Additional Injuries

I have not yet been to the orthopedist however, i believe i have self diagnosed my injury.  Once again it is on the left leg (same as my achilles tendonitis); but I beleive it is almost present in the right leg as well.  I was training for a 14 mile trail run when I overworked my anterior tibial muscle and attaching tendons.  This muscle and tendon are used to lift the foot and turn it inward (flexing and inversion).  When trail running there is a lot of special attention paid to foot placement and agility required on the balls of your feet. With this sort of activity it places a lot of stress on the calf muscles/tendons and feet. 

This injury is probably from muscle imbalance as well as overall weakness and overstressing a muscle. 

BALANCE:  I have mentioned in a previous post that I have been doing yoga (Bikram yoga).  Some of the yoga positions have balance poses where you are balancing on a single leg. I have noticed (since I started in January 2012) that my balance has been poor.  Much worse than it was back when I was a swimmer and even in college.  I am not sure what to attribute this to, other than most of my focus for training is bicycling where very little balance is required and your feet are guided by a pedal stroke and locked in place to a shoe.  I cannot knock bicycling to much as it has kept me in pretty good shape over the years; it has however, seemed to lead to a number of muscle imbalance injuries.  This should motivate me to change my focus' to a specific sport to multiple sports (rehabilitation).

STRETCHES:  In addition this injury has also reaggrivated my achilles tendonitis.  I have broken out the rope stretches again and leg swings to keep me limber (as much as I can). 

REHAB EXERCISES:  Strength and balance! are the focus.  Ball grabs, clock toe touches, one leg balance on balance ball (eyes closed for advancement), pistol squats, hip raises, walk backwards on heels, abdominal exercises, flexion with band, inversion with band, calf raises (single and double), bent leg calf raises (single and double).

Sorry this is not a great post but I just had to get some stuff down on paper. 

Yoga and more

Over the last 8 months while I have been living and working in California, I decided to take a new path to healing my Achilles tendinitis.  This new path did not include a single activity because I have found that no single activity provides everything that I need to overcome the self inflicted injury.  So the combination of activities included some old and some new activities.  The biggest new activity was yoga, Bikram (or Hot) yoga to be precise.  This type of yoga is performed in a heated room >100F with a humidifier running to make it hot and humid.  The class is made up of 26 poses that are repeated in the same sequence every time.  The idea behind the hot part is to loosen up the body and muscles and joints.  Although as a male it was difficult for me to initially start this routine, it has proven to be a great addition to my training.  It gives me an hour and a half of self focused stretching once a week.  I probably should go more often than that but I just cannot find the time to commit to it more than once a week.  After each class I can feel a significant difference in the way my body feels, joints and limbs fall.  I am not into the whole "spiritual" side of yoga but I do respect those who are and understand how it does help them find a relaxation in this stressful world. 

Another device that i stumbled upon were the Yamuna foot savers.  These are simple devices that help me stretch my foot.  They are basically half domes of semi hard silicone/plastic.  Standing on them and working down the foot in all location i have found it relieves quite a bit of tension.  Rather than attempting to describe it any further I suggest you look them up online.  There are some video that shown a class on them (they are terrible videos but they do get the point across). 

Bringing back some old techniques I have been using the classic foam roller on my legs, up to the hips and back.  Because if you believe that if you focus on a single point you will get better (in any sense of the word or activity or life) you are seriously naive.  Additionally I have been using a device called The Stick.  Which is a basic self massager, focused on the legs and used by many cyclists. 

At work I have also raised my desk to a stand up desk and have a raised chair to go along with it.  This helps me stretch out my legs and not to mention eliminate all the stresses from sitting all day.