Rik's Ramblings

Rik de Kort said:

Sports doc today. Hopefully this will be easily fixable. Fingers crossed!

 

 

Yeah, I thought of that myself. I was more concerned with the surrounding air taking up heat.

Won't happen, that's not how IR works

IR directly vibrates molecular bonds that have changing dipole moments. Basically, they interact with "magnetic fields" that are constantly changing.

So, when you have these proteins with carbon-nitrogen-hydrogen bonds and all this other stuff, every individual atom is wiggling around in the molecule. Each bond has a specific size, and a specific amount of energy that it takes to wiggle the bond based on the number of bonds between any two atoms (single, double, triple) as well as the mass of each atom. That means that N-H bonds wiggle at specific frequencies, for example, that change based on what else is connected.

The IR increases the amplitude of these oscillations in the bonds (bends, stretches, scissor action, all sorts of movements) which adds kinetic energy directly to the target molecules! There is zero air interaction, apart from some carbon dioxide absorbing a little bit of the IR as well. It doesn't affect Oxygen gas or nitrogen gas.

So basically, you are going to be heating up your molecules and the outside air will not have any significant effect at all, regardless of temperature.

That's why, if the sun is out, you can sometimes take your shirt off in cold weather and actually feel warm where the light is hitting you!

That's some badass science, right?!

Yeah. Thanks, Josh.

I haven't been good about updating this, but I have been good about mobility work and such. Went to physio this monday after I had made the post. Patellar tendon loosened up real quick. Knee has been feeling a bit better, actually.

...now to find this bloody easter egg.

So I got a copy of the letter the sports doc sent to my physician. Here are the results of the testing:

Normal stature. Normal scapulothoracic rhythm. No winging scapulae. Right shoulder higher than left. Limited anterior flexion shoulder right. Cervicothoracic blocking right. Hypertonic pars descendens m. trapezius right, pressure pain at the spot. No pain upon pressure on SC or AC. Resistance test long head of the biceps sensitive, other resistance tests not abnormal. Anterior capsule sensitive.

Conclusion:

Right shoulder pains based on pain in the long head of the biceps, hypertonic m. trapezius and irritation of the anterior capsule during scapulothoracic restriction.

Sounds reasonable. If the trap is hypertonic, some trigger point therapy may work some minor miracles. Are you able to move the shoulder blades equally during loaded protraction or does one seem to stop slightly earlier?

Also, see if you can detect any perceived differences in how the humeral head sits in the glenoid fossa as you move your arms around in different exercises. 

You may find that your rear delts and infraspinatus are not activating properly on the right side, possibly as an adaptation to allow normal "protraction" with slightly limited real protraction on the right side.

This would cause anterior translation of the humeral head, which could contribute to the anterior capsule sensitivity and anterior impingement.

This is what's happening to me on the right, though my presentation is somewhat different than yours due to a completely different pathology.

On me, this is a clearly visible difference. Daniel Burnham watched me last night during ring supports at the gym and could clearly see the difference. So could the other gymnast there At least it's not just in my head!

Medial delts may also be an issue with lack of activation.

I am finding that PROPER handstand development, which is mostly learning to use my delts and traps properly, is helping a lot.

Joshua Naterman said:

Sounds reasonable. If the trap is hypertonic, some trigger point therapy may work some minor miracles. Are you able to move the shoulder blades equally during loaded protraction or does one seem to stop slightly earlier?

I tested it in a hollow plank, and right definitely stops a bit earlier. I have an appointment with my physio next monday. He is a manual therapist, so we'll probably do some trap work.

You may find that your rear delts and infraspinatus are not activating properly on the right side, possibly as an adaptation to allow normal "protraction" with slightly limited real protraction on the right side.

Could be. I thought I had pretty okay rear delts, since I used to do a bunch of horizontal pulling and low bar squats were almost comfortable. How do you test activation without EMG?

I am finding that PROPER handstand development, which is mostly learning to use my delts and traps properly, is helping a lot.

