Fighting My Way Back

This year is flying by isn’t it? I just finished an 8 week tour where I got to travel all around the country performing in lots of interesting places, including my final state, Maine! However, there has been a bit of a cloud that has been hanging over me since the middle of November and now that I’m getting an idea of what to do…I’m fighting back! So what’s the deal you ask? Where to begin…

The specific cause of my injuries is quite elusive, so I won’t bother with that, but it’s probably all related to jump rope (go figure). Last year I started having some problems with my right forearm. It initially manifested itself during weight workouts where I couldn’t do specific types of lifts (usually hammer curls). That was easy enough to solve, stop doing those exercises. Then in November, I finished a workout, hopped on a plane and flew to Costa Rica. I initially thought my arm was just sore and that resting it a few days would solve the problem. However, after a couple weeks of limited use, it was only getting worse. I took off for Africa and made the hard decision that I would primarily focus on teaching with very limited jumping. Very hard to do when you’re teaching jumpers at a camp, but I did pretty well.

The lame part was that even with lots of rest, it was only getting worse. I turned to a chiropractor that did dry needling and decided to give that a go before I went to the orthopedic specialist. He worked on my arm (and other aching body parts) and I found that it did help some, but still wasn’t back to normal. I was telling people that I couldn’t do dishes (which I couldn’t, I kept dropping the scrubber because my hand would lose gripping strength). Nobody thought it was that big a deal since who wants to do dishes anyway? I did. I hate not being able to do something. Plus it was affecting my jumping.

You want the reason for why I haven’t done any more records lately? This is why. I gave up all training and have been letting my arm heal as much as I can. Obviously I still had shows to do, but outside of that, I have hardly been using my arm at all. It’s really lame since I was getting really close on the most jumps in an hour. Now I have to start all over again as soon as this is fixed.

Anyway, I just went to the orthopedic guy a couple days ago and he concurred with the 2 chiropractors I saw, it’s tennis (jump rope?) elbow. So I get to do lots of stretching and scar tissue scraping twice a week. Quite exciting. I’m praying that this heals up quick since we now know what’s going on. I also had him look at my shoulders and leg since I was there. Aches I’ve had for a while will hopefully be figured out as well since I have some specific stretches to do for them as well.

Fighting back is the goal and the process? Stretching! Yay…yeah right! I hate stretching. However, if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve found that the things you dislike doing the most, often times are the most important. We all love focusing on the flashy and exciting where you see real results and you can show those off to your workout partners. Stretching? I’m up to 45 minutes a day already and I have nothing flashy to show anyone. Now I get to add even more to my routine. The thing I can say is that I’ve had significantly less problems with my back since I finally got into a stretching routine. Maybe it’s not flashy, but I want to be doing this for a long time to come. I’m fighting my way back one stretch at a time.