You want me to do what?!

Three weeks down and nine more to go til show time. Things are going very well. I’m enjoying every minute of my training. There is simply no better high. I love seeing the daily changes in my body and I can really feel it start to dial in. It’s like it remembers what to do for prep.

During the past week my coach noticed that the right side of my back/shoulder area was “bound” and suggested I get a deep tissue massage. He asked when the last time was I had a massage and I had to admit I’ve only had one professional massage in my entire life and that was several years ago. He recommended that I get a professional massage at least every other week between now and my shows - every week if I could manage it – with the idea that it would keep my back muscles loosened (makes it much easier to do a back pose if you can actually spread your lats!).

My physical therapist for my elbows recommended a massage therapist who works on a lot of the Chargers and other professional athletes so I made an appointment. When I arrived, I filled out some paperwork and then Shane, the massage therapist, came out to meet me. Shane’s a pretty big guy, which makes sense since he works on football players, but I’m an itty bitty 120 lbs so I was a little apprehensive when I thought about him giving me the massage. :o)

I told Shane about all my injuries, the joint mobility work I’m doing and the binding up of my right shoulder/lat, which is most likely related to my right hip/low back issue. Things went well until he asked me about my stretching. My what? I asked him. Ummm. I don’t stretch. I know that’s bad but it’s just sooo boring and I’m so unflexible and it hurts to stretch so I don’t do it. He gave me this look that said, “Ah, I’ve got this lady’s number. She and I have a lot of work to do.”

He proceeded to use a combination of deep tissue massage, sports massage, myofascial release and stretching on my back, shoulders and legs. My back (both sides but especially the right side) is so bound that all the muscles in my back around my scapula are acting as one unit. Not good. Plus my piriformis and sacrum are so tight he said no wonder I have such bad back/hip pain. This all ties in so well with what Z-Health Master Trainer Lou McGovern (the joint mobility specialist) said about my messed up gait and – get this – backwards reflexes. I’m a mess!

Shane worked on me for an hour and although I felt like he had beat me to a pulp, he said he wasn’t able to completely free my back and hesitated to put me through much more during that session. He then showed me a piriformis stretch where I’m standing and must put my leg up on a table about hip height (not an easy feat in and of itself). I bend the leg at a 90 degree angle and try to get my knee flat on the table, while leaning my opposite shoulder toward the knee. He demonstrated the stretch and all I could say is "You want me to do what?!" It looked impossible. Well, I swung my leg up and tried. In a word - excruciating!! I couldn’t even come close to putting my knee flat and of course the right side was way worse than the left.

The good news is that he thinks he can help me fairly quickly. I’m going to see him once per week for the next four weeks and then we’ll re-evaluate.

Now for the good news – the second day doing the piriformis stretch I was able to get my left knee flat on the table!!! Not so the right knee but it’s definitely getting closer. I love being able to get results so quickly. It almost makes the pain bearable.

Between my trainer/nutritionist, joint mobility trainer and massage therapist I really feel like I have a great team helping me to be the best on stage ever!!

Two weeks into prep and feeling fine!

Just two weeks into prep and I'm already seeing the changes - leaning down, muscles filling out. God, I love comp prep!

We increased my cardio to 30 min six days/week. Bleh, but I know I shouldn’t complain. It’s not near as much as a lot of girls have to do. Kim said he likes to get me ready early and then just feed me til show day. My body reacts well to that strategy and I like that plan! :o)

I can definitely tell my metabolism is getting faster. I’m finally hungry for my last meal of the day. That ground sirloin and egg white meal was really hard to force down the first week but now I’m hungry for it and it’s a great way to finish the day.

My energy level is fantastic. I’m not taking any fat burners at all and at first I thought I might need some green tea extract to help keep me peppy during the day but I’m absolutely fine. In fact, I have more energy than I did just a few weeks ago before I started prep. Partly that’s because I’m actually eating quite a bit right now. It’s also because I’m just so darn excited to be prepping.

