For those of you who follow my madness on myfitnesspal, you'll have all heard me mention that I've been exceptionally intermittent with my trips to the gym. The reason for that is that I aggravated my iliotibial band a few weeks ago.
A few factors have added to the aggravation but the main reason that my knee joint was slightly out of kilter is that I clattered my foot on the steel frame of my piano stool when practicing a move on my pole at home. I badly bruised the outside of my right foot and in doing so I then started to compensate for the pain in my foot by what is called over pronation. In other words instead of walking naturally, I unconsiously placed more empahsis on rolling the foot inwards so the pain on the outside of the foot wouldn't be felt. It's something we all have a tendancy to do - you've hurt your elbow so you rest your arm slightly over in the other direction to stop it hurting, but you often don't realise you've done it. Having no idea that this is what I'd done I carried on training and also started running outdoors.
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| Great read - recommended |
A few weeks later I started a new training programme and one that I recommend as it's full of great ideas for excercises that you don't necessarily need a gym for. In this programme there are lots of compound exercises, such as romainian single leg dead lifts (you have a dumbell in one hand and your stand on the opposite leg, you then bend from the hip and touch the dumbell to the floor) and Bulgarian split squats (you have one leg up on a bench and you squat to drop the back knee to the floor - tough little blighters). There is also the overhead squat, and this was where my stubborness came back to bite me on the arse. As I back squat 35kg, I in my finite wisdom thought 30kg for overhead squatting would be fine! WRONG! Instead of dropping to 10kg and perfecting technique, I went all guns blazing with wrong form and did 8 reps at 30kg. Needless to say I soon dropped the weight down (to 20kg, i should have gone lower) and did another 8 reps. I honestly thought my shoulders and knees were about to implode. I instantly did what I do when something doesn't feel right or I don't like it, I decided I couldn't do it and settled on omitting it permenantly from my programme. (Have I mentioned I can be stubborn and obstinate?) I'm also happy to admit when I've gone too far or done something daft, and going that heavy on a new move was just plain stupid. What I should have done is researched the move on youtube before I tried it in the gym and dropped the weight to the lowest barbell of 5kg and worked up as I have done with everything else - and that is something I recomend to you if you are doing any strength training without a PT (I'd advise you get a PT first as last as they are worth their weight in gold but if you can't youtube is an amazing tool and perfect your form before you move up the weights)
After that interesting take on squatting, I resumed with my split squats, deadlifts etc, a 3km run, used the foam roller, stretched and ended my session. I felt fantastic, overhead squatting dissapointment aside. The following weekend I was at one of my LRP events and on the first night of lots of walking up and down sand dunes etc a searing pain encompassed my right knee. I've not felt pain like that ever. On the flat I was fine, but walking uphill, downhill and attempting to run, I was in utter agony. The pain eased after the event was over and things went back to normal. I decided that I would give my limbs a rest form the gym for a little while and concentrate on pole for the performance and as life was getting in the way.
I got back in the gym at the end of April and did a 2km run. Towards the end of the run my knee started to aggravate again. Two days later I purchased a pair of new shoes and it was by wearing these flat shoes that I realised that the outside of my right foot was a little painful, and that's when I thought that I had possibly been over pronating my foot. I looked up over pronation and true to form there was the symptom that proved the fact, the lower end of the IT band being caused aggrivation but the knee joint being slightly out of place. Having done heavy weights, ran and treked all over the sand dunes of South Wales while turning my foot in slightly had added to the irritation that was leaving me in agony.
So having made the concious effort to realign my foot and walk correctly, ensure that I foam roller every day and have had my IT band seen to it's all looking good for a full recovery. I got in the gym yesterday and did a 2.5km run and not a niggle in sight. This pleases me immensely as I have my annual Race for Life coming up in Juy and I'd like to best my result of 30mins 30seconds for the 5Km from last year.
So the programme restarted on Tuesday, I did a cardio intensive programme on Wednesday and I'll be strength training on Friday (tomorrow). Must remember that slow and steady wins the race, and if i'm injured I can't run for charity or attend my pole dancing class. Must stop getting too over excited by the new shiny things ;)
Anyways, be kind to yourself always
Much love
Krissie
x
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