Marilia’s Powerlifting Blog

No gym today.
Rehab:
- Leg adduction with the swiss ball
- Leg flexion with the swiss ball
- Hip extension with the swiss ball
- Balance over injured leg sittin on Swiss ball, arms raised – much better balance than yesterday
- Free leg flexion – increased ROM (watch video) – thoracic breathing
- Leg flexion sliding on the floor (watch movie) – thoracic breathing
Some pain today

(Watch movie to check increased ROM) 

1.       Iced knee 4 times up to now

Rehab:

1. Did much less icing today (3X )

2. Exercises:

   - flexing and extending leg while lying - 5 X 15

   - flexing leg over swiss ball - 5 X 15

   - leg raise (lying) - 5 X 12

   - plantar extension - 4 X 12

   - hip extension while lying (isometric) - 5 X about 10 sec

3. First day at the gym:

   - vertical chest press machine: 6 X (20-15-12-10-6-5) - increasing weight, last three to failure, 60′ rest

   - peck deck - 4 X 15RM

   - vertical chest press closed grip (triceps): 5 X (15-10-10-10-6)

   - triceps-pulley: 4 X 15

   - triceps machine: 4 X 12

   - rows (machine): 5 X 10RM

Felt better 

1. No physiotherapy exercises today. I’d rather not do them unassisted at this point. Leg is still quite unstable.

2. Icing - I’ve been icing 5-10 times/day. Today, up to now, six.

3. Stopped taking the anti-inflamatory medication (nisulid). Felt some pain, took only the pain-killer. Actually I shouldn’t have taken anything- the pain was pretty light and I want to give my liver a break.

It has been a long time since I have not written anything on this blog. It sounds like the perfect moment to resurrect my posting: in June the 8^th I had an accident at the gym and suffered total anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture, meniscus amputation, cartilage damage and a minor injury to the tibia.

At the time, with cautious support from my physicians, I maintained the plan to participate in the GPC Powerlifting Worlds. We started a rehab program that can be roughly observed through the following videos, designed by my physicians, my physiotherapist, myself and Gilson Clemente, powerlifting coach.

ACL injury rehab - Experimenting with the Deadlift  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arwfa3WSaCA (July 24)

ACL injury rehab - Squat evolution, light wraps, chains, sus - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et_GshT71QE (July 24)

ACL Rehab - tests on balance and control  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdHSFW3dSQo (July 16)

ACL rehab - using loose knee wraps, deeper squat  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsRV-2CYaa4 (July 16)

ACL Rehab - flexor  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp48dsVWWeM (July 16)

ACL Rehab - GCA, São Paulo - first squats  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opk-kHO8KOU (July 16)

Along the program I recovered proper control and strength. I was squatting practically unequipped with 150kg, which meant that my expectations for an over 200kg squat were realistic. However, considering the peculiar biomechanical aspects of powerlifting gear, especially the lifting suit, which acts like a harness, I figured the risks of any imbalance produced during the lift could have catastrophic results. I gave up the Worlds, and lifted in minor bench-only meets.

The surgery was planned for early November. Due to insurance conflicts we succeeded to do it in November the 10^th, Tuesday.

I will report my rehab and training log in this blog.

Tuesday – breathing exercises, too sedated and still coming from anesthesia

Wednesday, 11th – breathing exercises, went home. Breathing exercises and slept (still quite sedated).

Thursday, 12^th – no pain at all. Knee flexion up to 90o. Breathing exercises. Physiotherapy:

- knee flexion (assisted) up to 90o – no pain.

Friday, 13^th – No pain, walking with no crutches. Decreased depression. Breathing exercises. Physiotherapy.

- knee flexion (assisted) up to 90o – no pain.

- Plantar extension on the swiss ball.

- leg raise (sitted)

Observation: assisted knee flexion brings great relief. Pleasant sensation.

Saturday, November 14 – no pain, walking with no crutches. Breathing exercises.

Physiotherapy:

- knee flexion (unassisted) up to 90o – no pain.

- Plantar extension on the swiss ball.

- leg raise (sitted)

- leg flexion on the swiss ball (must videotape that)

Mental skill techniques(http://www.istadia.com/go/marilia05 ) will be used to improve recovery quality. Speed is ok – I wouldn’t worry with that.

Monday there was an accident at a friend’s gym, with a power cage I am not used to. When I racked the bar with a relatively light weight, therefore, no equipment (120kg), the left side of the bar slipped from the support. I didn’t see that and proceeded to get out from under the bar. The bar twisted my knee and immediately ruptured my anterior cruciate ligament.

My physician – the one I trust my life with and treated other absurd injuries I had – said that this might not compromise my performance this year, even in squatting and deadlifting. The ACL stabilizes rotational movements. I’ve been reading a little about this and there is a lot of material on squatting and ACL. I think I trust my physician better, but there’s a lot to take into account.

I want to gather information from other lifters.

From March 29^th up to April the 10^th I have been away from the Gym with a weird virosis. It started on a Sunday night, after a somewhat stressful business meeting. The previous Thursday and Friday had been strength test days and they were amazing: I had surpassed my prediction on a sub-maximal effort test.

I might have failed to supplement correctly post-workout, which is true; I might have not fed well Saturday, which was my birthday celebration; and the Sunday stress might have wrapped it up.

Anyhow, I had never been sick this long before, never had joint pain as I had now and never lost so much STRENGTH (not only 8lbs of muscle mass, measured by bio-conductivity tests).

Not good. Trying to recover.

Blog cadastrado no Rec6

I recently found myself without a well defined competition schedule after another one of those unbearable federation desintegrations that so often take place in Brazil. Coincidentally, I happened to be reviewing the chapter on periodization on my permanently-edited (I must make myself stop this) book on powerlifting.

I read Issurin’s paper on block periodization and it appeared to me that he addressed important issues as applied to powerlifting and strength sports in general. More to the point, the idea that it is more productive to limit the number of motor tasks being trained in each block, taking into account their retention up to the last block within a certain meso-cycle makes a lot of sense.

We handle potentially dangerous tasks concerning Central Nervous System responses. Every top powerlifter I know has had a nasty encounter with CNS overtraining. Another aspect of our preparation to be taken into account is the retention efficiency of task. Issurin’s idea that mixed training strategies overwhelm the athlete’s organism (in our case, I would say it overwhelms our CNS) explains much of the poor results we get when insisting on complex, extremely varied multi-task protocols.

I decided to plan my last meso-cycle according to these principles, in what I saw appropriate for powerlifting, and achieved interesting results. We’ll obviously have to wait until a next competition to verify this.