No Injection

Dr. Rand, my sports medicine physician, had an X-Ray done at the hospital to make sure the tendon wasn't coming off the elbow and it was not. However, he does not feel the tendon and surrounding muscle strain is sufficient to risk an injection in the area. The tendon is small and if he hits it instead of the sheath he could weaken it further, all for a gain of maybe a week to 10 days. Instead he said my massage therapists need to dig deep into there and I should start some physical therapy modalities. So I went and had Sakina beat it up and then I'll have Sam do some treatment on it tomorrow.

And we did identify that the jump in dumbbell weights for the lateral flys is the cause. This is all good news I suppose. The mystery to me is how come the night after I flared it I couldn't squeeze toothpaste out of the tube and two days later I can't make it hurt. Dr. Rand says it is another one of those all or nothing deals where I can go back to square one easily. He said that had I stopped jumping the other day while it wasn't hurting, that I probably could have gone a little further in each successive practice. But since I flared it I get to start over. Fortunately this time I stopped far short of where I did the first time and it was almost good as new after three weeks.

So beyond the rehab I am free to do all of my training components because the only thing that hurts is vault #6 forward and lateral flys. The game plan is to skip the first meets and ramp up. My plan is to not jump at all for four weeks and focus on running and my fitness - AGAIN.

It will be interesting to see how things turn out. I had such a great year last year winning indoor nationals and then the World Masters Games in Sydney. I also had a great three meets indoors and then got 2nd at indoor nationals. So though it appears to be a lost year, I have gotten an incredible amount of running in and that was a huge part of my preparation plan for 2011 anyway. Sure I would love to jump but all of this insane base work and training will surely pay off once I can. I mean I vaulted very gingerly because of my back yet blew through two poles that used to take a miracle to use from 22' (7m). I'm gripping nearly 12' (3.66m) from that short of a run. I've also been running further so I can get back to my long runs sooner.

Bottom line - be patient. Every injury has a cause and will not be repeated. I strained by bicep from being too under and not pre-tensing my arms. I strained my back doing heavy squats in the Smith machine, something I discontinued two years ago for risk of injury. And I strained my forearm by upping lateral flys too heavy and too fast. The rule with any injury is to come back better than when I left? There are always training items that lose focus when you're jumping and competing. NOW is when you attack those weaknesses and make them strengths.

So I'm EARLY for next year. The huge grind I had planned for the end of the summer/fall has already been well underway. This is VERY tough mentally but it WILL payoff. Thanks for the support. Bubba