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Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Unfortunately, it seems that I did push a little too hard again last night. My shoulder was noticably twinging a little today, even though I was only doing an abs workout. I think that I may have to very carefully structure a few free form sessions in the next couple of days, to avoid any extra problems with the shoulder.
I noticed that my abs were a little tired today, presumably from the abs workout around 36 hours ago. It’s been a long time since I’ve done abs workouts that close together… I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. Not that I really minded the forgetting all that much. Anyway, it didn’t seriously affect my workout, just made it so that I felt it a little more than I have been recently. In a way it was good, since it made it clear that the workout is doing something. Focus was decent today… there seems to be a lot of daily fluctuation that I’d like to eliminate, but I’m still far from that. I’ll probably try some kind of well structured free form workout tomorrow, to hopefully prevent further shoulder injury.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Went with a pretty non-standard free form workout today. I think it was pretty good… I felt my shoulder a little bit, but not nearly as much as any of the previous days. My knee also seemed to be a little bit more sore today, probably from ultimate yesterday. I jarred it on the first play of the game, and while it didn’t hurt much after that, I’m sure it wasn’t good for it. It definitely wasn’t a major regression, just a day or two, I’m guessing.
Anyway, the workout. I pretty much incorporated some different elements of YCfA and Total Body together to get the workout. It only had a single standing pose, warrior II. It wasn’t getting completely set off, but I could feel that my shoulder was a little tentative with the normal sun salutation motions, so I only did the full cycle that once. Mostly, I did a lot of leg stretching, some of the stuff from the running mini workout, some from the full workout, some from the beginning of total body. Quite a bit of lunging, a little less hip opening because I was concerned about my knee, and some work on the inner thighs. I was a little bit sore from ultimate yesterday, probably because I didn’t have a chance to really warm up before I jumped in the game. Well, it doesn’t really look like there’s going to be a game today, but I’ll have to wait to be sure, so I should eat some breakfast now just in case. Tomorrow’s workout will probably be later in the day again, unless I happen to be motivated in the afternoon for some reason.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Stayed with the light workout again today. It’s definitely helping… while I could feel my shoulder a little bit today, it never reached the level of pain, just bordering on it. Hopefully another day or two of taking it easy will get it back to pretty much normal. Today I went with a combination workout, free form and YCfA:Running. I liked the way running went the other day, so I decided to start off with that. But I didn’t want to overextend with swimming again, and it’s been so long since I did the other mini-workouts that I couldn’t remember what any of them were like, really. So after doing the running workout, I decided just to free form some stuff to complete the workout. It was fairly similar to yesterday, actually… lots of stretching, not much of anything else. It’s a little bit frustrating, because I want to be able to do more vigorous workouts, but I really want to let the shoulder heal first, so I need to keep laying off for a bit. I think it shouldn’t be too much longer, though… certainly not past mid-week, I’d say. Until then, I’ll probably alternate some abs work and other light workouts like this.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Another abs yoga workout today. I’m always feeling a little worn down on the first weekend home, and so I often don’t motivate up quite as much as I might like. So while I theoretically would have liked to get a pilates abs workout in, that seemed like an awful lot of effort. The other problem being that it’s been so long since I’ve done it, I don’t recall what types of exercises it has that my shoulder might not like. I do recall the double leg stretch that seemed like it could be a bad idea, since rotation is the main thing that my shoulder seems to object to. I’m actually beginning to think that I may have a small tear in the rotator cuff or something. Today’s workout just avoided aggravating it, I think, and it’s really not very intensive on the arm movements. I suppose I should start at least considering taking a day or two off, although I seem to be doing okay in the last few days with not causing further damage, so maybe I just need to keep up this type of workout for the moment. Anyway, more news as events warrant, and all that.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Another light free form workout today. I was testing the shoulder a bit more today than I have been in the previous few workouts, possibly to my detriment… that remains to be seen. I did a few sun salutations today, a deep lunge, warrior II, the seated twist from YCfA:all sports, seated forward bend, reclining twist, reclined cobbler’s pose, and relaxation pose. I think that was everything. Maybe a few more downward dogs thrown in. I was very methodical about my movements today, especially ones that involved rotating the shoulder. While I think that allowed me not to do any further damage, I’m not actually certain. My shoulder does ache somewhat now, although not badly. And while I didn’t get any sharp pain during the workout, I did get some dull aches. Not all that great, overall. I suppose the only thing to do for it right now is continue to rehab it, though, and see if that gets me anywhere. On the plus side, doing this workout a few days ago definitely would have caused some pain, so things have improved, just perhaps more slowly than I was expecting. Anyway, probably a fairly similar workout tomorrow, I might integrate YCfA:running in again in preparation for ultimate.