I’m also very pleased with the way my body is holding up so far. My elbows are doing great! The osteoarthritis in my knees is only troubling following legs days (2x week) especially if I do hack squats. The other injuries – my hamstring and hip – were somewhat troubling me when I started prep. I went to see Z-Health Master Trainer Lou McGovern. He worked with me for 2 hours and taught me a few joint mobility drills to help reset my nervous system. I do these very simple drills three times each day and then go for a walk for about 5 minutes. It’s pretty amazing. My hamstring pain, which I’ve had for 6 months, is entirely gone!!! Poof! Just like that. It’s hard to explain what this joint mobility work is all about but I’ll try. Let’s say you get an injury – perhaps a hip injury. Your gait changes as you walk to accommodate the injury. This can affect other parts of your body too as your posture, lifting form, etc. all work differently to compensate. Over time the injury itself heals. But – your nervous systems holds an image of the “old” way you moved, the change in your gait, the compromise in your lifting form, and you may not go back to a normal gait (and you may not realize you haven’t normalized). Eventually you may even get another injury which could be due, in part, to this new programmed way of moving.

The joint mobility drills work to “reset” your nervous system. Sometimes improvement is immediate (such as with my hamstring). Other times, it takes more work – and time – to reset the nervous system and make the pain disappear. Such it appears is the case with my hip injury. I’m still in a bit of pain, even with the drills. When I do the drills the pain definitely goes away but it comes back, sometimes within minutes, other times in a few hours.

This resetting can be done virtually anywhere. I’ve begun using it in the gym if I feel my hip act up. I do the ankle lateral tilt and then walk a little around the gym. Magic!

I’m going back to see Lou again in a couple weeks so he can check to see how I’m doing and learn some more drills. This stuff is fascinating and if it can take all my pain away, I’m all for it.

One of my friends on Twitter was complaining that Figure competitors don’t have much junk in their trunks. I asked my husband what he thought and he said I should post this picture. While I’m sure there are girls out there who need to boost their booty, I think it’s safe to say mine is not flat. :o)

Week one complete!

I just completed the first week of competition prep. It went GREAT! My elbows and knees are holding up nicely. The only challenge I had was in holding dumbbells while doing wall ball squats. I want to hold at least 25 lb dumbbells in each hand but the weight is just too much on my elbows. One of my Twitter friends, @FitnessGirl911, suggested I wear a weight vest. I think that’s a great idea and today I went shopping for one. I found a 40 lb weight vest. It’s a bit lighter than the 50 lbs (and more) I want to use but it certainly will help the elbow issue. The only problem I have now is figuring out how to lug the 40 lb vest plus my gym bag plus my cooler into the gym twice a week (or more). I have to climb stairs to get to the workout floor and I think slugging the vest around is going be hard on my elbows!! Geez. I guess I could wear it :o) My current plan is to ask the gym manager if I can have a locker assigned to me for the next few months. That way I can leave the vest there and not have to lug it around.

The food part of my comp prep is super easy so far. I’m still at 1830 calories which is a lot. We upped my cardio to 25 minutes, 5 days per week to help jump my metabolism a little more. The goal is to keep the muscle I’ve built this last summer while leaning down and keeping my joints healthy. So far so good.

Tomorrow I am having an evaluation with Lou McGovern, a Z-Health joint mobility specialist. He was referred to me by Mike T. Nelson (@MikeTNelson on Twitter). I don’t know a lot about this type of thing but basically Lou is a performance coach and Z-Health “is a cutting-edge exercise system that helps people improve their health, alleviate their pain, and maximize their athletic performance.” (via www.essentialhealth.com) . Also, from Lou’s website: “Z-Health focuses on the whole-body approach with training principles that have the goal of re-educating the nervous system for maximally efficient movement patterns. Z-Health is very precise, uses a low number of repetitions, and emphasizes the perfection of movement skills. As a result, the program will help you improve joint lubrication and function AND will teach you how to eliminate poor movement patterns that may have developed over time.” I’m excited to check it out – plus a little nervous. I’ll report on how it all goes.

