fucking hell, can i get a MONTH without reinjuring something?? please??

So I have a ligament in my wrist I tore six weeks ago.  I found out 4 weeks ago, and have been wearing this super fashionable brace while I'm at work.  I'd prefer to not wear the brace, and take lots of painkillers, and let it heal slow and have no one know, but I *NEED* it healed by October.

So I was supposed to not be playing volleyball, right?  But when I told the doctor I was going to play anyways, he told me it should be ok as its a soft tissue injury, but just would take longer to heal.  He also said I should wear the brace doing volleyball and working out doing any weight training, which I disregarded.

I went to volleyball last night.  I'm super awesome at volleyball and have no vertical leap, so I managed to "tip" a ball with two of my fingers.  Whatever, I do stupid shit all the time.  Everything still was functioning.  But when my ibuprofen wore off afterwards, I was like "oh AWESOME stephanie, you did a good job with that finger there."

But I mean it still bends, so it's not broken.  It's just really painful in the joint to bend it forward or make a fist and put weight/pressure on it.

Which is AWESOME.  See, my wrist requires modifying pushups/dips/etc into a fist, because my wrist gives out under pressure.  But now I can't do pushups/dips/handstands on fists either.

Fuuuuuuck. 

If anyone sees me at volleyball, please tell me I am an endangerment to myself, and drag me off the sandcourt.  Thanks!!

knees, recovery, etc... boring post.

I haven't been updating much.  I've been having to dramatically modify or bag lots of my workouts.  HIIT?  Long runs?  Volleyball?  Subthreshold gymnastic work?  ALL problematic lately. 

My knees are finally getting unsketchy again after having two really minimal training weeks-- I'm crossing my fingers they'll let me train how I want to this week.  I need to find the line at which I can train without reinjuring them.  I know half the problem is inadequate recovering--  my sleep and diet are not quite where they should be.  (And yet I can't get myself to fix them.  The sleep I can't fix without enough sleeping pills that I wake up hungover; the food I can't increase as I'm trying to cut about three percent more bodyfat.)  I know my body's having trouble recovering, from how long my knee is taking to bounce back from all my workouts, and from how long my bruises are taking to heal.  So hopefully--  HOPEFULLY--  these two easy weeks will have helped. 













I gotta start taking more subthreshold days EASY, doing more foam-rolling, and doing more resting when I can. 

Nightshift people...

are the weirdest people.  I really like this, cuz when I work days, I'm usually the weirdest one there.  On night crew, though, I'm just normal...  and I don't even have to tone down my crazy. 

Who works night shift? 

People who aren't very social (you work alone a lot, and it closes your social calender 75% of nights), who like working independently and love music.
People who have chronic insomnia (if your sleep is already screwed then going to third shift has no drawbacks).
People with addiction/crime/messed-up histories (it'll keep you out of trouble, five nights a week).
Some students working around their class schedule, people with kids splitting childcare with the other parent, and people with second jobs or time-intensive hobbies end up in there, too.

Nightcrew is a smattering of sitcom characters-- a serial-killer-type dude who's uber-conservative; a super hot asian former cheerleader chick; a chain-smoking heavily tattooed and pierced 25-year-old dick;  a depressed superskinny dude; a classicly attractive all-American leader; a mexican player-type; the spacey hot guy who talks about chakras and spent a year living on a boat;  some dude on floor crew who pretends not to know english even though he does, and so on and so on.

Days off and sleep...

So, the last few weeks, I've been destroying my sleep schedule on my days off. 

This has some upsides:  it feels like I'm off three days instead of two, and I can train more, and have more time for fun stuff too!  And I think I end up sleeping more hours--  sleep is starting to be pretty rough, because I've been training a liiiiittle too much and pretty much any way I try to sleep is painful (today, I needed two kinds of painkillers and IcyHot to sleep 3 straight hours--  then woke up in pain from sleeping awkwardly, in pain.  on taking  more painkillers, I got a couple more in late afternoon).  But then I have no sleep schedule going back Saturday night, and I have to completely readjust.  I don't mind the readjusting, but I can't afford to oversleep and miss training before work.  Training after working, when you do manual labor, is basically a no-go--  if I don't completely skip it i'll have a terrible workout anyways.

I'll probably let my sleep schedule stay destroyed this week, all week, so I can see my little sister as much as I can before she flies out next weekend, and hopefully fit in all my training. 

I did a LOT of foam rolling today; it took the edge off.
Things currently acutely painful:  my left achilles tendon, my left calf, the left side deep in my shoulder/neck area, my forearms and flexors.  My right knee's swelling is going down from running the 7 miles the other morning; my lower back thing is almost at 100%; rotational flexibility for my upper back isn't too bad.  The neck/shoulder thing is creeping me out, because when I do headrolls i can feel/hear something slightly grind, like I'm a goddamn zombie. 

More ibuprofen, and off to Subway then work...  at least it's an easy day, I have a coworker on Saturdays.

Relativity

Me before HIIT drills:  "Maybe I will double-up workouts today!!  Woo!  Let's go!  Woo!!"
Me after HIIT drills:  "...  or maybe I'll just stretch and work on handstands or something."