Workout: Yoga Conditioning for Athletes: Mini-workouts
Author: chaos

Making a slow return to more complete workouts. Today I went with a fairly normal warmup routine for ultimate, YCfA:Running and Swimming. I went through the entire running workout normally, as I have been, without incident. For the swimming workout, I modified it by substituting warrior I and II for the triangle and side stretch poses. While I’m sure that this doesn’t stretch me out quite as much as the normal routine would, it also allowed me to avoid hurting the shoulder, so I consider that to be a fairly decent tradeoff. I had to be fairly careful throughout the swimming workout, but I just took the movements from standing forward bend up and back carefully, and avoided tweaking my shoulder in the rotation. The movement to warrior I is very similar, so I went through that without trouble as well. It is a delicate balance, but becoming less delicate, I hope. I finished the workout with the rotation pose from all sports and reclined cobbler’s pose, just to get a little more stretching in, particularly in the hips. Anyway, a reasonably successful workout, and hopefully a sign that I’ll soon start returning to normal form.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

So much for healing the shoulder. I managed to strain it some more laying out for a catch yesterday, undoing most of the healing work I had been doing. Or so it seemed… after today’s workout, I’m not as sure. I think it’s actually possible that I’ve strained the shoulder in a slightly different way than I had before. The practical difference is that instead of sharp pain in certain specific motions, I have more general pain over a wider range of motion. The only good thing about that is that it doesn’t seem to be as affected by the yoga abs workout as the previous injury was. I think it’s probably more affected by other things, though, so that’s bad. It’s going to make it hard to get much variety in the workout until it heals a little.
In other news, some of my other injuries appear to be healing fairly well. My right knee has definitely gotten a lot better, although it’s still somewhat short of full strength. But using the knee brace while playing ultimate definitely seems to be preventing further injury there, and I’ve gotten good about not straining it during yoga workouts. Both sides of my ribcage have a touch of soreness, but neither is very serious… I really only notice during reclining twist, for the most part. I picked up a few more skin abrasions yesterday, but while annoying, they’ll heal within a few weeks. Although I ripped up the same area on my thigh which I tore up a month or so ago. I wasn’t particularly happy about that. However, the primary ultimate season will be over fairly soon, so I can expect to actually fully heal from all of this stuff once that happens, and I go down to playing at most once every other week. Hmmm… only thing of note about today’s workout was that I had to skip having the legs extended to the left side, due to the shoulder injury. Other than that, fairly normal, although my abs did seem a little tired, surprisingly. Not sure why, but they might get more tired over the next couple of days, depending on what I’m able to do in terms of workouts.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Yet another abs yoga workout tonight. I did a trial sun salutation earlier in the day, and determined that my shoulder really wasn’t ready for that yet. Since basically all my other workouts involve downward dog, usually fairly frequently, and since downward dog was the most questionable part of the sun salutation, doing any of the regular yoga workouts seemed unwise. The pilates workouts typically include some elements that seemed questionable with a bad shoulder as well, so I’ve also been avoiding them, although now that I’m thinking about it, it does seem like I might be able to modify around those parts, or even just skip them. So perhaps I’ll do a pilates workout tomorrow, since I’m rather doubting my shoulder will be ready for another few days, and I’d rather get in a slightly more vigorous workout than the yoga abs workout.
On that subject, tonight’s workout went pretty well. I’m still not achieving the level of focus I’d like… or then again, maybe I am. I’m not consciously achieving it, but I don’t recall being distracted during the workout, either. So perhaps I’m achieving that more natural state of focus, where the attention is complete enough that even noticing that the focus is complete is suppressed. I’m not really sure I’m that advanced yet, although if there is a workout that I could do that with, it would be this one. My abs didn’t seem quite as tired tonight as they did last night, which was a bit strange, but nothing to complain about, certainly. Maybe they’re getting used to doing abs workouts close together again. Anyway, probably something different tomorrow, most likely a pilates workout.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, my original thought for today was some kind of pilates modification, to take out the shoulder questionable actions. But the workout ended up getting in a little later than I had really anticipated, and my shoulder was actually feeling somewhat better, so I felt that if I laid off it for another day, I could possibly resume at least light yoga workouts tomorrow. With that in mind, I decided to try out the yoga abs one more time, continuing to buy myself rest days, as it were.
It was a fairly decent workout. I’m not certain that my shoulder has really healed as much as I was thinking before the workout… it seemed just as strained as yesterday during the workout, anyway. My focus was a little better today, or at least my knowledge of it was. I think I get into a good zone during the middle of the workout, but I’m somewhat sketchy on either end. Although sometimes the breathing exercises do get me off to a good start… I just need to work on getting that to be more consistent. Overall, my abs felt a little more tired than yesterday, but not as much as the day before, I think. I’m still a bit mystified as to why they were so tired on Wednesday. Anyway, I’ll probably evaluate the shoulder again tomorrow before choosing a workout, which will hopefully either be a light yoga workout, or a pilates workout with modifications as necessary.