Day one of comp prep!

Yay! I’m so excited. Today was the first day of my 2010 competition prep. I met with my trainer and nutritionist, Kim Oddo, last week to get my program – nutrition, supplements, workouts and cardio schedule. I used last week to start to move into my program by ordering my supps and buying the food items needed. I added a second afternoon snack and switched my dinner meal over to white fish but didn’t incorporate my bedtime meal yet. It’s interesting. Within two days of making those tweaks to my diet, I could feel the change in my metabolism. It got faster and I got hungrier. Crazy how that happens.

I’m on 1830 calories per day to start with. Nice! Hopefully, I’ll keep all the muscle I put on this summer while leaning. Cardio is starting out nice and easy. I have a fast metabolism so don’t expect to have to increase it too much.

Today I did my first leg workout of two for the week. Tomorrow I’ll tackle back, rear delts and abs and Wednesday will be chest and biceps. I’ll rest on Thursday and then hit legs again on Friday and shoulders, biceps and abs on Saturday.

The elbows held up pretty well today. The only exercise that bothered them was ball wall squats. I was holding 25 lb dumbbells and they just pulled way too much on my elbows. I guess I’ll try it with 20 lb dumbbells and just focus more on keeping it slow and holding the squat at the bottom and not so much on the weight I’m holding.

I’m looking into seeing a joint mobility specialist, masseuse and acupuncturist throughout my comp prep. Between the elbows, knees, lower back/hip and IT band injuries that are all in various stages of healing, I need to make sure I have the best team of professionals surrounding me so I can bring the best me possible to the stage in June.

Mentallly, I’m ready to focus on prep. As much as I love a good glass of wine, I’m ready to give it all up and concentrate on my training and squeaky clean diet. Typically the first two weeks of prep are the hardest, as the body gets used to the changes in diet and structure. That said, somehow I don’t think it’s going to be much of a problem. I’m really, truly ready to knuckle down and do this!

I'm back - and then some!

So it’s a New Year and I’m ready to take this blogging to a new level. I’m continuing to rehab my elbows. It’s such slow/ go but I can tell I’m getting better. I had four weeks of physical therapy, then a week on my own and now I’m back for three more sessions. I think that’ll be it for awhile. I’ll continue to do my PT exercises at home and ice once per day. Although I still have pain when I lift, I can tell I’m getting better. I’ve been able to increase weights in my workouts to about 70% of my max so that’s pretty good, plus my elbows recover faster from workouts now.

My knees are also doing well. I laid off the hack squat for awhile and lightened up on all leg exercises that put pressure on my knees. I did the hack squat with 90 pounds today and my knees didn’t hurt at all! That’s about half of the usual weight, but hey – I’ll take it!

Mostly I’ve been having a bit of an internal struggle. I’m such a goal oriented person that it’s really hard for me to not be working toward something (translation: toward a show). I just love the whole process of prepping for competition – the training, the nutrition, the supplementation and yes, even the cardio. Even though there are times during comp prep where I’m tired – and hungry – I really love how I feel during those 12 weeks – mentally and physically strong, energized, ready to take on the world.

Although I really wanted to do the Emerald Cup this year, after a ton of soul searching and listing the pros/cons, I came to realize that the real goal for 2010 is Masters Nationals and that if I try to compete too soon, I may blow my chance at doing Nationals if I get hurt again. So I sat down with my trainer and brainstormed a new plan. We decided that I’ll compete at the Greater Gulf States NPC competition in New Orleans the end of June. That’ll accomplish a few things: First, it’ll give me an extra couple of months to heal up my elbows since I won’t begin prep until the end of March. Second, since the New Orleans show is only four weeks before Masters Nationals, it’ll be fairly easy to keep my body in comp readiness, as opposed to doing a show in March (Emerald Cup) and then trying to keep stage ready til July. Third, it’ll qualify me for 2011, as long as I place well, that is! So, that’s it. That’s the new plan.

