Author Topic: chasing athleticism  (Read 923615 times)

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maxent

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4785 on: June 25, 2019, 02:28:52 am »
0
Thanks guys. I just got the MRI back. Good news is i know what's wrong. Bad news is it sucks. It doesn't look like it's treatable or fixable in any way. When doc told me it hit me like a huge wave of sadness realising i've probably trained myself into this and i can't train myself out of it. Ive worn out the cartilage in my knee and the loose bits get stuck and cause the soreness, weakness, loss of stability ive been experiencing. It all adds up, amazing how a single can tell you so much. Not sure what i will do for health now .. i needed to do more cardio now i dont know if i can.
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LBSS

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4786 on: June 25, 2019, 09:11:03 am »
+2
 :ffffffuuuuuu: :ffffffuuuuuu: :ffffffuuuuuu: :ffffffuuuuuu: :ffffffuuuuuu: :ffffffuuuuuu: :ffffffuuuuuu: :ffffffuuuuuu:
Muscles are nonsensical they have nothing to do with this bullshit.

- Avishek

https://www.savannahstate.edu/cost/nrotc/documents/Inform2010-thearmstrongworkout_Enclosure15_5-2-10.pdf

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LBSS

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4787 on: June 25, 2019, 09:11:20 am »
+1
swimming?
Muscles are nonsensical they have nothing to do with this bullshit.

- Avishek

https://www.savannahstate.edu/cost/nrotc/documents/Inform2010-thearmstrongworkout_Enclosure15_5-2-10.pdf

black lives matter

Coges

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4788 on: June 25, 2019, 08:30:55 pm »
+1
Thanks guys. I just got the MRI back. Good news is i know what's wrong. Bad news is it sucks. It doesn't look like it's treatable or fixable in any way. When doc told me it hit me like a huge wave of sadness realising i've probably trained myself into this and i can't train myself out of it. Ive worn out the cartilage in my knee and the loose bits get stuck and cause the soreness, weakness, loss of stability ive been experiencing. It all adds up, amazing how a single can tell you so much. Not sure what i will do for health now .. i needed to do more cardio now i dont know if i can.

Just worn out cartilage or arthritis too? There's a lot you can still do to help yourself. Maybe start by getting a few opinions on what you can do to help and strengthen the area.
"Train as hard as possible, as often as possible, while staying as fresh as possible"
- Zatsiorsky

adarqui

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4789 on: June 30, 2019, 07:19:28 pm »
+2
Thanks guys. I just got the MRI back. Good news is i know what's wrong. Bad news is it sucks. It doesn't look like it's treatable or fixable in any way. When doc told me it hit me like a huge wave of sadness realising i've probably trained myself into this and i can't train myself out of it. Ive worn out the cartilage in my knee and the loose bits get stuck and cause the soreness, weakness, loss of stability ive been experiencing. It all adds up, amazing how a single can tell you so much. Not sure what i will do for health now .. i needed to do more cardio now i dont know if i can.

absolutely sucks man. really hoping you can bounce back from this eventually.

any plans yet on maybe a second opinion? looking at potential cartilage repair techniques/operations? you mention it's not fixable in any way, but there might be some options out there.

your last statement is important: "Not sure what i will do for health now". Sounds like you're dealing with some major stuff right now, so it might be hard to focus on health, but it might be more important now than ever. I imagine the last thing you'd want to do is "let yourself go" and get out of shape + put on tons of weight, which would put more stress on your knee(s). I mean you could still focus on nutrition, potentially still do some "cardio" via walking or swimming/pool workouts (like LBSS mentioned), just anything you can find under pain threshold which could facilitate healing/strengthening/health benefits as well. You could also strengthen upper body, core, and even legs - but i imagine you would want to avoid "knee bends" under load (ie avoiding squats, lunges etc). You could still potentially do RDL's eventually, calf raises, upper, core, etc. BUT, you're going to have to drop the "aggressive approach to strength/performance training" and instead do everything safe, controlled, light-moderate and literally everything under pain threshold (not pushing through any pain), at least for a long while. toning down the hyper-aggressiveness will help you make less mistakes that could further injure you.

these moments suck and they can seem like there's no way out, but if you slowly re-focus on health itself, there's alot you can do and it'll help you keep your sanity. this stuff is awful & happens to many athletes, but the resulting "tangents" can sometimes be very rewarding.

hope you're doing ok man.

peace!

maxent

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4790 on: September 16, 2019, 02:14:33 am »
+3
Updates! So that first MRI was not great. It was done with a only 1.5T machine at a small lab, and the radiologist who wrote the report on it diagnosed on a particularly blurry image. When i went to see the GP to get the report, she freaked me out made things were seem far worse than they actually were. But thankfully she had written a specialist referral and so I could finally see an expert, 3 months after injury, i'd finally get to see someone who knew about treating knee injuries. The GPs had just wasted my time with pointless scans and 'resting' which only made my leg muscles completely detrained and inhibited and ultimately did nothing to actually address the root of the problem. I wanted an MRI from day 1 but they simply would not do do one, it took a miracle to even get one in the first place (as i described earlier).