Workout: Cardio Pilates
Author: chaos

Well, my shoulder certainly wasn’t feeling up to a yoga workout tonight, so I decided to go ahead with the pilates workout. I was somewhat concerned that that would also create some problems for the shoulder, but I figured that I could probably modify around the potential problems. It went reasonably well. For the most part, I was able to simply modify the motion of my arms a little bit in order to avoid trouble. Until the side kicks, at least. I probably should have avoided doing those, but I was hoping that I could hold my body stable enough to handle it. It wasn’t all that bad, really, but it still probably would have been better avoided. I did skip the mermaid, since that seemed like it would really be asking for trouble. I also passed on the cardio segment, since I’m quite sure that my shoulder wasn’t going to be able to handle the arm motions for that. So, a little less of a workout than I might have liked, but still probably good to change from abs. I’ll probably end up doing abs balanceball or something tomorrow, and go back to just staying away from any shoulder work for a few more days.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, I finally decided that continuing to do workouts around my injuries was not helping me make the kind of progress that I’m really looking for. So I took a few days off to just rest up a little and try and let my shoulder heal with less interference. I think it did help somewhat, although I’m still somewhat short of fully recovered. Unfortunately, I think that sleeping often causes undue pressure on the shoulder, or at least doesn’t aid in the healing process, so that’s slowing things up a little.
Anyway, just went with another abs workout this morning. I need to start getting to the pilates abs workout as well, if only to break up the monotony a little while I wait to be able to return to a more complete practice. Maybe I’ll manage to do that this week sometime. Focus was sporadic today, good at points, fairly weak at others. The physical aspects were pretty decent, as they have been. Still feeling a bit of pain in the shoulder through some of the rotations, but it seems better. So my schedule may be somewhat erratic over the next couple of days, as it may make more sense for me to take a few days off and let the shoulder continue to heal without pushing it. Wait and see, I suppose.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

