huh?

© Fotograf Carolina Makkula

I guess sometimes I just lose sight of that line between what makes sense in my head and what makes sense to others...

© Fotograf Carolina Makkula

And sometimes I get really passionate.. don't remember for the life of me what I was going on about. Different advantages of inside vs outside transition? The fine line between a back block and a not-back block? No idea what so ever.

Life plays!

That's what the Swedes say when things in life go the way you planned or hoped for and all is good. Or when you are just having a very good day with lots of fun and no worries.

I've had a breakthrough in my rehabilitation and I am still on a high from it. I guess a time overview is in order:

• - January '12: one of the discs in my back herniates but it is treated with physical therapy. I have to stop skating.
• - March: the pain is gone so I have one week left to train for our bout in Malmö. I notice that I have balance problems in my left leg though. I sort of play the bout but have problems skating and getting up from the floor after falls. I just missed strength in my left leg. I did not get new pains. One week after the bout we have a conference in Stockholm and during that weekend the pain comes back. 
• - April: mid april my pains have gotten so bad that I have to take an ambulance to the hospital. After a few days in the hospital I start showing symptoms of Cauda Equina syndrome and after a week in the hospital I get a emergency decompression surgery. The pain is gone immediately, but I have problems with paralysis in both my legs and can hardly walk. No prognosis is given since it's hard to tell if the nervdamage is permanent or if it will be able to heal. Nerves heal very slowly IF they heal and they give me a year to do most of my healing, after a year not much will change anymore. 
• - May: I can walk with one crutch.
• - June: I can waddle without any type of walking aid. I tried on my skates but couldn't stand on them without holding on to someone or something. Didn't dare to lift a foot. 
• - July: I can stand on my skates by myself,I can roll a bit by pushing off with my left foot and quickly placing it back safely besides my right foot. Lots of arm-flailing. Exhausted after two laps. 
• - August: I can skate with short strides of both legs, I can do cross overs to the left. I can skate a few meters on my left leg alone (but can't change direction) and as far as before january on my right leg alone. 
• - September: at the beginning of the month I do a coaching on skates (has been off skates so far), I can start to watch others while rolling again. I can do transitions to my favorite side. I can still not take one single cross over to the right. In the middle of September I get serious back pains again and end up on full painkillers (all the way up to morphine). I can feel the pressure building in my back and the strength in my legs decreases noticeably. Two weeks later it's all back to how it was and I'm dreading to get on my skates. Scared that I will be back to where I was in July. I put them on, get up and skate a few strides, ready to fall. But I don't fall. I relax and try out crossovers to the left... they feel easier than before. Against all odds I try some cross overs to the right and find myself actually doing them. I test transitions and find I can do them to both my favored side and my hated side. This is insane! My legs are doing what I'm telling them to do! I ask Badass if I can try a few hits on her. You know.. very carefully since I haven't skated with any form of contact since March.. people haven't been allowed to get within one meter of me while I was on skates. I give it a go and it feels great! Almost like coming home after a long trip around the world. It wasn't more than a cute little tap, but man did that feel good! I even managed to be part of some pace lines with hits. Giving and taking. 

Now the things that are left to pass my min skills again is the strength and stamina in my leg muscles to get up from the floor fast and often. Hmm.. come to think of it, I might have some trouble with unexpected obstacles. I noticed that my leg can't react very fast yet. So this coming period I'll be focussing on explosiveness, strength and muscle stamina.

Coaching trap #1: power-tripping

Thank god I have been well aware of this one before it snuck up on me. It doesn't mean I don't do it. Just saying I'm aware of it. It's a delicate question that has tightrope dancing as an answer.

The biggest tool in navigating this trap is setting goals. Both team goals and individual skater goals. You are there to help the team and the individuals reach their goals. You are not there to create your personal dream team and conquer the world. At least that's the case at our league. All are welcome to join and if you put in the work (and have passed your minimum skills) you are encouraged to play no matter if the work you put in payed off or not. Motivation and fun are key in our league. Inclusiveness.

That means that the coach is only there as a catalyst. The players express their wishes of what they want to accomplish (their goals) and you provide the means for them to get there as long as they themselves bring the motivation.