The ortho was looking at the MRI when i walked in and he said, yeah this isn't the best image, im not sure really sure I see what the radiologist had reported etc.  I explained how i hurt myself 3 months ago but i couldn't see him until now. He was annoyed that it took that long to do an MRI. 

He looked over my knee a bit and reassured me that i was going to be fine then finally said, we'll get you to do another MRI. At the hospital with a 3T machine. And the radio techs and radiologists were top notch at the hospital as opposed to the local lab near my place. This was what I was hoping for when i walked in to see him because to my eye, the image looked blurry too and i was hoping for a 3T MRI. But the catch was i had to wait 6 weeks till i saw the ortho again to get the MRI report. He thought PT would help me that's why he suggested 6 weeks. In the meantime he had told me to see a physiotherapist, to restore function to my leg muscles which had stopped firing (my quad pretty much disappeared), which i went to once and decided it wasn't going to be worthwhile. She had me do random weird exercises using the rope pulldown, that assume you're the typical sedentary person who needs 'core strength'.  I was especially disappointed because i was told she works with AFL athletes but i guess when you're dealing with young elite athletes, they must practically must heal themselves. All she needed to do was touch my abs to see i have no lack of ab development, it's not easy to stabilise heavy squats as a taller dude without a lot of core strength, the leverage just makes it impossible not to have impressive core development. Yes i had told her i had a history of heavy weight training. 

So 6 weeks later i would see the ortho again, i had taken NSAIDs since i first saw him at his advice, he said taking the NSAID and training would work better because it would let the body break the pain-muscle-inhibition cycle and allow me to gradually restore function to the muscles that had become dormant. It sounded good in theory but the problem was, my knee was still fucked up. So while his trick worked, the swelling in my knee went away significantly that it wasn't too dissimilar to my left knee , the pain remained at certain movements but i could start training again with some discomfort, eg at the bottom of a squat it hurt. Fully extending the leg with resistance hurt. So i stopped trying to rehab it, because i could tell the problem was just not going to be be fixed with exercise.

I walked into his office for the 2nd time and he was looking at the 2nd MRI. This is much better he said. I had reviewed it prior to seeing him and i could agree. The detail was amazing, jaw dropping. It picked up 3 bits of loose cartilage 3mm big, etc. He said do you want to continue with conservative treatment or do you want to do surgery? I blurted out surgery! He said i thought so. So 3 days later im getting the first surgery of my life. The whole thing took less than 9 minutes, they gave me a usb thumb drive of the whole thing. What i got was basically one of those cleanup surgeries NBA players get. A knee arthroscope. 2 days later i was off crutches, 3 days i was walking more or less with a normal gait. 2 weeks later i was off the NSAIDs and pain free doing exercises which previously hurt etc.

I've started rehabbing now .. but weirdly my leg muscles are not really responding to training. They wont activate properly .. when i do the leg extension machine, my R leg is half as strong as the L leg. it starts shaking uncontrollably even with light weight on the exercise. But at 4 weeks post, i can squat pain free now. I still haven't got full rom back though, but close to it. Apparently it takes about 6 to 8 weeks to restore normal function post .. something to do with synovial fluid taking that long to go back to normal.

tldr: things are on the up


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LBSS

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4791 on: September 16, 2019, 06:38:53 am »
+1
that sucks, but ultimately rules. glad to hear things are improving, finally.  :highfive:
Muscles are nonsensical they have nothing to do with this bullshit.

- Avishek

https://www.savannahstate.edu/cost/nrotc/documents/Inform2010-thearmstrongworkout_Enclosure15_5-2-10.pdf

black lives matter

adarqui

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4792 on: September 16, 2019, 09:25:38 am »
+1
that's great news man!

so what's the plan going forward? going to take it easy for a while - or a long time?

pc!

