Recovery Update

The weekend brings and opportunity to give the back injury a bit of time to begin to heal properly without the stresses of being on my feet all day at work or any training. It is slightly improving however, I haven't been on my feet that much over the weekend and have found some great reflief in sitting down or lying down a lot over this time.

I have done some further investigation into different stretches and core exercise that will help the recovery process:

Exercises to release sciatic nerve pain are as follows:

The exercises to release sciatic pain can be performed at home without any fitness equipments. Most of them constitute muscle-strengthening exercises for the lower back, thighs, hips, abdomen and legs. The following exercises should be performed twice a day starting from 5 repeats per stretching move. Repeat the exercises on alternate sides and increase gradually or as directed by the therapist.

Stretching Program to Release Sciatic Nerve Pain

Good Morning Exercise
Keep a bar with some weight on your shoulders. Bend at the waist with your knees bent a little and the back straight till the trunk is parallel to the ground. Relax in the upright position and repeat.

Hamstring Stretch
Lie on your back and hold on the back of your thigh, lift the knee 90* above the ground and straighten it until it exerts a mild stretch on the back of the thigh. This exercise helps increase the muscle flexibility and reduce the stress on the lower back exerted through the pelvis.

Piriformis Stretch
Lying on your back, cross the right leg over the left knee, grasp the back of the left thigh and pull the knee close to the chest. This stretch helps in the overall flexibility of the pelvic region.

Psoas Stretch
Lying on your back, bend the knee close to the chest and clasp it just below the knee.

Pelvic Stretch
Lying on your back, fold your arms, bend the knees and soles directed to the floor. Without supporting the hands, lift your buttocks off the floor and slowly rest them back.

Hip Stretch
Lying on your back at the edge of the bed, hold your knees to the chest. Keeping one knee in bending position, lower the other knee till a stretch is felt on the hips.

Abdominal Curl Ups
Three types of abdominal curls given below can be practiced separately. Lie on your back with knees bend. Lift up your trunk and try to reach below the knees, try reaching the knees with the elbows, and bending forward with the hands folded behind the head.

Lumbar Extension Stretch
Lie on your abdomen and slowly use your forearms to raise your upper body above the ground, and then lie down again. This back arching is important to help in stabilizing the spine.

Walking, cycling and pool therapy are some of the aerobic exercises that should be incorporated with your back exercise regimen for an overall increase in the quality of life despite the illness. Exercise balls can be a good tool for exercising your back without straining the back or any other joints.

Ergonomic Tips to avoid low back pain
Good Posture
Avoid long term standing
Avoid sit-ups with straight leg
Avoid touching the toes while standing
Avoid lifting heavy weights

To sum it up, the activities and exercises that tend to increase the back pain should be avoided.

The mind.....the 4th area of training

This evening sitting at home reading the latest 'Australian Triathlete' I came across a great article on Mind Games. This is very timely after last nights blog entry:

Instead of starting with POTENTIAL, you should start with BELIEF. When we develop this absolute certainly that we just know it will happen, it's that certainly (belief) that makes you tap into your FULL POTENTIAL, which leads you to taking MASSIVE ACTION. If you consistently follow through with massive action, you will tend to start getting MASSIVE RESULTS. Your self-belief will be reinforced and will only get stronger, which then further develops this extraordinary potential for you to tap into. This is turn creates huge momentum and the results you have conditioned your mind to become a positive self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is a great philosophy for this IM campaign.

Listening to your body....to support the big picture.

Its been a thought provoking day. Today I finally did it, I went to the Doctors to finally find out what is actually going on with my back/left leg. To put it plainly, it is a prolapsed disc that is pinching the sciatic nerve.
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Prolapsed-Disc-(Slipped-Disc).htm

Treatment and recovery looks like this:

• Take it easy for the next 2 weeks
• CT Scan and injecting the inflammation.
• Taking anti inflammatories.
• Have some light physio treatment
• Acupuncture
  
• A good and positive frame of mind.

This evening was rather uncomfortable in the pool with it and the running is definitely out but the jury is still out on the cycle. One suggestion is that water running with a belt would have some benefit.

The Prelude to 2010 Iroman Challenge

It is 20 weeks out from IM New Zealand and then a further 22 days to IM Australia.

Yesterday was the IM Information afternoon for the members of the Squad who are expressing an interest in doing either IM NZ or IM Oz, or in my case both. It was a fabulous turn up and it was great to see all the partners there. The outline for the next 20 weeks looks something like this:

• For the next 4 weeks, focussing on our 'weakness' - In my case this would be a bit of swimming and I would also like to say core would also be a critical weakness which I believe is causing many of the latest niggles (or the lack of core strength)
• For the following 4 weeks it will be a 'bike' focus.
• Then it takes us into the 12 weeks out period.....where the tough stuff begins....time to pull the finger out and do away with the pitiful excuses NOT to train.
  

The last couple of weeks whilst being very frustrating has been very inspirational. Watching the World Champ athletes digging deep and realising all there hard training in fantastic results and then Scott's champion effort at Hawaii last week end was just eating at me to take this champaign even more 'professionally' than my previous champaigns give it a real go at quailifying for Hawaii in either IM NZ (which is my 'AA' race) and IM Oz.

Watching Hawaii for about 7 hours last sunday just gave me the drive to 'fire-up' for this campaign...take no prisoners and instead of working around 80%, in terms of attitude and seriousness to training, nutrition, recovery and mental training, I am very serious to take it to the next level and work at about 95-100% of my potential ability.
The things I really have to nail this time round is:

• Core strength
• Diet and nutrition ----> getting my weight down to 78kg by 8 weeks out (I am currently 86.6kg as of 19-10-09)
  
• Stretching
• Recovery
• Consistent training commitment
  

These are 5 most critical for achieving this 95-100% training potential!
The other areas I am keen to improve within this campaign is:

• Riding hills
• Overall speed
• Arm strength in the swim

Today I applied for my leave from work for the 2010 Ironman Challenge and had this time off approved. So now it is full steam ahead for booking accommodation, flights and paying for entry.

For the 2010 Ironman Challenge, I am again going the regularly update my blog with text, video and podcasts on my journey towards successfully completing the 2010 IM Challenge.

The BOMOAG for this campaign is this:

• IM NZ - go sub 10hr 20min
  
• IM OZ - go sub 12hrs

Revised - Race Schedule for 2009/2010 Season

IM New Zealand Planning

Some preliminary thoughts of IM NZ:

Depart
5:50 PM Tue 2nd March Brisbane
11:59 PM Tue 2nd March Auckland

Return
3:30 PM Mon 8th March Auckland
4:15 PM Mon 8th March Brisbane