It’s amazing that having a plan is all it takes for a transformation to take place in my heart and mind. I’m finding myself getting excited as the days tick by and I’m getting closer to beginning contest prep. I’m taking it easy at the gym so that I give my elbows plenty of time to heal, yet I’m able to slowly increase weights so that makes me happy.

Keeping positive

Wow, it’s been awhile since I posted. December has been a whirlwind of activity – work, working out, family birthdays, Christmas and health challenges. My knee and elbow joints have really been giving me problems. I had to quit my building program 2 weeks early because of the pain. I simply couldn’t workout.

Kim sent me to his friend, one of the doctors for the San Diego Chargers, to get checked out. I had a full blood workup which all came back normal. There’s a good chance I have osteoarthritis. I’m meeting with the doctor this week to discuss what he thinks is going on, as well as treatment options.

Once I’ve talked with the doctor again, I’m going to check out a joint mobility specialist. I met Mike T. Nelson on Twitter and he has been wonderful - sharing his thoughts, articles and exercises regarding joint pain, its causes and treatment. He has a colleague here in San Diego whom I hope can help.

Meanwhile, I’m working out using light weights and doing moderate cardio. Back and biceps are giving me the most problems right now. I can work legs if I don’t squat heavy. I’m still hopeful I’ll be able to begin contest prep the last week of January, with my first competition of the 2010 season being The Emerald Cup. Keeping positive …

At the half way point

I’m half way through my 12-week muscle building program. The place I’m seeing the biggest gains is my legs – mostly in the quad sweep. I’ve been working legs twice a week so it’s no surprise it’s starting to show. In fact, I met with Kim last Friday to discuss my progress and we decided that for the rest of the program I will alternate double legs and double back workouts so that for one week I’m working legs 2x and the next week I’m working back 2x.

I’m struggling a bit with achy joints – my elbows and my knees. I think the hack squat is the culprit for my knees so I’m edging my toes higher on the platform. Kim told me to start taking a joint support supplement. I’ll give it a couple weeks and see how my joints are doing. If they are still a mess I’ll need to lighten up on the weight I’m lifting. It’s pretty heavy and I’d like to keep lifting heavy, but it could be I need a rest/change.

Steak is on my weekly meal plan 3x per week now which is great news. For some reason white fish for dinner just isn’t doing it for me right now so if I can eat steak 3 dinners per week that means I only have to eat white fish 4 dinners per week. That’s not too bad. :o)

I was in Silicon Valley on business a week ago and keeping on my nutrition plan continues to be a challenge. I brought a couple meals with me on the plane since my flight was short and I figured the food wouldn’t spoil. I also brought my whey protein with me and a meal replacement shake for emergencies. When I got to my hotel I immediately went in search of bottled water. The hotel (a Hilton) didn’t have a convenience/gift store so I walked to the Hyatt and bought four 1-litre bottles of Fiji water for $15.00. Yikes! Later I realized the fitness center had one of those 5 gallon water dispensers and realized I could’ve probably just purchased two litres of water and refilled them there. Another challenge was room service for breakfast. I wrote on the order form that I’d like 5 egg whites, scrambled, and a bowl of oatmeal. They delivered it promptly in the morning as requested and as I signed the bill, I realized they had charged me $33. Geez. Clearly I need to figure out something or I’m gonna go broke!

Some competitor friends suggested I try bringing a cooler of my own food on the plane, packed with hard plastic blue ice thingys to keep the food cool. Others suggested I bring the cooler with food and, once past security, to place ice from the food stands in ziplock bags in the cooler. Definitely worth trying one or both of these ideas. I’m going to New Mexico this week so I’ll let you know how this goes.