Updates! So that first MRI was not great. It was done with a only 1.5T machine at a small lab, and the radiologist who wrote the report on it diagnosed on a particularly blurry image. When i went to see the GP to get the report, she freaked me out made things were seem far worse than they actually were. But thankfully she had written a specialist referral and so I could finally see an expert, 3 months after injury, i'd finally get to see someone who knew about treating knee injuries. The GPs had just wasted my time with pointless scans and 'resting' which only made my leg muscles completely detrained and inhibited and ultimately did nothing to actually address the root of the problem. I wanted an MRI from day 1 but they simply would not do do one, it took a miracle to even get one in the first place (as i described earlier).

The ortho was looking at the MRI when i walked in and he said, yeah this isn't the best image, im not sure really sure I see what the radiologist had reported etc.  I explained how i hurt myself 3 months ago but i couldn't see him until now. He was annoyed that it took that long to do an MRI. 

He looked over my knee a bit and reassured me that i was going to be fine then finally said, we'll get you to do another MRI. At the hospital with a 3T machine. And the radio techs and radiologists were top notch at the hospital as opposed to the local lab near my place. This was what I was hoping for when i walked in to see him because to my eye, the image looked blurry too and i was hoping for a 3T MRI. But the catch was i had to wait 6 weeks till i saw the ortho again to get the MRI report. He thought PT would help me that's why he suggested 6 weeks. In the meantime he had told me to see a physiotherapist, to restore function to my leg muscles which had stopped firing (my quad pretty much disappeared), which i went to once and decided it wasn't going to be worthwhile. She had me do random weird exercises using the rope pulldown, that assume you're the typical sedentary person who needs 'core strength'.  I was especially disappointed because i was told she works with AFL athletes but i guess when you're dealing with young elite athletes, they must practically must heal themselves. All she needed to do was touch my abs to see i have no lack of ab development, it's not easy to stabilise heavy squats as a taller dude without a lot of core strength, the leverage just makes it impossible not to have impressive core development. Yes i had told her i had a history of heavy weight training. 

So 6 weeks later i would see the ortho again, i had taken NSAIDs since i first saw him at his advice, he said taking the NSAID and training would work better because it would let the body break the pain-muscle-inhibition cycle and allow me to gradually restore function to the muscles that had become dormant. It sounded good in theory but the problem was, my knee was still fucked up. So while his trick worked, the swelling in my knee went away significantly that it wasn't too dissimilar to my left knee , the pain remained at certain movements but i could start training again with some discomfort, eg at the bottom of a squat it hurt. Fully extending the leg with resistance hurt. So i stopped trying to rehab it, because i could tell the problem was just not going to be be fixed with exercise.

I walked into his office for the 2nd time and he was looking at the 2nd MRI. This is much better he said. I had reviewed it prior to seeing him and i could agree. The detail was amazing, jaw dropping. It picked up 3 bits of loose cartilage 3mm big, etc. He said do you want to continue with conservative treatment or do you want to do surgery? I blurted out surgery! He said i thought so. So 3 days later im getting the first surgery of my life. The whole thing took less than 9 minutes, they gave me a usb thumb drive of the whole thing. What i got was basically one of those cleanup surgeries NBA players get. A knee arthroscope. 2 days later i was off crutches, 3 days i was walking more or less with a normal gait. 2 weeks later i was off the NSAIDs and pain free doing exercises which previously hurt etc.

I've started rehabbing now .. but weirdly my leg muscles are not really responding to training. They wont activate properly .. when i do the leg extension machine, my R leg is half as strong as the L leg. it starts shaking uncontrollably even with light weight on the exercise. But at 4 weeks post, i can squat pain free now. I still haven't got full rom back though, but close to it. Apparently it takes about 6 to 8 weeks to restore normal function post .. something to do with synovial fluid taking that long to go back to normal.

tldr: things are on the up




maxent

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4793 on: September 17, 2019, 01:01:51 am »
+5
that sucks, but ultimately rules. glad to hear things are improving, finally.  :highfive:

thanks!
that's great news man!

so what's the plan going forward? going to take it easy for a while - or a long time?

pc!

just use training for better health and wellbeing. no more hard training that's for sure, my body has told me it's not up to that anymore. bit of cardio, bit of weights, probably stay away from sport, see what happens. i did start to get used to not exercising .. it wasn't that bad just felt myself getting out of shape (wish they'd figure out a way out of that!). found i had more time and energy for more intellectually stimulating activities .. turns out heavy training makes you dumber .. i just couldn't think as well when i was constantly fatigued from training. But i had done it for so long i didnt even know there was a better normal. finding balance would be nice.
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Coges