Ok, sounds as a nice ideal that should eliminate power-tripping coaches, right?

Well, yes and no. I have quite a lot of background knowledge when it comes to training. I combine that knowledge with what I find online, see in games, hear from other coaches and see on our own trainings into drills that I think the team needs to get to those goals. While doing those drills it's me that's holding the whistle, it's me that's registering testing results, it's me deciding (out of safety concern) who gets to participate in which exercise, how to deal with lengthy "water breaks," how to deal with late comers. It's me deciding when I want them to die in a heavy training, or when we'll focus on skills or tactics.

That's where the tightrope dancing comes in. Use and recognize mirrors when they're being held up in front of you. Why did you decide on letting that late comer do those extra speed laps? Why did you decide to give a cold shoulder to a complaint and in stead pushed that girl to push her self even harder: "your legs can't cary you anymore? You're standing here talking to me while your legs are holding you up. Go!"

That's when you use a mirror: was that my ego, enjoying the power rush, or did that have a function towards the goals of the team/skater?

Punishing the late comer with some speed laps has had as a result that the only other time during this season so far that people have been late was when there was a big accident on the main route to get to our venue. That means more effective training time for the hole team which will result in better chances of reaching the team goals.
Pushing the girl to push her self longer, harder and further was done with one of her goals in mind (getting better results at 25 in 5). It showed her that she still had reserves left when she thought she was finished.

That's one of the reasons why goals are so important. They really are your number one tool. You can (or should be able to) always link your decisions to the pursuit of those goals.

I guess this post is making me sound like a drill sergeant, but I'm far from. As I said at the start, I'm just the facilitator for the skaters to get where they want to be and hopefully their will, hard work and motivation and my enthusiasm and knowledge of training will get them there. :)

Wanting to be better

I love the current wind of motivation that blows through our league. Most of the girls want to become better and are able to put words to exactly what it is they want to get better at. That makes my work easier since I can design the trainings based on what they want to improve on and harder because not everybody wants to improve on the same things of course. It's a good thing they don't because a team of 14 skaters with exactly the same skill sets would not be very interesting or successful.

It also gives us a chance to focus on certain skills. The last two weeks we've been focussing on very specific skills that we then put to the test in a series of jams the last half hour of practice last night.

© Carolina Makkula Photography

Fast!

Last night the group trained "fast feet" and "fast feet" only, first 15 or so mins off skates to get a feel for the (new) speed ladder and then 75 mins on skates. Skaters, no matter how good they are can always get better at what ever skill you think of, but fast feet is a skill that is gravely ignored by many. My theory is simply because it's hard. Many things are hard, but fast feet is even harder. I myself used to ignore the skill because I hated it. I had millions of excuses ready to rationalize why I would never ever get fast feet, so it was no use to train it. The most used one simply being: "look at me, I am built to be strong, not to be fast!" LIES! Everybody can get fast(er) feet. ;)

The coolest thing that happened must be MADicken. We were talking at our league's USA-games-watching-party about this dreaded speed ladder. I had posted some vids to the rest of the board to explain what I meant and to get their ok to buy one and MADicken had either watched those or she knew speed ladders from before. She looked at me with a VERY serious expression and said: "you weren't thinking of that ON skates right?" Her eyes saying: "surely you don't want us to break our ankles?"

On the training she flew through the ladder like the wind! ON skates. :)

Hellsparx and Redhot Bitchslap

Trasher Smasher pirouetting around Scary Mary

Cross over madness for all levels

Yesterday night was a very successful evening! We tried out some new cross over drills which gave a super good effect for both the freshies as well as the beginners and intermediates! And it was the first time for me since the operation that I coached while wearing skates again. Which sometimes was funny (can only maintain balance in cross overs to the left, but not to the right, can do backwards cross overs and tomahawk stops but not something as "simple" as a T-stop), but mostly just was good practice. I was dead tired by the end of the training (lots of postural and balance muscles finally get to learn how to work again) but also SO content.