I didn’t have my disc with me today, so I couldn’t have done the pilates workout, even had I wanted to. Since my shoulder isn’t yet recovered enough for any of the other workouts, I went with yoga abs yet again. I’m still a little uncertain as to whether it’s more effective in terms of concentration for me to do this workout from memory. Sometimes I think it really helps me focus, but other times I think it makes me concentrate too hard on the specific movements, and so I lose the overall flow. Really, it probably doesn’t make a lot of difference either way… my focus is so sporadic that it’s probably more or less a wash. Anyway, pretty average workout overall… I may take tomorrow off, depending on what my schedule ends up looking like, particularly if my shoulder doesn’t feel up to any of the other workouts by then.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Finally got back to workouts tonight. It’s been a very long time since I’ve gone that long without a workout, over a year and a half, actually. Unfortunately, there have been some pretty good reasons to not be working out. It started off with straining my left shoulder again playing ultimate last Thursday. It wasn’t too bad, but since I was still limited to abs workouts, I decided to go ahead and take a few more days off, hopefully letting the shoulder heal. That was all fine, the shoulder seemed like it might be getting better, so the rest was helping. Then I played ultimate on Sunday. It was a rather poor day in terms of injuries. I started off by bending one of my nails because I hadn’t trimmed them like I should have. That was a slight annoyance, but nothing too bad. After we had been playing for a little while, I felt a slight twinge in my right quadricep. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, other than it wasn’t really good, but I kept playing. Fairly soon thereafter, I made a diving defensive layout onto my left shoulder. I scraped up the shoulder pretty well, but that seemed like all the damage that had been done. After another ten minutes or so, though, I pulled my right quad. I’m really not quite sure why my muscles didn’t seem to be warmed up… maybe because they hadn’t gotten as much stretching in the previous week as they were used to. Other than that, it was a warm day, and they seemed warm otherwise. The real lesson with that is that I should have realized that the initial twinge was a small pull, and stopped playing then. Perhaps writing it down here will help me remember this in the future.
Anyway, the quad pull ended my playing for the day. Which was fine, since I needed to take a shower and head home. So everything seemed okay, except for the pulled quad, of course. However, during the drive home I started to notice that my left arm was strangely painful when I moved it in a number of ways. By the time I got home, it was rather sore in the entire shoulder area, down into the triceps. Sleeping that night was a bit of a challenge, and the next day I could hardly do anything with the arm due to the soreness. I have no idea why the reaction in the shoulder was so delayed, but it was certainly a pain when it caught up to me. Interestingly, my tricep was the most noticable thing for the first two days, and was still sore all the way until yesterday. But my shoulder has become more noticable since then, probably aggravated by sleeping on it and torquing it while I sleep. Unfortunately, it remains fairly injured, although not as badly as last Sunday night.
Which brings us to tonight’s workout. The shoulder injury makes it impossible to do any of the other workouts, and I knew that even this workout was going to be pushing it a little. But I’ve been itching to get a workout in for a couple of days, and was fairly confident that I could avoid doing anything more serious to the shoulder than I do in random daily activity, so I went for it. It felt okay… the focus of the workout really doesn’t go as well when I’m paying attention to something like avoiding shoulder strain, but that’s what I have to deal with for now. I doubt I’ll return to daily workouts quite yet, especially since this is the only workout I really feel comfortable with right now, between the shoulder and the quad injuries. While the quad seems to have benefited from having a week off, I can tell that it’s definitely still at risk, and so I’d like to take things pretty easy with it for a while still. Anyway, I’ll hopefully just start doing an abs workout every other day, until I can get back into my full routine.

Workout: Abs Conditioning: Yoga
Author: chaos

Well, this is pretty much what I’ve been afraid of, and why I’ve stayed committed to getting in a workout daily prior to the latest injuries. My schedule is busy enough that it becomes too easy for me to just skip a day when I don’t have that firm commitment in place. Especially when I’m limited in my workouts, and doing the same workout seems less useful than doing a different workout might. So I succumbed to the temptation of more sleep yesterday, and failed to actually do the workout I had planned on.
Anyway, went back to it today. Nothing much to report… I was focusing a little more on my form again, I think it’s been slipping a little lately. Just a matter of properly tucking in the abs. I made a modification in the middle, changing the legs extended to the side into a bicycle in the pilates style. I think it’s similarly effective, but it avoids the shoulder strain. Perhaps not quite as intense, but that really can’t be helped. Anyway. I highly doubt I’ll do a workout in the morning tomorrow, although I might do one tomorrow night if I’m inspired. If not, I’ll definitely get one in on Friday.

Workout: Free Form
Author: chaos

Frustrated with my continuing lack of workouts, and wanting to try and stretch before potentially playing ultimate, I decided to attempt a free form workout today. I took it pretty easy, overall, but I was able to do a little more than I expected. It was kind of odd, in that a number of the poses, while not exactly painful, weren’t exactly pleasant, either. I did a few sun salutations, warrior II, a number of leg stretches, and spent some time in downward dog. Things are still less than ideal, overall, but I think I might be able to start getting in at least some free form work again, if not necessarily full workouts. I’ll continue to play it by ear, but I’d definitely like to start getting back to some more serious workouts soon.