Mon 12 Jan 26: No workout today -- had an early doc appt, so had to bork the usual routine. Thankfully the universe has not chosen that arena to pop yet another set of fangs from this dying Year of the Snake, into my third point -- all ok Did get a few useful (to me, anyway) tidbits from the interactions: - the amt of time typical for a perfectly good cardio echo (ultrasound) to degrade into diagnostically-relevant when your diet goes to shite, varies person-to-person due to age, genetic factors, existing disease, etc.... but typically happens well within the span of time between echoes. How much is that? Every 3 - 4 yrs. Why this is important, is due to my dietary / medical history. From 1993 - 2017, had eaten fast food almost exclusively -- and from the worst drive-thru slop-mongers out there (Wendy's being my favourite). Had to change due to panc -- and since then, beans and greens were my staples, all else excluded. My '24 echo showed perfect -- despite 2 - 3 x Trenta Java Chip Fraps, 2 x Wendy's Doubles / 5 x Double Stacks (note: when DSes were $1 and Doubles $4.xx, 15y ago), 2 x largest fries and 2 x Large Frosty. This was one friggin' meal, and I'd eat 2 of these, every day for years. And then came panc, only 2y moved back to after WA. No longer cold enough to burn off that junk... got metabolic disease. As well I should have... So 6y after panc changed my diet forever, big-pipe echoes were squeaky-clean -- even to me who ate right and exercised, that were surprising. This is huge... and proves (at least w/ my cane labourer genes), one can definitively use diet to maintain health of the the worst killer of old cantankerous men who don't eat right nor take their meds as prescribed, but say they do -- metabolic disease Just gotta actually do it -- which I'll venture is more a mental, puncture-the-petulance thing with old men than anything Knee feels... pretty good! Stiff a little bit tho... so hope tmw doesn't sneak another exercise-eraser into my life
Mon 12 Jan 26 (addendum): Worked on a client taken last Sat -- was framed to me as a hard case, but they'd not had much luck w/ Western medical orthodoxy (or "healthcare" )... AS you may've gathered by now... that's not a rare situ at all. Lots of hard cases come to me, often sailing years over my head as I don't advertise (that's how you get the full-bull kooks in the door, worshipping me as a guru or some sh** -- just a technician folks, don't get your expectations where I can't possibly fulfill them). So like most clients of this type, had to set them before I touched a single square inch on their body. Ready for it, they said... nothing else was working. Long, long list of health issues, from twice-done knee surgeries to spinal disc supportive surgery in lumbo-sacral area (big fat red flag), to the 'beetus-melleetus, to osteoarthritis in all phalanges and a particularly-dangerous (and f***ing freaky described to me) brain surgery. And blood thinners atop that. Talk about a friggin' South-Pacific-rainforest-banyan of a diagnostic tree... Risks that actually applied to the work: pressure limits (neuropathy from long-term 'beetus makes feedback from injury delayed or non-existent, increasing risk working at my depths... so conservative hard-stops there. Age made all the big pipes doubly-taboo (just have to recall my massage instructor's story of their mentor's elderly client bleeding out on the table, because they went too aggressively after a neck muscle knot and injured the carotid bifurcation -- very fragile over 70yo. Death in seconds, not minutes or hours)... so no core or deep leg or neck work. Could feel the ties on my hands w/ every detail of the contraindications... But luckily... most of the progress in this broken and exquisitely-tender body... were in the feet. And boy mommy -- did they have some pain in the feet. When you overwork your big toe by doing pickup sports when your muscles are atrophied from 50 hrs doing something not sporty but the complete opposite (sitting in a chair)... the flexor for that toe, used to doing the main work of propelling you in any direction you choose but mostly forward... develops a knot called a trigger point (TrP). This keeps the muscle from both contracting and relaxing properly. Think of a long spring, like one on your door closer. Now tie a knot in it. It can no longer stretch to full length, nor can its intrinsic contraction use anything but the length of spring outside the knot. Very similar situ w/ living muscles harbouring knots -- they become inferior shadows of their healthy selves. This creates compensation by nearby muscles that do something like what the flexor hallucis big toe flexor does... but because they didn't evolve to match the strength of the main mover, they tire easily... which means they too can form TrPs. This continues to happen -- debility, recruitment, exhaustion, recruitment further away... until the lower leg runs out of options in itself. Now it'll send the responsibility headwards -- because that's where more muscles are. And doesn't stop until it reaches literally the head. Recruitment in compensation's bad enough... but also the antagonist, or