The girls jumped forward in their cross over skills. Freshies started to make the actual cross and started lifting the inner foot without getting on their toestops while beginners and intermediates learned how to get deeper into the cross over and push even more with the inside foot on the outside stride. Inside- and outside edges were found and mental thresholds were dropped. Delicious!

This drill was loved by most as it gave them a good feeling of how to push (harder) with both legs and how to hang in the curves (sorry for the quality of the pic).

Giving a short repetition of all the drills before the girls will take it all to the track and translate it to skating the "diamond" (sorry for the quality of the pic).

Science you said?

Yes I did!

A few months ago I started to prepare my thesis project (for my physiotherapy degree) and since then it's just grown out of proportions! I'm scared to death of it now, even though I am also very much looking forward to the results.

My professors approved the first sketch of my plan before the summer which described how I wanted to map out which injuries happen to who in which situations and why (lots of correlations there, hehe)  so as to create a base line to make the sport safer through well thought out athleticism (you know, doing the right types of training to prevent these injuries as best we can). Of course we already have an idea of how to do this. BUT this idea on how to this is based on studies performed on young (semi) pro male athletes on either shoes or hockey skates. I do not look like them, I don't have their athletic background and I don't put in the hours that they put in (I totally would if I could). Very few of us derby players fit that description and that's why it is important to start mapping and researching our sport and future based on us. And that's what I'm gonna do. Yikes!

It's gotten rather big. Euroderby.org and WFTDA have both promised to help spread the word and the questionnaire, so if all goes well I will be looking at thousands of anonymous answers which would really create such an awesome amount of data that it can (and probably will) create new questions to take derby further into sports science.

Tomorrow the next term is starting and in about two weeks time the questionnaire (that is almost finished now) will be up for scrutiny by both my classmates and professors. After that it will run through a pilot (a small group gets to answer to it, to see if everything is clear and if the questionnaire is actually answering my main questions). After that I'm hoping that you will find it in a link near you! And if you do, please fill it out! I will love you for ever.

Monthly scrimmages!

Yes! yes! yes!

Due to circumstances of babies growing in bellies, people studying in different cities and a sprained ankle here and there, we no longer have a full team of at least 14 players. We have however about 15 Freshies eager to fill up the spots.

Even though we only had 9 skaters available we decided to go ahead with this plan of having a scrimmage a month anyways. Our 7 (!) refs need the practice, Freshmeat learn heaps about the game by NSOing and the skaters can't go a full season without competition. So last Thursday we had our first one. And it was a blast!

Wether it was being on the jammer longer, placing more controlled hits or working more tightly together, all of the girls showed new and improved moves. And I found that I really really liked bench coaching.

Team white: Gaby Grenade, Petra Pak, Trasher Smasher and Cherry Lawless. Bench: Lucy SlayHer.
Refs: Svary Mary (+ passenger) and Major Bitter (head ref for the event).

In the box: Wicked Rosie (probably a back block/forearms) and Badass Babuska (high block)
© Carolina Makkula

Progress video!

So two weeks ago Badass filmed me at my first training with the fresh meat. Well, it was just before the training so the progress you see in this vid compared to the previous one is only due to normal rehabilitation exercise (no skating) and this floor being quite a lot less grippy than the one in the previous vid.

So that was two weeks ago. I could glide a bit on each leg, but couldn't adjust my direction at all whilst gliding on my left foot (which used to be my strongest). The neurological damage in that leg has been there since February while the right leg didn't get damaged until late April. So it will take longer to heal and it now results in the control in that leg being much worse than it was before.

Do you remember being a freshmeat and gliding on one foot, trying to make the corner, but your skate just having a mind of it's own? That's what it felt like. I couldn't get any movement in my foot to adjust the weight on the skate to make it turn.

Today however, I suddenly could do it! Ok, not as tight a corner as on my right foot, but I could feel the pressure under my foot adjusting against the sole of my boot to adjust the direction and I had relatively good control over it. Yay!

