Recalibrating: week in review

After the whirlwind of last week, I was predictably exhausted to start this week. But I also had a final exam Thursday night (yes NIGHT, why are night exams a thing, they are the worst, give me an 8am any day), so I had to push through until then. After that, predictably, I came down with a cold and slept about 10 hours a night all weekend. I think everything is better now.

Other than that, I managed to get some overdue chores done: grocery shopping, vacuuming, laundry, putting up the Christmas tree.

Yeah, my tree has a dark side because the pre-attached lights aren’t evenly distributed. I try to hide it as much as possible and not look too close. At least I control the ornament distribution.

I finished most of my Christmas shopping/making…or possibly all of it, depending on how ambitious I’m feeling about doing any more this week.

And started what I’m calling “recalibration” by acquainting myself with an old frenemy:

I got this book several years ago and did some of the exercises diligently for a few months; then it just sat on my shelf for a few years. Since I haven’t been able to run in about a month, it seemed like as good a time as any to pick it back up and go through the assessment chapter again.

Briefly, the assessment chapter contains a series of tests to find any biomechanical limitations that could lead to injury or otherwise limit your running. I “failed” 3 of the tests: ankle dorsiflexion, hip extension, and the bridge. I couldn’t quite reach the required range of motion for the ankle test because my injured ankle isn’t 100% back to its usual range of motion. The prescribed stretch to “fix” this doesn’t hurt my ankle, so I’ll be using it in hopes that it helps get my ankle back to normal.

The hip extension test is your basic half-kneeling hip flexor stretch, except it’s done inside a door frame and instead of moving forward, your goal is to get your back flat against the frame without feeling any stretch in your hip flexor/thigh. I massively failed this one since I didn’t even manage to get my back flat (no surprise). So, according to the author…it requires holding a stretch 3-5 minutes, 4-6 days a week, for 10-12 weeks, to actually lengthen tissues. I foresee a lot of reading while stretching in my future.

The bridge test involves holding a bridge position and noticing which muscles are “on”. The book says that if you feel tightness in your lower back, it means your glutes aren’t firing – but it doesn’t mention what’s going on if you (ahem, me) feel it mostly in your hamstrings. I suspect, though, that this goes back to hip flexor tightness too. I’ll probably incorporate some of the exercises that go with this test, but the hip extension is (again, no surprise) my biggest problem.

Since it takes 10-12 weeks to see results…I figure I should start now, if not sooner.

“Recalibrating” your biomechanics…why wait for a New Year’s resolution?

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Do you have Anatomy for Runners? If so…what worked/didn’t work for you?

Exam time…8am or 5pm?

 Linking up with Meghan for week in review and HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin for Weekly Wrap