opposing muscle to the flexor (extensor) also feels this knot's pull 24/7... and being the weaker of the pair, it also develops TrPs and locks contracted. Soon the entire foot becomes more a living prosthetic club of an appendage, than a living, sensing limb. This was the state of my senior citizen. Working muscles ahead of the heel, on the blade side of the foot... elicited screams of pain and jump sign -- involuntary contraction of muscles / muscle groups, in response to intense pain. My pressure was less than the weight of a full can of soda, yet this person had to tap out after 3 strokes. He'd insisted that we only work an hour given his plane ride later that afternoon... so I gave the ultimatum, that in order to meet that deadline... they were gonna have to put on their grownup pants. Grudging agreement... but necessary and defo proven possible, esp since they knew what was coming (worked the other leg on Sat). There's always a 'sick leg' and a 'compensating leg'. Wasn't at all surprised, this compensating side had more pain beat into it decades, than the horribly-misdiagnosed-and-botched sick leg had -- think about it. Both were equally challenging, just in different ways. Was only able to proof the lower leg and L hip (recurrent TrP -- near the greater trochanter in the prirformis muscle, if you care -- had to be redone, as the muscle itself, not surprisingly, was atrophied and struggling even w/o a massive knot handicapping it)... and sent them on their way. (cont. next post)
Mon 12 Jan 26 addendum, cont'd: Was a good example of the kind of progression one can exp in this field: as your skills get more well-known... you'll be availed of harder and harder clients. Haven't had one quite this bad in a while, but also can't delude myself into thinking they'll stay the same or get easier (well, the easy ones get easier ). Even had a nice convo w/ Client on the table about what the swimlane of a bodyworker looks like. I ventured bodywork's ground floor's pretty straightforward, easily-taught and easily-retained. You refine simple tqs to the satisfaction of your mentor, they give you a new one once you'd demonstrated proficiency in it. So far, nothing different from any other trade. But about the fifth year I began to sense a lull in the climb rate of my knowledge, and the first cases that stumped me. Little did I know, this is routine, even with gurus. But that feeling of powerlessness is where a mentor who gives a sh*t about your progress, must recognise and step in. That were not my mentor, unfortunately... but did set about combing thru their literature and online forums and research papers for this gig (forums which do exist but tbh, are full of hacks -- forums are not where real mentors can be found; has to be f2f, ime). Betw. 4th & 5th yr of apprenticeship, exp'd my first breakthrough. What this is... is a sense that someone up there, pops a bubble you've been building years w/ exp putting hands on people, and struggling to solve problems. The first ~6 - 7y of practice are mandatory to bring you to this 'head' of struggle... some take a full ten. I was mightily struggling to help a labourer who were up in the air most of the day, clinging to tree trunks and power poles w/ legs, creating massive TrPs... and sitting there, drenched in sweat & hands aching... all at once like a Tinkerbell wand-anointment... came to the realisation of how to solve his problem. And the effort were halved. This were later explained to me, the human mind-body needs a certain amt of effort thrown whole-heart at a problem, before the subconscious mind brings to bear its own exps, which have been recorded from the moment you were born. And once that part of your mind is satisfied it has what it needs (someone 'up there'), you gain the cultivated neuronal connections necessary to approach the problem, from a completely-optimised pathway between parts of your brain -- often skipping extraneous paths into the cortex as much as possible, and keeping wiring pared down in cerebellum and white matter. This is doing without thinking, what martial artists train years to do. Like Yoda said, 'do, or do not'. Respond to conditions using your six senses all unified and working together, without thought increasing overhead. So since, have been refining other tqs into what I call 'hand-learning'... which my ASD / probably-comorbid ADHD feels is perfectly-natural and quite immersive to do. Feeling for nerves, tiny heartbeats in lesser arteries, knowing what effort to use to gently pull nerves off structures they shouldn't stick to... all developed without any of the insecure machinations from novice days. Yes today's client is today's version of 10-y-ago pole-climbing client... but my toolbag's a lot more populated, and its tools come to hand naturally as extensions of my intent. At the monastery on O'ahu... were once raking leaves as part of daily work around the temple... when a Zen Master, Hosokawa Roshi, walked over and said 'doing a good job, I see'. 'Thank you, Roshi'... and turned to continue my work. 'Somehow, feels natural for me to rake this way.' 'I noticed,' he said. 'Kinda feels like a hand, huh?'
