Success stories.

Brilliant, thanks a lot for that

No more lower back pain after 6 weeks of F1. That little stiffness I get after hours of sitting, standing or walking will fade away after 30s of limbering. Definatly great! I thank the ABH and MN PE1 for that, the first 4 weeks more to mastery and the later mastered last week.

 

Stiffness in right biceps from BL injury is fading. I can now to pull ups and dead hangs again, but with very reduced volume. Xiao pengs and some perscribed stretches have alleviated this along with some irritating popping.

 

Straddle flexibility has improved greatly; I can now sit relaxed in a lotus position (not as advanced as the ones you see in yoga) which has always been beyond my capabilities.

 

I have also learned that longer term commitment pays off. I have always jumped right into the fun stuff and made my own workout plans. This forum made me change up my mentality completely.

Time for a little post-holiday success story.

 

Five years ago, I would get pretty severe pain in my right knee just pushing a trolley around. Going climbing at a crag just 500 meters from the parking lot with a light backpack would also give me knee pain, particularly on the way down, where the knees would just feel unstable.

 

Got an MRI scan of the knees, since the pain was quite debilitating, but the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with the knees.

 

My first introduction to leg training was with Pavel's Naked Warrior (that is such a cheesy title, btw), which eventually led me into BtGB and the F-series. Now I'm about to finish the SLS progression and begin the weighted lunges, so no way near finishing the leg strength in the foundation series. My knees have been getting progressively better ever since I started training.

 

This summer I went on holiday to Austria, and had planned a trip up to an alpine refuge with the family. We hiked, scrambled and climbed 6 km for six hours, gaining 700 vertical meters, and all the while I was wearing a 25 kg backpack. Next day, my son and I left the refuge and did a 600 m long, 400 m high via ferrata (steel wire protected climbing route), descending again to the the hut via rocky paths on scree slopes. Third day we did the 700 meter descent back down to our car, again wearing the heavy pack.

 

...and this resulted in absolutely zero knee pain. They felt worked, sure, but there was not a hint of the sharp, stabbing pain I had been experiencing many times in the past.

 

As an added bonus, I was confident that my ankles were strong due to the SLS training, so I opted for mountain shoes rather than full fledged boots, which made me very comfortable in spite of the summer heat.

 

All in all, I guess the conclusion is that I simply suffered from weak knees, and that this was causing me pain. I was at a point where I seriously considered if surgery could do anything for me, but now I'm glad I didn't take that path.

 

Edit: I realize this is not about some sexy strength move, but being able to do something as basic as walking painlessly, let alone with a heavy pack, is incredibly valuable, actually more so than achieving some esoteric move.

Great report Ravn, thank you.