12 Weeks Post Op

And the general update, mild low back pain this past couple days but thinking it's because of the bathroom project and doing a lot of leaning forward while cutting and laying the floor to fit.

I did some research as well as met with a Sports Medicine Chiropractor about the weight lifting. He said at the 12 week point he's ok with me upping the weights about 10% when I increase them. The research I was doing says generally that when the scar on the outside of the body turns white then the scars on the inside on the annulus will be as healed as they're going to be, too. Online recommendations say to stay with no more than 50 lbs with weight lifting until that point. So I'm going to play it safe and even though the sports med guy said it's safe now. I'm going to stick with more single leg lifts like the split squats on this current routine so I can lift that weight for longer and still build strength. 

This week I'm allowed to run a mile and a half. I broke it up last night into three half mile's taking a minute or two between. Tomorrow night I'll do a full mile and then Saturday a full mile and a half. I figure the middle run each week I'll do at the prior week's distance. As I increase distance I'll have to adjust for a short run mid week anyway. 

Awesome news, I got my swim suits in the mail today! I can put the faded one in the bottom of the bin and the stretched out one in the garbage. Hoping these two hold up well and if they do, I'll be buying from the same company online again. They fit great. Final test will be how well the straps hold up in the water. And I can't wait for the two bikini's I ordered to arrive for my vacation :). Here they are!

Bathroom Remodel

Busy weekend this past weekend!

I had two events to attend Saturday as well as my usual appointment with the gym. Got home and after putting the little man to bed decided to paint the walls. Then the next morning I had a friend help pick up my flooring and then before meeting family for Easter I put up the mirrors and lights.

Meeting family for Easter was at a buffet where I ate WAY more than I should. Healthy options mostly though! Then off to the store for a few things and back home I decided to work on the pattern for the flooring. Little guy was really helpful by stepping on the paper I was trying to tape together for my pattern :). Got it downstairs and taped it to the sheet vinyl I'd purchased. Cut it to the pattern and then got my little dude down for bed. Once he was sleeping, put the floor in. Not nearly as hard as tile. About as easy as carpet with backing already attached. Lots of clean up left to do and the toilet is still in my garage... Also need to do the baseboards yet so that'll be next weekend if all goes as planned. Then maybe I can get caught up on cleaning my house!

Here's the before, when I decided I had to take a sledgehammer to the damn custom shower that I couldn't stand...

And here's a couple after:

I started the tempo swim training in the gym today. Six weeks without a mile time to check is going to be hard! Well, I did a mile, but with the tempo training it's 1.5 laps breast stroke, half lap back all out front crawl. I was making it to the other side of the pool consistently in 20 seconds or so. I'll up the front crawl as my lungs and strength accommodate the all out pace I'm doing. That'll be every Monday. Wednesday is water aerobics and Friday is the next tempo day though I'll be mixing it up a little. Half lap breast stroke, half lap front crawl for form- so a slower pace. Then half lap breast stroke and half lap all out front crawl. I don't want to decrease my stroke length or sacrifice form for more strokes per second. 

San Diego!

I've got my trip booked, going to San Diego for an extremely reasonable price in a few weeks! Can't wait! I've been wanting to go for at least 5 years. Planned with people and it always fell through. Well, I'm going! Me and my little guy are going to see the ocean and have a relaxing few days away from home.

I know I have other things I should be spending my money on. Or saving it. I've kind of come to realize every time I get caught up something else happens or there's another project. So, all future projects are on hold and I'm going to take my trip! And after my trip I'll worry about the financial repercussions. I can afford it but I don't like having debt. And I don't have a credit card so this is all being bankrolled by yours truly. I really should get a credit card for the trip though. Just in case I need one for rentals or other things. I don't want much of a limit. My current credit cards are store cards and gas cards with the gas card having the highest balance I'm sure. They all get paid off monthly but this month, I'm thinking it'll be a minimum payment month so I have extra cash for the trip. Only big debts I have is my house and a consolidation loan and I know I can get caught up on the rest of the cards pretty quickly if I don't take on any more large household projects and my car doesn't break down again!