Tue 13 Jan 26: Finally. Got in a workout... and the relative calm in the knee walking into the mall, were ominous, really. Yep. Times were faster on the second-to-last than the last -- instant confirmation of Me Not Working Out As Usual. But this were first time in my life, a mere 2d playing hooky, would see me back on square one (for indoor mall lap times, anyway -- aged half of now, needed weeks to fall off my peak)... Pretty grim: 3:58, 3:53, 3:48, 3:25, 3:38. Easily the worst times for lap-by-lap improvement, I'd seen the several weeks doing only inside mall laps. And have never had last lap be slower than the one before it. Welp, another reality of making sure your muscles are up to the task of both holding the knee together, and ambulating your dead weight on both feet re: knee injury -- because if the joint's strapped down too tightly due to muscles reaching their exertion limit, it'll tend to compress the menisci in full-blast, hail-Mary tension -- which hurts far more than correctly-bulked muscle accustomed to the task and warmed properly. Had to back off the usual jogging last 2 laps, as hurt way too much... I mean, had to show the spinal cord that, in order for it to make a change -- which should take by tmw. Doesn't mean I'll get my Sat lap times back tho... as the workout on this malfing knee, also exerts their own consequences in opposition. We shall see what progress if any, tomorrow
Wed 14 Jan 26: Ulch. Remember yesterday's omen about Tue's weird workout flexing its own consequences today? Here Only did 4 indoor laps today. Why? Because despite starting w/ the same pace roughly for laps 1 & 2... 3 & 4 were shiteshows -- L tibialis anterior, the muslce what lifts your foot up to step after pushing off... locked up early. And for whatever reason, the muscles of the thigh, not the knee joint or attachments of said muscles, were what was hurting -- was totally down to something going on in the quad muscles esp. What on earth...? The leg hurt so much, had to stop a lap early. Strange, new weakness -- and usually can push thru the knee weakness... but this one literally threatened me going down (as in faceplanting) rather than go another lap. Oh great, good to hear it My only explanation... could possibly be the Mg supplementation. It's new -- haven't taken Mg as a supplement since oh, '23... and did exp significant loss of pain using it to RDA... but seems for exertion, my body likes... less? D u n n o -- it's only thing that could possibly account for the symptoms, as Mg helps muscles relax. Will dial it back away from RDA, and see how I do tmw Times: 4:08; 3:57; 3:44; and 3:22. And felt as worn out end of that 4th lap, as yesterday's 5th. Recall only a couple of days before, I'd done 6 laps, no problem. This, is a problem More tmw...
Thu 15 Jan 26: Kicking-it-down-raining. Around 0430, BOOOSSSHHH were the literal sound of the sky falling on my home. Hoped the gutters weren't on the floor (they weren't... but talk about floodplains of gritty shite across my local streets into town) Workout? Well here are the times: 4:25, 4:17, 4:00, 3:50, 3:48, 3:00. 6 laps w/o wanting to cut off my R leg, are apparently back. Didn't like the 5th lap time, so took another -- and lo and behold, a full 48 secs faster (actually got up to a proper jog, if only half a lap). What did I do different? Frustratingly a lot of things... so no idea which was the most influential (some weren't in my control). Slept only 6 hrs last night, the 'worst' sleep I've had in ages, possibly from backing off Mg ~35% of RDA (Mg helps you sleep, esp when it's cooler climate for you in winter). So two possible causes for sure. The next, were starting the laps off unambitious, just going strictly by what the knee felt was comfy -- and pushing a tiny bit past, barely palpable as strain / pain. Took 3 laps to exit 4 mins but as the progression shows, w/o any pain or gritting teeth at all, were averaging 8 - 9 secs lopped off per lap -- and getting close to a minute, when I could jog. Which were strangely non-painful, even at the very end doing a smol sprint the last 15m or so. So am I healing? D u n n o, since surprise, the heavy rains (low baro pressure) could also factor into why. But my take from a history beating on myself to get in shape after long orbits away... is the sleep. 7 - 8 hrs is far too much for my body to tolerate w/o sticking together, but ~6 has been my particular metabolism & genetic legacy's sweet spot. Have known this since mil days, when 4 hrs was legal to keep any soldier at in peacetime indefinitely, but not compulsory in wartime. When did I serve? Yup -- lots of stretches 72 hrs awake during the buildup of Shield and the hundred days of Storm. Quite a physical & endocrine education, in prime of life. Welp -- lessons: keep Mg at ~50 - 75% max of US RDA... and just get to bed earlier don't let CPAP lull into making knee adhere and muscles stiffen, from prolonged (for me) inactivity sleeping 7 - 8 -- 6 is best, w/ perhaps 7 - 8 reserved for stressful times when the body actually needs more sleep start the laps leisurely, and let the speed build organically; this knee at the mo doesn't like being pushed very hard, at least in this latter phase of healing Nothing really intuitive, had to trial / error it all... but probably could've arrived at these conclusions separately, if fate hadn't conspired to squish them all into one morning Still, grateful for the progress and education