In skating backwards I even managed some cross overs. My legs just remembered the motions and I did it! That feeling is so amazing after an injury like mine. Because that feeling is exactly what you start to distrust. The feeling of knowing how to do something, feeling that your brain is giving off the impulses to your muscles to do it, but your legs (as if they aren't your own) just wont do it. But now they did! And then getting the sensory input in your brain saying "yep, all is under control, doing what you want them to do *thumbs up*" is like a drug. It makes me want to do it again and again and again. Look Mom! I'm doing it! Well, I do actually sometimes scream out to the others: "look look look!" And then I look overly happy like a child on christmas morning.

Endorphines, contagious?

Sometimes, like tonight, I wonder if endorphin highs are contagious. Tonight I led an amazing training. The intensity was high, the girls were focussed and improving by the minute and by the end ready to never get up again and drenched in sweat. Everything just worked. The chemistry clicked for everyone.

So why did I leave on a high? I didn't physically do anything more than stand in the middle, talk, sometimes scream and take on derby stance a few times. Well, ok, I jammed on shoes a few times, but not in an actual jam, just in a drill to help out. Just some pushing into a wall of strong women. Didn't even sweat. Well.. didn't get wet of my own sweat at least.

I wonder what brain substance I'm high on.. <3<3<3

So proud of my girls

Yes, MY girls. Oh and guy. Pappa Smurf was there last night and he worked just as hard as any of the girls!

We set goals for the team, both social goals, tactical goals and fitness goals. Last night was the first fitness training of the season so it was time to measure the start values for the fitness goals. To give the girls an endorphin kick I decided to after those tests keep going at high intensity and make them puke.

You know it's getting good when some of the better trained girls start dripping sweat from their noses into a nice little pool while in a plank or another girl sounds like she is about to cry, but keeps going, or when you can make Badass so angry she loves you: "why are YOU doing back raises, you DON'T have shoulder problems! YOU do the push-ups, NOW!"

I more than overshot my personal goals for the session:

1. get their start values registered in an adequate way (thank you Kaiser Geuze, our head NSO).
2. push the skaters to aim for high start values.
3. instill one of my basic principals in all the skaters: never quit, slow down if you have to, but never quit.
4. let the skaters go home feeling proud of themselves (and possibly each other).
5. let the skaters that aren't so training minded experience in what way high intensity training can be nice.

By the time I got home I was being drowned in messages of love and enthusiasm. What I loved most was that I got to see everybody push themselves. Nobody gave up. There are always lazy skaters in any league, but last night none of the girls were lazy. They all worked their pretty asses off! Well done girls!

Thank you Luleå Roller Derby, I love you!

Back to freshmeat

A month ago I wasn't sure I would be able to start skating again, and I haven't tried since then, but in many other activities I can feel that the control and teamwork in my leg muscles (synergy) has improved.  A little over a month ago, I looked like this:

Now I don't know if you've seen me skate before jan '12 but I was doing pretty alright for someone who had just skated one year. Fluid movements, backwards crossovers, pirouettes, jumps it was all fine and I looked and felt confident.

Now that Badass is fresh meat coach I have my hands free to focus on my own progress and try to partake in the fresh meat program. Not sure what I'll do with the fall practices. The surgeon said everything is safe from about now (three months after spine surgery). I'm curious to see if I will pass the minimum skills test just before Christmas. As it is I can't even get up from the floor within three secs without skates, haha!

The birth of a coach?

A year ago I became the one responsible for training at Luleå Roller Derby. My qualifications? Not much:

• Knowledge gathered during a then half completed physiotherapy degree (now almost done). Aside from all the anatomy in relation to movement there was also a PT like course and some motivational courses. 
• A certificate that (in Holland) allowed me to teach sports in primary school + plus some experience of "illegally" teaching sports in high school.  
• 6 months (!?) of derby practice.
• I was willing (and driven) to take the responsibility.

If I'm being honest, it was probably mostly the last point that landed me the position and I have to admit that that willingness has been tried during that first season. I had to catch up fast on how to coach and motivate a group of alpha ladies. Now I know better... it's not ME that is supposed to motivate them. But it took me a full year before I learnt that highly valuable lesson. And now that I've learnt it, I will have to find a way to balance it into my coaching style for the next season. 