Every time.
That is all. 

Dear New Coworker, Plz don't quit. I'm tired of training people. Love, Stephanie.

I'm in a small department at work; we're allocated 1.5 stockers per day. We aren't budgeted for overtime, so I have to have a coworker for my days off (and so we can do other tasks on days when there are two of us).  Which means, basically, my new coworker got to throw trucks on his own the last two days, since we get trucks every day.  That's two weeks in--  pretty sharp learning curve. 

Things which make a stocker "good" at stocking in my department:

• Physical fitness- core strength, basic endurance, and agility. 
• Being detail oriented, basically to a OCD level.
• Flexibility-  adjusting on the fly to late trucks, big trucks, and daily shifts in product mix; able to prioritize well.
• Dexterity-  for the hundreds of tiny things on pushers and pegs.  (AKA, tenured stockers are better.  You don't get this any other way really.)
• Not being an asshole- because I hate dealing with little girls.

Things which I think my manager hires based on:

• Good work ethic
• Friendly, will not creep me out, good learner who takes instruction well.
• Someone who can lift the things we have to lift--  either a dude or a strong chick.
• Passing their drug test.

Yeah.

New guy has it rough.  He's obviously doing as well as a new person could, and staying upbeat and stuff.  But the fact is, developing dexterity and Learning Where Thousands Of Items Go takes awhile.  NO ONE could be at 100% speed in two weeks.

I hope he doesn't get scared off.  Mostly cuz then I'd be at 5 coworkers in a year.  And I LOVE meeting new people, but they should all be hired in grocery, so I don't have to train them.  They also should all be hot guys.  I'm just saying. 

subthreshold days...

I'm getting back into gymnastic work.  This is one of my favorite training methods, because it involves so many aspects of fitness:  balance, agility, momentum, core/upper/lower strength and power, and flexibility.  It's also unbelievably fun, and a great solo-training style.  In this post I'm just gonna run down my basic subthreshold-level workout mix.  It's very "on-the-fly," because I train in varied circumstances--  depletion, length, location (available equipment and surfacing) and which I feel like training vary day-to-day. 

There are three parts to this workout style:  prep/warmup, training, and postwork. 


The preparation and warmup is first.  I'll do the foam-roller and a few asanas to warm up.  I mostly focus on my back with the foam roller (because of my job- i lose rotational flexibility verrry rapidly from tightness if I don't do this a couple days a week).  Whatever is sore from my last few days, I'll focus on also--  if I did power work, it'll be IT bands; if I ran hills it'll be shins and calves; if I was doing sporty stuff or cross-training it's usually forearms and shoulders and tri's; regular running will have me focusing on glutes and calves.  If I feel like training at the park, I'll walk or jog there.  My stretching/warmup will vary between 15-40 minutes.  Sometimes I'll go up to an hour, but most of that time is foam-rolling, which is like massage for your body, great for recovery.  I do a minimal amount of static stretching at this point...  If I overdo static stretching, then I'll be overly sore the next day.  If I underdo static stretching, I won't be flexible enough to do anything in the second segment of the workout.  Throughout the "training" section of the workout, I'll take brief sections to restretch out my legs as needed.  I really like yoga poses like standing splits, triangle, and runner stretches through the workout as needed to loosen hamstrings.  You can't do any gymnastic work without leg flexibility, so gymnastic training is a good motivator not to blow off stretching. 

Next, I go into training for the day.  I always have goals I'm going for in mind--  longer and shorter term goals.  Right now, my short-term goal is one-handed handstands (for two seconds!  i'm not some hardcore person!) off powerstands or parallel bars, depending where I'm training.  My longer-term goal right now is to get consistent front walkovers with both legs able to lead.  (I have more longer term goals-  redeveloping back flexibility and tricep/shoulder/forearm strength, and specific stupid human tricks.)  Whatever the goals are at the time, though, I concentrate on basics.  I'll throw handstands, cartwheels, roundoffs, bridges, attempt kicking over and going into and out of bridges from standing, rolls out of falls, rolls from handstands and focus on center of gravity and momentum.  I do some off the floor, some off powerstands, sometimes I work off these bars at one of the parks near here (they have a great set, all different kinds), sometimes I work in the sand court at the other park near here, I use walls or chairs or trees to assist a lot, I vary the leading leg, etc etc.  I'm focusing on momentum and center of gravity in these; the second leg off the floor is your Source of Power in most gymnastic work, and I'm focusing on control of the momentum I get from that. Other things I might do will depend where I am-  if I have a narrow vertical bar, I'll try human flag stretching; if I'm at the park with the legit bars I'll practice vaults.  This will be between twenty minutes up to an hour and a half, depending how depleted I am at the time.  Once I'm completely warm, I'll throw a few walkovers or do vaults.  Once I start falling out of them excessively/uncontrollably or unable to vault with power, I'm done. I'll go back to a few basics to cool out and call it a day.

Postwork is mellow, I'll walk home.  Or take a break, then run later.  Or whatever.