Cellulitis

Sunday before last I came down with a high fever and by morning my whole left arm was red and painful to touch, with angry streaks tracking the lymphatic channels. Ended up spending four nights in hospital on IV antibiotics. The infection seems to have gotten in through a torn callus, although I'm not exactly sure what set it off since the tear had happened weeks ago, been cleaned and dressed and was almost completely healed. It happened at the end of week 11 (I'm on PE2 for most of the movements), so I suspect I was a little run down from the training peak and some things that were happening at work that week.

 

Anyway, I'm taking it very easy until completely recovered. It still feels tender and lumpy under the skin especially on the forearm and back of my hand. Doctors indicated it might take up to a month to heal completely. I'm missing training, but don't want to rush back in. I've bought some workout gloves, so hopefully no more tears.

 

I'm curious whether anyone else has experienced something similar and what the recovery was like and if there was anything you did that helped. Any tips on getting back into training would also be helpful.

Wow, happy to hear you're well again. 

 

An open cut may not seem like much, but there can be lots of bacteria on gym equipment. A good washing of the hands is still considered the best defence. Wash long enough to sing the Happy Birthday song.

That sounds nasty - best wishes for a speedy recovery. I agree with Cole Dano that gyms are full of germs. I wash my hands well afterwards - I like the Happy Birthday tip!  

I'm glad you're getting better.  And thanks for the reminder of how nasty gyms can be.  When I'm being diligent, I like to wipe my equipment down with sanitizing solution before I use it.  There's nothing like doing the sPL IMs with your face on a weight bench covered in other people's stuff.

 

For getting back into it, consider doing non-affected exercises at maintenance level.  For example, repeat week 12 of SLS PE & IM, MN PE2 (but not IM), SL PE & IM, etc.  This should maintain some of the gains you've made, but primarily let your body recover from the injury.

Thanks everyone for the support. I've put your tip into practice Cole

 

I've kept it very light this week, just some walking, yoga and some gentle conditioning with a jump rope. Think Monday I'll do as the week 12 deload week and then progress as normal for the elements that I've mastered.

 

For FL/PE2 and SL/PE2 I think I'll drop back to week 5 and spend a bit longer building the volume on these. With both elements the range of motion is fine and I'm not too far off the mastery reps, but I tend to fail around the 40th rep after the 2nd set and from what I gather mastery shouldn't feel anywhere near failure.

 

Curiously with the HS wrist exercises, particularly FKP, I was experiencing intermittent pain between the ring and pinky fingers for as long as I've been doing them (about 6 months). Now the pain is gone. This is where the infection started, which makes me think there'd been a small pocket of infection for all that time and getting run down allowed it to get out of hand. Lesson learnt about ignoring pain.