Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[Mark E. Hurling]

Yeah that's my plan. Once I get this back under some semblance of reasonable comfort I'm going to try some form of benching again, and if it was not meant to be, well so be it.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Be wise. Listen to your body. Rest. Vitamin I. Hope the pain is down to a dull roar today, my friend.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Vitamin I, love it. It sounds like you read Rip's other book and the chapter on training for the elderly where he mentions that. of course being a physician it's probably a common enough reference at work. I've took some Piroxicam and have been using topicals like Voltaren backed up with some Pennsaid, and of course my old friend the cold pack. They seem to be damping things down a little. While it still hurts to do the equivalent of a lateral or front raise, at least the delt doesn't throb when my arm is hanging by my side or with my elbow propped up by an ergonomic chair arm while typing. Which is more than I could say yesterday or when I first hit work this morning. The shit hot ticket for me was Celebrex until that perhaps specious study about how they marginally (like 1%?) raised heart problems and scared a lot of docs from prescribing it.

[tertius]

Sucks about the deltoid, Mark. Let it alone, and it'll heal up. Keep up with your push-ups and presses, and I'm sure you'll be benching again in no time.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I slept better and the delt seemed somewhat less uncomfortable. Of course the smart move would have been to let it rest some more and not go to jujitsu. Smart, as you might note is not my middle name, so off the 50+ miles each way to the Northridge House of Pain. I worked with a blue belt about my size last year, 40 pounds heavier and just as inflexible. I told him about my shoulder and we did left side technique. We started off with ground technique revolving around spreading the base of the attacker forward and outward to better exploit weakness and extended buoyancy to roll him off. Another element we explored was a quick roll as the attacker tries to settle into the mount. The width of the pelvis causes him to not be able to get both knees on the ground and so less stable. Couple this and the other base spreading with a circular cross block sweep and the attacker ends up on one side or the other when he tries to fire a ground and pound at you. Then you roll away as you put a knee or vertical fist in his ribs.

As we did this I told him about grabbing a couple of important things along with the strikes to the neck and torso that had been demonstrated to us. Two of the black belts who were observing us asked me what I meant by that, so I told them. Grab his balls and crush them. Surprisingly, both of them were horrified. As in "You'd actually do that?!" Well yes I would, and I don't know why they were so taken aback. As I've said elsewhere, the Marquis of Queensbury doesn't live on the street. He's likely getting some head in his condo in West Hollywood when you might need him to call "foul" in an alley fight. We also had a newly promoted young blue belt I had never seen before in a dazzlingly white brand new HSK gi. Master Bellman used him to demonstrate a very painful wristlock called a Z-bar and he forgot to tap. I called out, "God gave you two hands kid, TAP with the other one!" Everyone laughed, including him while he was grimacing. But he tapped. I just love being the dojo comedian.

The shoulder discomfort has evolved, much as I hate using this now misused word. It is less in the delt now and has settled in the AC joint. If this had happened sooner I would have known what I was actually dealing with. This was my old friend from years ago that used to give me fits. It never presented in the frontal delt before as it started out. This may never have been about anything else. My new plan going forward will be to alternate overhead presses one workout with bench presses the next instead of doubling up with both in the same session. I have had to relearn once again, balancing volume and frequency. And what did I do after my brief layoff? Double down on pressing movements. What stupidity.

[Bean1871]

The shoulder discomfort has evolved, much as I hate using this now misused word. It is less in the delt now and has settled in the AC joint.

Ouch. Mark...time for an MRI? Having separated my AC ligament not too long ago, I remember at the time considering just going home and icing the mf. I'm glad I listened to that little voice of reason and dragged myself to the ER. I was able to avoid the knife that time. I remember the indian clubs were being marketed heavily about that time, and I used some for awhile for mobility.

Take care, geezer.
-Bill

[Mark E. Hurling]

Hey thanks for the good wishes Bill. I think this is more of the same malady that affected me in my 40's. I really pushed and exceeded my capacity for recovery in pushing movements in those days, and I replicated them with an even more limited capacity these days. Rest and a careful balancing of volume, frequency, and recovery will probably get me to where I want to be.

[The Emancipated Freak]

Shit, and here I was looking forward to being old and angry. Knurling, hopefully you'll be able to beat this injury and kick more ass. Good luck.

[Mark E. Hurling]

The support and encouragement you all provide here is really heartening. I woke up with things feeling about 90% better so I decided to try to get in a light session of lifting. Proof that enough anti-inflammatories can make all the difference. That and what must have been a more successful self adjustment of my first rib than I though possible. It's funny how similar it was to some of the forcible realignment of primary bone structures that we do in jujitsu. Except this was in a theraputic rather than a non-theraputic manner.

5 minute warmup on the bike (Light day-mostly)

Overhead Press: 135 x 5 x 3. Not taxing and the shoulder still feels good.

Hammer High Row: 325 x 5 x 3 PR! Not sure if this exactly qualifies, but I've never used this much weight on this exercise before and I need something to celebrate after these trials and tribulations with the shoulders.

Squat: 275 x 3. No sweat. Working back up to 315 and beyond.

A GXP and then foam roller and stretching.

Further modifications to my routine are going to take the form of squats once a week and deadlifts once a week much like the routine Rip described to Thomas last week. My back is doing well enough to tempt me into trying this and if it proves too much, I'll sub shrugs every other week for the deadlifts for recovery purposes. That's with alternating presses and benching each workout for three sessions a week. That should dilute the total pressing volume and frequency enough to keep things running smooth, I hope.

I got to this entry later than usual today because Dearly Beloved guilted me into going to a local street fair with her. A good move as it happened because some massage therapists had $10 for 10 minutes of massage offered and she said, why not? I can assure that guy earned his $10 working on my traps and rhomboids. He had me moaning Madre de Dios! in Spanish and Meing Gott! in German. Since he was Korean he just laughed as did some passers-by as he dug first his elbows into me and then his knee. The latter was something new. Talk about blunt force trauma spread over a wide area! Yeesh! But I feel really good. The upper back is as loose as it will ever get and the shoulder feels great. Still. I got up from the chair and wobbled away rolling my shoulders as the three massage folks and still other passers-by laughed some more at my marionette like antics.

[Mark E. Hurling]

5 minute warm up on the bike (Heavy Day)

Bench Press: 185 x 5 x 3. Delt was feeling ever so much better. nNnearly perfect, but still a small lingering afterburn. All in all, though damn good. Cycling back up to a decent working poundage carefully.

Sumo Deadlift: 335 x 3. This was the first time I have tried doing squats and deadlifts during the same week. The back seems to have taken it just fine with no complaints.

Foam rolling and stretching.