Coaching style you say? Oh yes. There are many philosophies out there. Most of them directed at coaching major league football teams in the states. But you know, some of the main principles still apply. Autocratic vs democratic, selling vs sharing etc. And from the jungle of wishy-washies vs straight-shooters I pick the things I like. Not because they suit my personality, but because they will most likely resonate well with the players on our team.

I have made so many mistakes during my first year of being trainer, but luckily I have learnt a lot from them. I will surely make many more mistakes this coming season, but hopefully they will be new mistakes and I'm looking forward to learning from them. 

Out of breath...

It's funny in way... when you get to train at least three times a week, you don't particularly appreciate being out of breath when doing something. At least I didn't used to. I just kept blaming myself for having a bad enough fitness level to even be able to get out of breath. Which of course is completely stupid, because no matter how well your fitness levels are, there is always some intensity of activity that can get you out of breath.

The last few months though, getting out of breath was not as easy. My legs couldn't walk fast enough to get my heart rate above 120. I still don't really have the flexibility in them to take steps that are fast and long enough to get me panting. But now..... I have my new bike!

Carefully chosen from the jungle of bikes that are out there. 1. It lets me sit with a completely straight back in stead of leaning forward (requirement for my back). 2. It has three gears, so I don't have to get all Hulky on the slight slopes we have here (also in regards to my back). 3. It came with an optional luggage carrier at the front (perfect for my training bag, once I start skating again, and looks cool!). 4. It comes with a highly flexible and springy leather saddle (both fashionable and a good shock absorber for my back). 5. It kinda looks like a specific type of Dutch bikes that I really like from home (the "grandma bike"). 6. It wasn't super duper expensive. 7. It looks super duper cool!

So today I went for a short test drive to the store and back and it was awesome! I almost shed a happiness tear. Why? Because while riding this bike I don't feel ANY of the limitations that I do feel in every other activity. My body feels like it is completely healthy, has full range of motion and has full strength! It's the best feeling of freedom ever. The only danger sits in that feeling making me forget that I do actually have these limitations by the time I have to step off the bike. I have to remember to stop and get off carefully. ;)

Now I'm gonna go out and have another go! See ya!

Going insane, need to babble...

So today it's been six weeks since they operated on my back which means that the damage done by the operation will have healed. That also means that I can start lifting and carrying things again. It's weird.. for some stupid reason I kind of expected this day to be a magical one. I expected to suddenly feel all healed and normal again, but of course I don't. Yesterday was a very bad day, but I think today will be back to the normal levels of handicappedness I have been at lately.

I have one more week off and then I actually have to do a full week of internship and my examination patient. Not sure how I'm gonna do that, but we'll see. I'll probably just work and sleep and work and sleep.

After 6 weeks at home not doing anything (well, handed in some school work and coached a few trainings) I am SO ready to lead a normal, active life again. Just wish my body was as ready as I am.

My professors approved my thesis ideas so I got the first go on writing a quantitative study on roller derby injuries. They were really enthusiastic and even expressed curiosity for the results. I'll be spending the summer designing the questionnaire which will then be sent out in the second half of september after approval from the professors. I'm so excited! I explained my ideas to both Euroderby.org and WFTDA and they agreed to help me spread the questionnaire. I've written to CWRDA in Canada but not heard back yet. Now I just need to create a list of australian leagues to send it too as well. I had a look around in Asia and Africa but roller derby doesn't seem to have exploded there in the same way as it has in North America, Europe and Australia. South America I haven't really checked yet. Will get to that next week.

Summer has finally hit Luleå and I just want to strap on my skates and get outside. But my physiotherapist wants me to get more strength back in my hip abductors (those you push off with when taking a stride) so that I'll be more stable. A few weeks ago I had no strength in them at all. Not just weak because they weren't trained, but weak because of nerve damage, half paralyzed. Also, one of my calves is very very stiff, so I can't really get into derby stance with that leg. There are more problems, but I think it's mostly those two that keep me from rolling at the moment. Core strength I have, just no endurance in those muscles at the moment. But I really think that both core endurance and the stiff calf would benefit from skating outdoors... long, easy strides. But then again, my physiotherapist is a really good one with years of experience and I haven't even finished my degree yet, so I trust her opinion more than my own.

