Thursday, August 11, 2011

Plans Sometimes Work, and Sometimes Not!

I forgot to mention that I did not warm up or run yesterday because I could feel my heel pain a little.  I felt it more important to vault.  I'll do the same on Saturday.  I'm also re-evaluating the Wednesday vault day.  Yesterday was just too hot and it is my business travel day so I would always have to jump in the afternoon. I think I will have to go back to jumping Thursday / Sunday and lifting legs/gym on those days - for sure on Thursday. 

That said, the gym was great today except I got a late start and forgot my ankle weights.  I'm not going to do bars without ankle weights because it's just too easy and I don't want my body adapting to that.  I also do my stretching with ankle weights to help me swing into wider ranges of motion. 

Along the same lines I decided I would not run my short sprints without a sled for the same reason.  The sled makes you run forward and cover ground.  So I start with no weight on the sled and then add 5 lbs (2 kg) as I progress through the three sets.  Most of my other running is longer and does not use a sled so this is a good relative balance.

The other main change I made was to my stretching, switching back over to PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation).  Basically this means that if you put tension on a stretched muscle it incorporates more fibers into the stretch and thus "teaches" the entire muscle how to become more flexible instead of just the necessary thin band.  Static stretches for under 20 seconds don't even allow the "stretch reflex" to "let go", so in PNF you hold the stretch for a count of 20, then contract for 6, let go and reach for more stretch for 6, and repeat three times, always ending on the passive stretch.  You can Google it for more info but somehow I got away from this type of stretching and it is far better.  Sure it takes a bit longer but it's worth it.

Hope YOU have a great day!  Thank you for being here!  Bubba

No comments:

Post a Comment