I’m feeling really great about my last week of workouts! I’m still at only 3 workouts a week (and I laugh that I use the word “only” in that sentence), but those 3 workouts were really awesome!
I had some workouts where I spent 22 minutes straight on the treadmill and some workouts where the treadmill segments were until 5 minutes. And each of those types of treadmill workouts had their own advantages and made me feel really great about my treadmill progress.
For those 22 minutes straight on the treadmill, I’m still keeping myself at a lower speed than before. I’m starting at 3.3 miles an hour, but I did test out going 3.4 for brief moments. Sadly, I couldn’t stay that long at 3.4 miles an hour for more than a minute toward the end of the treadmill workout. But that’s still progress and I’m getting closer and closer to my speed pre-injury.
But for the quick treadmill segments, I had a milestone (at least to me). One block involved going 1/4 mile on the treadmill and then moving on to strength work (it was like a run/row day but instead of rowing we did floor work between treadmill segments). I decided that since I knew that I would spend less than 5 minutes doing that 1/4 mile, I would see if I could start at 3.4 miles an hour. It didn’t feel that bad so I was able to bump it up to 3.5 miles an hour! I was hurting a bit at the end of that workout, but it wasn’t bad pain so I’m ok with that.
Beyond the improvement with the treadmill, I’m feeling like other parts of my workout are benefitting from my healing.
The most obviously one is the rowing machine. Right after the injury, I really couldn’t row because my leg wouldn’t bend enough (part of that was due to pain and part of that was due to the compression bandage I was using). But that’s not an issue anymore so I can go all out on my rowing like I did before. I’m still a little lower in wattage than before, but that’s all about building the strength back up and not because of my injury. I didn’t realize how much strength I’d lose taking it easy in my workouts, but it was pretty significant. I guess my fear of not doing enough workouts is valid. It’s easy to slip backwards.
The weights part of the workout didn’t really suffer from my injury, but I know I took it a bit easy while recovering. Again, I’m working on building things back up. My struggle there is my stubbornness. I like to use the same weight for as much of the workout as I can. But I know that some parts of me are much stronger than others and there’s nothing wrong with switching weights for each part of the strength workout. But I like to move easily from exercise to exercise so keeping the same weight makes that easy. But I need to slow down, take my time, and make sure I’m using the proper weight for each movement.
And finally, there is one part of my workout that I’m still struggling with quite a bit: the TRX Straps. Some of the moves I’m totally fine with. Pretty much anything where I’m facing the straps is fine. But things where I’m facing away (like chest presses or triceps moves) involve being on your toes to do the moves. When I’m on my toes, my calf muscle is screaming in pain! I’m finding that if I stand in a wide stance it helps, but it’s still the worst part of my workout for now.
While I’m going to be in injury recovery for another few weeks (at least I hope it’s only for a few more weeks), but I’m working on getting out of the post-injury mindset and moving on to the usual just kick ass in my workouts mindset!
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Learning How To Maximize My Injury (or Feeling More Normal)
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More Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest)
Almost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri)
Major Progress (or I Can Run!)