Oh well... back to creating that email address database and searching for similar research so I have something to go on.

If you actually stuck through and read this entire post with no pics I commend you. ;) Just needed to vent some stuff and share it. Thank you for reading it all. :)

Back on track

Ok ok ok, maybe not on the track, but tonight I will be back on the infield and start coaching again. Just five weeks before our summer stop. I'm very excited about being actively involved with our girls again instead of just behind the scenes on the board of our league.

Also, this saturday we will be part of the On Board Festival. Which means we get to mingle on skates and play some jams on our old make shift outdoor track. It's basically a basketball field on asphalts which never gets used for basketball, so we want the city to poor us a concrete track there in stead. It's right next to the new concrete skatepark that opened last summer. It's where we belong!

I smell fresh meat!

Last saturday was great! It was the first time since my operation that I was standing on the infield coaching others again and it felt good. What made it even better was that it was our try out day and we had a whole bunch of freshies on wheels. They were amazing! Throwing themselves at the floor on command, trying out the feeling of crossovers, skating a pace line, they were just great! I really hope that many of them will continue (if not all, that would be even better!).

Unfortunately I don't have any pics. Someone was there taking pics, but I haven't seen them yet.

Science behind roller derby?

Hello derby world! I want your help!

In a previous post you could read that my ultimate dream (professionally) is to become the link between roller derby and medical/movement/sports science. No better time to start with that than now. Now is the time in my education where I have to start sketching the thesis that will help me to get my degree in physiotherapy.

The world is covered in thousands and thousands of flat track roller derby players and I would like for that community to come together and help me still our hunger for knowledge. Right now most of the knowledge we use to base our trainings and rules on is based on sports medicine based on other sports. We are not 19 year old hockey athletes, nor extreme marathon runners. We are a unique mix of well trained, less trained, highly motivated or recreationally playing women (leaving merby out for this purpose) with or without other sports in our backgrounds. We play on quads which demands different things of our bodies than ice-skates, running shoes or inlines.

At some stage during the next 6 months I will send out a (anonymous) questionnaire and I sincerely hope that every single one of you will fill it out. This questionnaire might contain questions about your athletic past, how long you've been playing derby, how often and how you train but most of all injuries you might have suffered during your derby career and possibly before.

Most common derby injury?

To make this more interesting for everybody I'd like some input on which question you think my thesis should answer. Possible questions include:

* What is the main type of injury sustained in FTRD (flat track roller derby)?
* Which player has the highest risk for injury in FTRD? (could correlate to background, age, body type, training hours, type of training, position she plays, etc)
* When in a derby career exists the highest risk for injury? (fresh meat period, first bouting season, top national/international level skating) (why then? what's different to the other periods?)
* What is the average recovery time for derby injuries? (additional questions could be, why so long/short?, how to define "recovered"?)
* ???

I understand that many of these questions seem unnecessary, because we know the answers either by using common sense or by looking at what's happening in your own league or country. But to be able to answer the more interesting questions we need to create a scientific base line first. We need to have proven that a certain statement is true before we can use that statement to do research on why that statement is true, if you get what I mean.

You can reach me with anything you'd like to tell me concerning this thesis (question to answer, research that's been done already (derby specific), your personal story, email addresses to send the questionnaire to, etc) on Facebook, via e-mail: m.pauelsen@gmail.com or just by leaving a comment here.

Thank you so much!

Tagged by Swede

So... Yeah... I don't normally like these types of things, BUT some of the questions that Swede posed are actually interesting and fun to answer. Apart from the first one.. that's a hard one..


Who inspires you the most?
See, I don't really get inspired by people. Not because I think they are crap, but just because I realize they have a very different life from me and different circumstances before I even get a chance of thinking: I want that too. I can admire them, but not get inspired to go in a same direction or do something similar. As an example Bonnie D.Stroir. I admire her for being able to turn derby into a living. But I don't want the same thing. 
In stead I actually get inspired by myself. Not in the arrogant "I'm great so I want to be me" way, but I often take time for myself. I am one of those people that need and crave that. You know, moments in which you just sit and let your mind wander, have conversations with yourself, convince non-present people of your ideas, that sort of thing. It's in those moments I get my ideas, my inspiration and my drive.