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4794 on: September 17, 2019, 08:09:32 pm »
+4
Hey mate. Glad to hear you're on the way back.
"Train as hard as possible, as often as possible, while staying as fresh as possible"
- Zatsiorsky

AGC

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4795 on: September 18, 2019, 02:11:29 am »
+3
Good to hear mate. So was your knee otherwise looking good apart from the three small cartilage fragments they took out? Because that doesn't sound too bad for long-term function, especially if you heal up well and play it smart easing back into exercise. If it was from the lateral meniscus area, then those lesions could *maybe* even heal a bit (glucosamine sulfate is probably the only supp worth taking to help with that, if you're not already).


maxent

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4796 on: September 18, 2019, 05:55:53 am »
+2
Good to hear mate. So was your knee otherwise looking good apart from the three small cartilage fragments they took out? Because that doesn't sound too bad for long-term function, especially if you heal up well and play it smart easing back into exercise. If it was from the lateral meniscus area, then those lesions could *maybe* even heal a bit (glucosamine sulfate is probably the only supp worth taking to help with that, if you're not already).

Thank you. On the 2nd MRI they saw a possible subtle margin tear at the horn of the meniscus. But im about 90% sure after the op, one of the surgeons came up to me and told me they didn't do anything to my meniscus because it was just fine. Which at the time, i was glad to hear because i've heard some bad stories about meniscus repair! He also mentioned that i had a lot of stuff going on under the knee cap, which makes sense, i think because i had those loose bodies moving around and i had been very active that month of the comp, so they must have done some damage? but im pretty hazy about it all because i had just come out of anesthesia. So i'm going to see the ortho again at some point just to get a clear idea of what they actually did on the day. I've reviewed the video and i did see them scraping bits of my cartilage, maybe smoothing it out, idk will find out.

re healing, i did read that there is apparently therapeutical benefit from leaving loose bodies in the knee for a while, maybe a year, cos they have a healing effect. Then remove them i guess?  I didnt know that before i had the surgery, usually overthink and over research everything but this time i just went by blind faith. So hopefully i got some good healing out of hte 5 months i had them around. The surgeon who operated on my is top notch, really accomplished. The first time i went to his office, at the top private hospital here, i felt out of place, he has a shoe polishing machine, a gold sign,  etc. he got his degree from cambridge (the proper one). He's published a lot of papers and he reviews journals, i got lucky finding him.
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adarqui

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4797 on: September 18, 2019, 12:11:14 pm »
+1
that sucks, but ultimately rules. glad to hear things are improving, finally.  :highfive:

thanks!
that's great news man!

so what's the plan going forward? going to take it easy for a while - or a long time?

pc!

just use training for better health and wellbeing. no more hard training that's for sure, my body has told me it's not up to that anymore. bit of cardio, bit of weights, probably stay away from sport, see what happens. i did start to get used to not exercising .. it wasn't that bad just felt myself getting out of shape (wish they'd figure out a way out of that!). found i had more time and energy for more intellectually stimulating activities .. turns out heavy training makes you dumber .. i just couldn't think as well when i was constantly fatigued from training. But i had done it for so long i didnt even know there was a better normal. finding balance would be nice.

that's a good plan right there.

as for getting dumber w/ training, i feel like that's worse with lifting. also can feel it if you're running 2x/day etc. i've definitely experienced it.

semi frequent low intensity exercise should be fine tho.

health #1

maxent

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4798 on: September 21, 2019, 11:07:57 am »
+6
It seems silly to log modest workouts like this, but im going to all the same. today i did the following:

BS 6x50, 6x60, 6x70, 8x40
Leg Extensions up to 8x60kg DL and 8x20kg SL (with R leg only)
30" step ups 20xBW

And tho it doesnt seem like a lot of work, i was toast. lol. still good to get runs on the board, and everything was painfree. The 70kg squats were a struggle, im favouring my L leg too much, the imbalance / detraining of the R leg is very much the reason.
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maxent

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Re: chasing athleticism
« Reply #4799 on: September 23, 2019, 09:23:13 am »
+5
OHP 6x45, 6x50, 6x48.5, 6x47.5, 6x46, 6x45
BS 2x8x20
Chinup 6x3xBWish
DB OHP 3x8x20
Cable Row 3x8x50
Curl 3x8x30
Bike - 10 mins
Training for sub 20 5K & 40" RVJ & 170kg BS @ 85kg bw. log entry template