Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Ouch ...

Went to bed around 9:45pm and woke up repeatedly with to two sore elbows. I got up at 5am, weighed in at 180.5 lb, and logged into the office to catch up on some work.

Breakfast:
1 bowl of Kitchari with a little sweet potato and Toor Dal
2 cups of coffee with tbs of 1/2 and 1/2
4 oz of Kefir
4 dates

After breakfast the elbows felt okay so I decided to do the next day of the GD GTG pull up program:

GD (Greg Donahue) GTG Pull up Program:
Day 4: 1 set of 2 neutral pull ups (4,1,2)

I then waited 5 minutes and did another set. I'm still having some trouble trusting in the program and when I do, I do stupid stuff like more volume instead of sticking with the program. In any event, I did the 1st set so quickly I didn't have a sense of engaging my lats. The second set I made sure they were engaged both up and down ... hey, hey this is my rationalization.

When I got to work around 7:30am I started using with ice packs on both elbows on the hour for 6 minutes at time. By 11am my left was still quite painful. I did some slow ROM testing with both arms and noticed that the Resilient French Press motion was very painful. I then recalled how many I had done in the last few days and in particular yesterday how I did far 3 sets of 10 reps with the 12kg bell as I wasn't "feeling" the stretch. Damn, this is the nasty part about elbow tendinitis .. many times the pain does not occur until a day or so later. So at 2pm I broke down and popped four 200mg Ibuprofen and within an hour was feeling much better. Needless to say this is going to be another rest day .. probably a rest week given the relative discomfort.

Lunch:
1.2 bowl of Kitchari
1 bowl of Gujarati green beans with brown rice and sweet potato
1 Naval orange
2 Dates

Snack:
3 small handfuls of cashews
3 small handfuls of roasted almonds
4 oz Kefir

Dinner:
1 bowl of Gujarati green beans and sweet potato
1 moderate helping of steamed Kale with olive oil and a little salt
1 large sesame cracker
2 dates
1 piece of strawberry/rhubarb pie
1 scoop of ice cream

At around 9pm I first did Z-Health R-Phase and then followed that up with Lee Holden's QiGong, "The Flow Continues". During both, I focused on flowing large ROM pain-free movements. Afterwards I felt completely relaxed.

6 comments:

Howie B said...

Franklin, maybe take some time off from the pullups. At the moment, I won't perform any as I immediately feel the impact on my forearms/elbows. You seemed to have been doing well before you introduced these, so its my guess they are causing this flare up. I think the french presses will take time to show their effect, not something to make an immediate impact.

Franklin said...

Howie, I thought the pull ups might be a problem but I've been doing them now for over two weeks with only a few a day with the comfortable neutral grip.

Also, I can know recall yesterday experiencing some discomfort during the French press as I pushed out too many reps under the 12kg load. Holding the bell overhead by the horns with the locked elbows and pulled in was too much for me. I should have stuck with the 4kb bell when doing these. On the DVD, Pavel explicitly warns to go very easy on all of the exercices and to build up slowly .. unfortunatley, words I didn't heed.

Taikei Matsushita said...

I finally caught up with your blog.
Good to see it running.
And I see some foods that I don't recognize. I'll have to study a bit more.

Franklin said...

Taikei, thanks so much for stopping by!

Your blog has provided me much inspiration with your incredible gains in your personal fitness and the growth of your KB Fitness instruction business.

Franz Snideman said...

Franklin,

Great to see your training, eating and general principles! Thanks for coming by my blog and checking in! I plan on doing the same! I will put your blog in my links!!!

Franklin said...

Howdy Franz!

So glad you stopped on over .. I love your site and approach to training and life.