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  • in reply to: No long-term improvement. What am I doing wrong? #76850
    AvatarLuke Rooney
    Participant

    Two week update! (Well, almost.)

    First off I completely separated “firefighting” from planned/programmed mobilitywork. I still need to do a fair bit of it but it makes sense that few of the “whole system” problems get better by unspasm’ing traps or other shoulder/arm gunk. 

    Instead of following pain, as I have before, I’ve been focusing on my adductors, hip flexors, quads, glutes – based on the idea that enabling a better pelvic position would let my spine live somewhere less overextended. I startet out the first five days with an hour set aside to troubleshoot and try different things, and doing stuff like adductor smashing which is so bloody horrible that actually getting some relaxing at the end of contract-relax took some coaxing. Day 6-7-8 I only got half an hour in and the last five days it’s been more like 45 minutes. I am part trying to figure out of there is such a thing as the pinnacle of goats here, or if everything is just gunk, but I haven’t really come closer to an answer. I didn’t have the same equipment every day, but smashing has been a staple: foamrolling for adductor and sides, barbell smash for quads, painball for glutes(contract -relax with breathing from last weeks mwod episode), voodoobands for hip flexors, squats and banded squats for test – re test and to get a feel for range after. I’d say my quads feel less like stone, but other than that everything is much the same. 
    ..and I might have figured out why, or what, or rather something. Even an hour on the foamroller is little to the rest of the day spent standing/moving/walking/sitting. Trying to figure out how things connect I’ve been watching how I stand, and I got a hold of some footage from sundays archery practice, where I shoot, walk around, pick up arrows, etc. and there was a lot of things going on that I was noticing for the first time. First off, I am walking with my feet straight(ish), but every time I change directions I do so from a position of internally rotated collapse. Think “fifth position”(ballet) but with feet inward, hip and knees internally rotated, and every time I think I’m straightening up (like when I’m shooting or just trying to stand straight) – I am hanging back on locked knees with hip flexors half-way closed and pelvis tilted(and ofc back overextended, gut hanging out if I’m not in that exact moment thinking about bracing.) I mean, I know I am a bad mover but it was kinda disheartening, and to top it off I’ve found that my hip mobility is very asymmetrical. I have about half the external rotation on my left hip than my right, and trying to stand with the same amount of torque and weight in both legs (without locked kneed) is kinda like standing on the backs of two horses where one is at a trot and one at a gallop. 
     
    So, I’m thinking, is lacking proprioception and motor control the underlying goat here? Or does it just take longer to make a long lasting change on tissue because it’s been like this so long? To be fair to the statement that “I’ve been doing this for a long time” – I’ve only been off NSAIDs/APAP two months after fifteen years on/off to deal with chronic pain, and although I get 8+ hours of sleep now the average used to be 3,5-5hrs up until six months ago. Am I just being impatient?

    in reply to: No long-term improvement. What am I doing wrong? #76830
    AvatarLuke Rooney
    Participant

    Thank you for your reply Kaitlin! 

    You are absolutely right, I’ve been spending most of my time focus on putting out fires and not having a systematic approach to the (real) issue. It kinda makes sense how those “fires” wouldn’t stay out without a bigger and more pointed effort on improvement of spinal/pelvic mechanics. 

    Yes, I am hyper mobile, and comments from the videos about missing range/end range proprioception really makes sense to what I am struggling with, like finding stable positions. 
    I had seen two of the videos before, but watching all of them thinking “systems approach”(and taking notes) now helped me get a better grasp how to transfer that into my routine and programming. I’m thinking that putting my effort on improving pelvic position to give my spine somewhere nicer to live would be the first step, and at the same time putting all movement practice -focus on motor control with slow intent and cat 1. movements. 

    In regards to lifestyle/adaption errors I think I am doing well with hydration and sleep, but I am not a nutrition ninja, maybe going from my current 70% of clean/LCHF/real food to something like 90% could make some improvements? That being said, most of the time I’ve spent doing mobilitywork and CF has been combined with sleep deprivation; but that is currently not an issue. Looking through the adaption error -list from “becoming a supple leopard” I can see that stress and chronic inflammation could be contributing factors to why I haven’t gotten far, as well as the errors in programming. 

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