What is the wildest thing you have done?
I think that what ever counts as wildest kind of depends on where you are from. Not counting coffee, alcohol, nicotine and meds I have done three different kinds of drugs (loooong time ago), but when you're from Holland that's not that wild. I've been kicked out of a club in Florence for making out with a girl. Again, not so wild in most countries, but apparently really wild and illegal in Florence. I think the wildest has been my move to Sweden, strangely enough. I was a single mom with a girl of 5, gave up my rental place, packed everything I could fit in a large van, put my daughter on a plan with my mother and drove by myself in one go from The Hague to Eskilstuna. It was great! Empowering, free and scary as hell at the same time. It's a difficult decision when you don't just make it for yourself but for your child as well. It turned out to be the absolute best I could have ever done both for her and me.

Relationship to rollerderby/rollerskating?
Very much a love-hate-one at the moment. I want to play! But I can't just now and the question is if I ever will play at the level I want to play. Because I love the sport and the people I'm staying involved anyways, but it's hard. It's like when I worked at a horse riding school. You're in constant contact with it, because you love it, but you can't do any of the fun stuff yourself. 


What about kids?
I have one daughter who is 11 years old but acts as if she's 14 years old. She already picked her derby name for when she gets old enough to be allowed to play: strawberry killer!! And then she assumes derby stance and does a cute litle growl. In the mean time she wanted to have inlines instead of quads because that's what her friends have. She moved to Sweden with me when she was about to turn 6 and just yesterday her teacher told me that you wouldn't believe that Swedish is not her mother's tongue. We're getting into the stage of her life that I have been most scared of ever since she was born. She's a lot like me, which freaks me out. Yes I turned out ok, but the way there wasn't over roses.

Love or money?
Love, always. And not because that is what you are supposed to say. It's how I live my life. It's why I don't have the money to travel around Europe all the time and play derby everywhere. ;)

City or mountains?
Ocean! 
In The Hague I lived a 10 minute bike ride away from the sandy beach to the Northsea. It's the only thing I miss from Holland. A sandy beach with salty waves and tides. No matter the season, there's always something nice to get at the beach.

Future goals? 
I want to become a doctor in philosophy, with the direction of physiotherapy. That's my goal. My dream is to then become THE link between movement/sport science and roller derby. Most sports have a scientific base behind them where you can find information on how to improve even more and how to prevent injuries. Whilst some (!) in roller derby have that knowledge, that knowledge is based on the science which is directed at OTHER sports. I want to create that knowledge based on science about roller derby.


And now it's time to be lame: I really like these questions, so I'm not gonna create any new ones. I will also not go out and actively tag people. I think that about 7 people might be reading this blogg, so if you've read it, consider yourself tagged. Unless You're Swede, because I won't tag back. ;)


Thanks for tagging me Swede, as I said, these were great questions to answer! :)

Rules:

- Each tagged person must answer the 7 questions given to them by their "tagger” and post it on their blog.

- Then, choose 7 new people to tag and link them in your post.

- Create 7 new questions for the people you tag to answer.- Go to their page and tell them they’ve been tagged!
- Do not tag back to the person who has already tagged you.

Radio silence...

Last time I wrote I had started my own little derby challenge to get into shape and start playing as a jammer more often... Then I got massive back pains... Two months after that my back looked like this:

No not because of derby

You're looking at a cross section of my spine. The ladder like image on the left side of the white vertical line are my vertebrae (the thicker parts) and the discs in between them (the thinner parts). The white vertical line is my spinal cord. That's more or less a direct phone connection between my lower body and my brain. All pain and feeling signals travel up to the brain through that and all commands from my brain to move my legs travel down through that. If you take a closer look you'll see that the second to last disc has started to run out into the spinal cord canal and even completely blocks it. That causes all kinds of disturbances in the communication that cause pain in my legs, numbness in my legs and pelvic area and muscle weakness in my legs. That's when I looked like this:

Me in hospital clothes and my best friend the rollator

Don't look like I'm in pain? That's because of large doses of 5 different types of pain medication. A normal herniated disc (a disc that starts running out) can heal of it's own accord but not the massive one I had so last friday they operated on me and removed the black part that had run out (white in real life).

