Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Day 44 - P90X Legs & Back - 12/20/11

I just realized - I never made an entry for yoga yesterday. Probably because there was nothing much special to report on. Except that it gelt hotter than it's ever been. It seems I've said that probably 4-5 times, but I can tell you with certainty that this time felt hottest. Fortunately, I've learned how to pace myself so that I don't burn myself out.

My biggest hope for the class was to see it set my right foot back to normal. One of the ways I can tell how inflammed the tissue is is during some of the kneeling poses - when my ankle is at its greatest point of flexion, and my weight is on top of it. If it hurts when the pressure is released, I know inflammation remains. Fortunately it was only a mild annoyance on the pain scale, so the hope was there. Even still, this morning and throughout the day today I popped ibuprofin and aspirin - thinking that maybe if I kept the inflammation down in the first place, it wouldn't get worse. That experiment is still in progress (more on that later).

So tonight was the legs & back workout again. Increase weights on a few of the exercises, and managed a total of 74 pullups - so that number is slowly increasing by a few each time.

Hmm.. not much to say other than that. Tough to always come up with something to say with strength training - I lift things up, and put them down. Or, rather, in this case - I go into a lunge, and come back up.

After that workout, I started experimenting with another treatment for my foot (maybe this entry should have been titled differently?) - alternating cold and hot. So while I watched some TV for about an hour, I dunked my foot into cold water for 5-10 minutes, followed by dunking it in hot water for 5-10 minutes. The idea is that cold constricts tissue and cuts out inflammation, but then the heat causes a rush of blood flow and nutrients to promote healing. I'm also going to put a heat pad on the top of my foot overnight and see if that helps. It's kind of a gamble - since inflammation is due to swollen tissue, and heat causes things to expand - it may actually result in a set back. I guess we'll see.

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