In preparation for this trip I'll be switching to a fairly strict Paleo eating plan. I've always cheated with an ounce of cheese on my salads and that wont change. I'd really like to be as fit as I'm able if I'm going to be wearing a bikini for 3 days. My workout is also changing. I was supposed to switch next Tuesday but now that I have the new plan I'm too excited to wait and I'm switching tomorrow to my new plan.

New Plan:
3 days per week
Super Set 1: Side Lunges and Bulgarian split squats 3 sets 8 reps
Super Set 2: Incline press and Upright Rows 3 sets 8 reps
Super Set 3: Pull ups and Dips on the assist machine with 40 lbs assist 3 sets 6 reps.

Then off to the Kettlebell for 5 min of Get-ups. Then three ladders 5-4-3-2-1 of KB snatches. Because that's what my rant was all about the other day :).

Swimming x3 days per week. Monday and Friday tempo swims and Wednesday an easy swim or water aerobics.

Monday and Thursday after work running. Wednesday after work Pole Dance Party! And Friday after work Boxing. And one last run on Saturday.

Sunday and Wednesday are my "rest" days. Technically Tuesday evening till Wednesday evening is rest other than the super easy swim. And my Sunday will include Total Yoga by Gaiam.

The Snatch

This post, all about my old friend the kettlebell. A bit of back history, a girl I had in classes has a husband who is a personal trainer. I demonstrated KB swings, snatches, cleans and presses, TGU’s, and stuff a while back. Apparently her hubby (who has never as far as I understand picked up a KB) feels that kettlebells are dangerous, particularly the snatch because of the “risk” of hyperextension.

So, here I am to say that a kettlebell snatch is safe and quite unlikely to cause hyperextension. In fact, in my half hour internet search I couldn’t find one documented (or even commented in passing) case of hyperextension of the shoulder with a snatch. My classmates husband decided he didn’t like them because of a description she gave of the KB snatch. A mere description of an exercise is really not a good way to decide safety. As a former physical therapist assistant myself, I’m a tad disappointed that a person would decide KB snatches are unsafe without any research of a quite well versed exercise. The KB snatch has been around for centuries. I think it’s going on it’s three hundredth year. If they were so very unsafe, I think by now we’d have a quite a bit of evidence to prove that.

Why is a snatch safe? Well, any exercise can be unsafe, just use weight that’s too heavy for you to control (like a guy who did an overhead press with a barbell, dropped it on himself and snapped his upper arm in half). The kettlebell snatch doesn’t  pose much risk of breaking the humerus in the arm. If a person can’t control the bell, the best thing to do is let go of the handle. Unlike other weights, because of the swinging motion, it’s unlikely to drop down onto your arm if you let go. 

In fact, I accidentally let go once and it flew about 8 ft then bounced off a wall and landed on my tiled floor. Being made of iron, yes it did break the tile. But I was unhurt :). 

With the snatch, if the arm were to start to hyperextend letting go is option one. But the chance of hyperextension is nearly non existent in my mind. First of all, when swinging the bell up to snatch it, there is a slight bend in the elbow at the top of the arc. Hard to hyperextend the shoulder when the upper arm is not more than perpendicular to the body. That’s only 90 degree’s of 180 degrees of normal extension. Once the upper arm is about perpendicular to the body, instead of continuing the swing, the arm shoots upward as if punching toward the ceiling. Again hard to hyperextend when the arm is shooting upward and not arcing backward.

So, in closing, the kettlebell snatch doesn’t pose much (if any) risk of hyperextension. So, snatch away 

Snowing Again

So I live in Wisconsin. Which means one day it's 60 degrees and the next we're having a blizzard. Yay!

What that really means for me is that the schools will probably be closed in my area which means no childcare at the gym. What to do with the little person? I'll be working out at home I'm sure. I have all I need to do my full workout at home. Just takes longer because the lil man gets underfoot and wants to play. He has his own area in the basement but he wants to play with me and lift weights with me and hit the boxing bag with me too.