Fri 16 Jan 26: Very interesting... Had an inkling today's laps wouldn't be as good as yesterday's, for 3 reasons: meals weren't as nutritious vs. building up to yesterday (ran out of something I should've restocked, but forgot ) Thu's impressive performance itself, takes a tiny bit of recovery (which w/ this knee, means more d/t than healthy) sleep was somewhat fractured -- which I'll chalk to the wrong amt of Mg supp Prior to yesterday's run, took 2 x horse tablets chelated Mg (as bisglycinate) w/ my multi (which uses mag stearate). Full recommended dosage is 3 x tablets for 75% RDA... so 2 x would be 50% + 18% from the multi = ~60 - 68%, which my body obvi liked. Last night, experimenting to see if taking 25% of that away would improve the knee further... took 1 x tablet chelate + multi, for a total of ~35 - 43% -- which at the bottom end, gets uncomfortably close to halving the dosage... but wanted to see for myself. As expected, the knee ached a bit last night and prior to the laps, walking to the Maul. But, nitty gritty would be this sh*tty little ditty Lap 1: 4:08 -- a lap-improvement-interval slower than first lap Thu, durr -- it's also a few degrees colder today (which this knee oh just loves to pieces )... so not a surprise there. Lap 2: 3:50 -- not as able to option different gait styles to load different parts of the internal knee... which was telling re: the add'l tension the leg wasn't able to shed as easily. But did loosen eventually, nothing to grit teeth thru. Lap 3: 3:40 -- probably the most comfy lap, as the knee were still allowing pushed, just not as gracefully or painlessly. Tried the glide -- a lower-impact-style of walking that lets the sole of the foot glide only maybe a cm over the ground, where possible (also reinforces landing and pushing off w/ the ball of the foot, as evolution designed us to barefoot) -- took it okay enough but not like Thu. Lap 4: 3:21 -- front-half all glide, back-half tried a light jog -- oo, didn't like it right away. Tried another 30m later (50m to S/F line), took it fine. Jogged over the line for... Lap 5: 3:01 -- was able to maintain the jog, but had to reach a little, esp around the final 15m which is a hairpin turn at the sharp end of the circuit, nearest the finish line (whole upper floor path is roughly keyhole-shaped). Last 10m sprinted as best I could, but R leg were on the brink of muscle failure, which felt eerily like over-dosing Mg, which is impossible (similar reactions of motor neural network to both -- one to compensate for not enough Mg, the other sensing too much relaxation and trying to overdrive contraction, w/ too-much Mg). So a bit frustrating but also pleased, silver-lining-gazing: proves bod's pretty fussy abt Mg (at least chelated, which I have't taken in years)... but did better with less than more -- which is valuable sh*tty-nitty-gritty. Just need to return to the 2 x tablets + multi for now, methinks. Have a pill cutter if need to get finer with chelate dosage. Also did the full 3 laps up top to cool down, which seems to be having more effect on post-exertion muscle tone than before. Is the knee prepping for actual, full-grand-reopening sometime soon? F**k if I know. But the only real gritting-teeth discomfort this week seemed to be when 1) not following my routine >2d; 2) first winks right out of the casket to take a dump; 3) pushing it obviously past its limits, esp w/ too much Mg (ooowch ). More Sat
Sat 17 Jan 26: Bit of a twist in today's workout... I'd forgotten to take Mg last night (long story -- not something most of you want to see elaborated here )... so found myself at the start / finish line, seeing how this would play out... Knew were going to be more initial tension in the knee, read 4 - 7 / 10 pain... and wasn't wrong. Here are the laps: Lap 1: 4:05 -- not awful, but a lot more painful vs. yesterday -- w/o the cold, btw (back to warm and humid, if windy). Lap 2: 3:53 -- similar but slightly slower transition on a warming knee. Doing okay but knee's not tracking as well vs. Fri. Lap 3: 3:41 -- nearly identical time vs. Fri. And gliding now, a bit earlier -- was that a good idea? Pain in both legs rising -- which is new. Lap 4: 3:22 -- again, nearly same. Tired -- not something I'd bet on. But seem to be traveling over the ground same rate. Hmm... Lap 5: 2:54 -- new record... but were forced to kick it out like this was 1990. Most exhausting laps I'd done yet -- any less, would've fallen off pace... which was the object lesson. Stepped outside and cooled off with 3 wholly-leisurely laps on top. Because for the first time since walking inside... this was genuinely exhausting. --- Huh. Stopwatch doesn't lie. Getting only Mg stearate from the multi, kept me moving about the same rate as w/ that + 1 x bisglycinate... but at the cost of far more exertion and pain to get there. Could get there tho... but obvi would prefer not to have to reach that deep for essentially the exact same times as Fri (and new record was only due to more exertion -- not the point of doing the laps. Entirely luck). Missing the pill swill... meant not only was I missing Mg for the laps... but all the other nooch (B-vitamins? Vit D? Calcium? Copper & Manganese? What an ultramaroon ). Oh boy -- time for my 2 x bisses + multi. Need to f***ing tattoo it on my arm, apparently