I can't wait to get back to training.

I'm not sure whether I've hit the two week mark already. Oh well.

Knee is feeling painful. But last monday it felt like that too, and then the tendon loosened up very quickly with massage. Didn't fix the pain, though. Wondering if the pain is more neurological in nature.

For me, figuring out that my rear delts and infraspinatus weren't working properly was easy because when I tried things like straight arm YTIL drills I couldn't make the right side move the same way as the left. It felt different, specifically around the shoulder, and I found that everything was wonky. That may not be happening with you.

Right now I'm getting to where I have more control in my horizontal rows and I'm getting pretty strong in them again, and the aforementioned muscles are working correctly most of the time in these.

However, in presses they are still screw-balling around and it takes a lot of focus on my part to find them and make them work, though this is much easier that it was a month ago.

I have also found that my right subscapularis hasn't been doing the right things either... it's been a real step-by-step process but the results are tangible as well as visible.

I think you might have your shoulder issues resolved before I have mine resolved

Let me know how things go at the physio!

Physio again. He will look at my shoulder next friday.

As for my knee, continue exercises until the new year and then reassess.

Nice. Have you, by chance, ever listened to Louie Simmons talk about squats? 

I did a few days ago, and I wasn't sure what to expect. 

What I heard was both surprisingly reasonable, intelligent, and easy to apply immediately with instant results. I believe he's right about squats and his assessment of traditional Olympic lifting (to a certain degree... to explain that properly would require a lot more words).

I've heard him talk about other things, like training at 90%, and sometimes he sounds a bit dogmatic but not totally crazy, and he is also honest enough to tell people that yes, pretty much everyone in his gym is on gear. He's smart and honest enough to tell people that if they are training clean then they have to expect slower results and lower volume in their workouts with a bit more recovery (compared to the geared athletes), but that the basic methods are going to work whether you're on drugs or not. The drugs simply affect how often you can train and how well/quickly you recover/grow stronger from each training session.

Have you, by chance, compared length of your metatarsals to see if the first is the longest? You just bend the toes down with your hand so that you can see the knuckles on the top of the foot. If you find the second is a bit longer than the first, you have Morton's foot.

There's an easy fix for the instability that causes (and said instability can lead to a wide range of leg problems, including knee issues) that involves putting a 1/8" piece of round rubber or moleskin where your first metatarsal goes inside your shoe. This allows for the intended triangular structure of the foot on the ground instead of the ice-skate structure that Morton's foot tends to represent.

You can have Morton's foot without having Morton's Toe (longer second toe than first toe). My girlfriend has both on one foot, and the toe but not the foot on the other. The foot with the long metatarsal is the side that she has historically had issues with, surprise surprise.

She's an MD trained at Oxford, and ranked in her class, as background for her medical education, so she knew all about what Morton's Toe was and how to test. She had never heard of this particular differential, and it immediately made things clear that explained 15 years of symptoms that quite a list of podiatrists couldn't figure out.

We learned this from The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook from Claire Davies, to cite the source

It was a pretty funny moment lol!

Nice. Have you, by chance, ever listened to Louie Simmons talk about squats?

Not really. I know a bit about the Westside way of doing things, but that's it.

I'll look into my metatarsals.

Still haven't done the metatarsal thing. Did go to the physio for my shoulder, though.

Turns out my infraspinatus is tight as hell. He spent half an hour just getting that to loosen up.

He also cracked my thoracic/cervical spine area, since he seemed to think there was a blockade there.

Nice. You might have him check your subscapularis too, you may be surprised at the passive tension there. Infraspinatus and subscap are very much a pair of muscles that work concurrently, and if one is really tight then it is worth checking the other.

Yeah, that's probably next. Next appointment is 31st of december.

For now I just have to do a boatload of arm circles.

I also checked my metatarsals. Not entirely sure, they seem to be the same length.

IT band as well, it's triggery towards the knee.

VMO is pretty good, though.