the knee on the inner part of the knee and it runs up towards my inner thigh and ends about 2 to 3 inches above the knee on the inner thigh. Its not sore to the touch as both inner thighs feel about the same level of sensitivity when applying pressure to the area. This was more painful earlier on in the injury.

I also feel something at the center of the knee about an inch below the knee joint. This lower level pain has been present since the beginning of experiencing the injury and its now only an occasional sensation.

I have full mobility of the knee, it bends forward and backwards and I can swing it inward and outward towards and away from my other leg freely all without any pain.

When walking I’m still feeling low levels of pain in my lower hamstring area. The pain ‘sensation’ is what I would describe as mild and it begins at the area behind the knee about center of the backside of the leg. I also feel ‘something’ up higher on the hamstring but this isn’t painful rather it just makes my leg feel full or swollen but there is not apparent swelling; we’ve been measuring it against the other leg.

Now this fullness feeling is from the knee, including the entire front and back of the knee, to the upper hamstring area 2 to 3 inches below the glutes. This is only felt in the rear of the leg, I don’t appear to have the same sensation on the front of the leg.

All of the above is causing a weakness in the leg. I question daily whether my leg will support certain movements like stepping down a curb or pushing up stairs. I’m being very careful not to aggravate the injury and do and will continue to take precautions on pressures and movements to the leg.

I try not to take anything that isn’t natural, and my go to supplement has been Cod Liver Oil gel caps to reduce any swelling. My wife has been on me to take ibuprofen which I started doing on Monday and it drastically reduces and almost removes all of the pain, but, and this is a big but, I don’t feel like I can trust my leg to support my body weight. The sensation is something akin to a sore knee and a related weakness, but my knee is fully functional. Its weird as hell.

The real bad part this week has been that since i’m taking the ibuprofen, I refer to them as my ‘pain-killers’, I darn near feel like I could get a decent workout in. At last though, my family would kill me. My muscles feel like their withering away!

9/25/18

I can’t hardly stand this fucking injury anymore. This is and has been an absolute waste of time and a complete pain in the ass. The positive is though that giving it time to heal it appears healing might be progressing albeit very slowly.

Using a percentage of normal, I’d say my leg is 25% of normal usage. Two weeks ago I would have projected that to be 5-7% of normal usage. Still feeling slight pain when raising in the inner knee area, and some fullness sensation after walking 40+ feet. A good sign though is I feel like I’m close to being able to rely on my knee to support my body weight if called upon to do so.

The back of the lower leg also has slight pain with the entire leg experiencing a fullness sensation. The pain is enough to feel it, and perhaps keep me from over using the leg, but its a consistent pain and fullness in the leg. I’m not sure because its hard to measure these sensations but its been a constant since this all began and it feels like it might be changing as it starts to heal.

I’ve got a lot more of doing fucking nothing physically on the docket for the next week.

Elliptical
14 Min

Barbell Row
135x3x10

Seated Shoulder Press
25x3x10

Standing front db raise
20x3x10

Standing side db raise
20x3x10

Wrist Twist (coiled up)
10x3x10

Barbell Curl
25x3x10
40x2x10

Standing Tri skull crushers
40x3x10

Aside from my shoulders sounding like a box of marbles that felt great. Its been almost three full months since my last log. Nearly six months since the initial injury, damn.

The healing has been long and very boring but I’m at about 90% and the plan is to ease back up into some good workouts.

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