Which on another note, I ordered kid boxing gloves for my lil guy and a blow up boxing bag. It should be here in about another week and then he can box with me and hopefully wont be so bored during my workouts. Working out with him when he was smaller was easy. Just toss him in his play area and he'd happily play alone. Now though, he's at the age he wants someone to be playing with him. I'll give him tons of attention before hand and hope I can get my workout done in an hour and a half.

I'm considering at week 12 to also switch to a mostly paleo eating plan. The food in my house is basically this anyway so it wont be too much of a change. I'll miss my occasional donut and my tortilla chips. My "cheat" will be one ounce of cheese a day just like last time. And last time I never cut the Diet Pepsi. This time, that will be gone too. I was an addict, seriously. The Diet Pepsi was at 3 Liters a day at one point. At the end of last year even it was still close to 2 liters a day. Now I have one soda a day but not even every day anymore. It's time to cut it completely except for family gatherings and going out to dinner.

Hoping for a good drive home tonight in the foot of snow!

11 Weeks Today

And 11 weeks means I'm allowed to run a mile now! So after midnight last night I did a mile.

My time, for my first post surgical mile and first mile I've done since September of 2015, was 13:04. Hard to see, since I was at home and it was late and I have very poor lighting in my living room. I used to run a mile in about 9 minutes pushing a stroller before the pain got too bad. I'm really hoping to be able to cut my mile time down to about 8 minutes or better. If my running is anything like the swimming, I'll be killing my previous records soon enough. 

My next run will be the Bellin 10k. I'll be allowed to run 6 miles at once just before that since I'm increasing my runs by half a mile per week as advised by my doctor. It was hard waiting this long to run a full mile but I know my long term health is more important. 

General how I feel update. At 11 weeks I'd barely know I had surgery. I feel great. My hips are nearly even in strength with the step ups to the point that the difference is barely noticeable. My flexibility is improving slowly. Before stretching would do the opposite, it would irritate nerves and make me tighter. I'm working on getting the right as flexible as my left but still both need a lot of work to be where I used to be. My hamstrings are still pretty tight generally. Weight lifting is going well, still at 20 lb dumb bells this week. Once I can go up to the 25 lbs next week my legs might be able to feel it a bit better. Just doing the high reps with the low weights till I get there. There is still some mild pulling with stretching at the incision site. After the initial pulling I can do the yoga as they're meant to be done. The incision sometimes itches. The other muscle imbalance I had was the paraspinal muscles along the right side. Though with some of the exercises I do they become sore, they are no more sore than the muscles along the left side. So, I'd have to say they have evened out in strength! I couldn't be happier about having done my surgery. There is no lingering leg issues. The hip pain is gone. There is occasional mild low back pain more often depending on sitting too long and leaning forward at my desk than any of the activities I've been doing. No regrets!

Another swimming PR!

From ONLY a week ago I've cut 3:04 minutes from my previous personal record. That is over three minutes!!! In one week! Super crazy excited about that. I checked my laps repeatedly to make sure I didn't double click and it all checks out. Best lap was a mere 58 seconds for 1/33 of a mile. This will be my last PR for a while. The following six week program that I start next week will be working more on speed drills and form. I have no idea how I did that well compared to the following week. The stars must have been perfectly aligned. And I was quite happy that morning despite only 5 hours of sleep the night before. I completely shocked myself. I'm still having trouble believing it, but yep, I did it :).

I had my nieces over the weekend. Two awesome girls who I don't get to see as much as I'd like. The older one may have been a little bored since there's an 8 year age gap. Hard to find something all three are interested in doing. We went to feed the ducks at the wildlife reserve near me and then wandered through the learning area of the sanctuary. None of them would go down the slide :(. With a possible change in my shift at work hopefully I will be seeing them more. I'd really like to be more involved with them. And I'm hoping I can take them for a long weekend this summer sometime. Get them all some time away and my sister and her husband can hopefully celebrate her upcoming graduation from the nursing program.

Congrats Sister and Brother in Law on your ten years of marriage! Remember the first 4 decades are the hardest...