Yesterday I came home. I'm now walking with two crutches (the day after the operation I couldn't even turn around  in my bed). The nasty thing is that removing the herniated disc removes the pain I had in my legs. Apart from the operation wound I feel no pain, but the weakness can stay up to a year and the numbness may never go away because those two aspects depend on damage to the nerves (that phone line) instead of just blockage of the nerves.

All in all this means that my journey to play derby as a jammer will take a lot longer than planned and may never come to an end. I am absolutely planning to stay involved in derby. I'm aiming to play again, but if that's not an option I might ref in stead and even if that's not an option I can focus on becoming a non skating trainer and stay active on the board of our club. But first things first: walk without an aid.

So there you have it. That's why I haven't blogged in a while and that's why this blogg will become more of a rehab journey blogg for the immediate future.

However, I DID manage to "play" our first official bout in Malmö. So in a way I have already taken you on my trip from fresh meat to my first bout. But I hope you'll stay with me for the next part of the trip as well. Exciting options lie ahead and I am still sure that derby will blow Europe's and Sweden's mind in the nearby future and I WILL be a part of that. :)

See you on the track!

What do you mean, training?

Asked my back and decided to spasm out. I have now serious trouble sitting, standing, walking, laying down, etc. So, at least for the next week or so, no training that is of a more serious nature than walks :(.

On a positiv note I can say that we started sticking needles into actual humans now in the acupuncture course and I immediately learnt a acu-point that is supposed to help with lower back pain. So I will be sticking myself every evening while watching some TV and who knows.. it might actually help! :)

Slaughters Daughters make up for it.

Sometimes I get SO frustrated... Most of the inter-league derby stuff is happening more than 1500 km from where I live: South of Sweden, Holland, Germany, UK. All those places are cheap to get from if you're traveling from Stockholm, but from where I live it would be way too expensive to travel up and down the map all the time. At least it is for me, a student with a family. The derby community is very active online, so at least I get to read about all the scrimmage weekends and the bootcamps, but it would be so much nicer to be able to attend them all as well.

What would be even nicer than attending them all, would be to attend them all with my girls in Slaughters Daughters. I know everybody says this about their team, but these girls really are amazing individuals. I love you all and let's kick some real ass and make the world notice us! RAWR!

Lateral jumping (Thanks Kamikaze Kitten!)

Today was a fun training!

It felt like we needed a fun break from all the bitch building and widowing we've been doing lately. We started with a short off skates warming up to music in which I took the piss out of how I learned to lead an aerobics class, then MADicken took us through half an hour of bodypump. Pretty sure I'm gonna feel that tomorrow, well done MADicken! You chose the right level and motivated at the right level as well. Not easily done for our very mixed bunch of girls. After that we went through the basic moves of the lateral leap which Kamikaze Kitten writes about here. We did this off skates at first as well to get a hang of the basic principle in the movement without the added difficulty of being on wheels, to teach our muscle memory how to do the jump, which muscle groups to activate in which order and with which speed. After that we tried it on skates with various degrees of success. Badass Babuska was really good at it! :) I wasn't, I always feel like a cow when trying new jumps or agility things.

The last part was the most interesting part of the training, I think. Due to level differences we split up in several groups where the advanced got to train a bit more on communication and team work in a three-wall and others were being helped one-on-one by skaters with colds or rehabilitating ankle sprains with practicing on specific skills they needed to improve on. I think this split up made it a very valuable moment.

I really wish we will soon become big enough to split up and have dedicated fresh meat and advanced training sessions. We need it, but as it is we are just too small. Sometimes I try to imagine why women wouldn't want to play this sport. The work outs are fun (even for people that "don't like sports"), it's tough, you get a great bunch of friends, a support network and really, it might look dangerous, but it really isn't more dangerous than any other team sport. So where are all these women in Luleå? Why do they stay away? Come on! We want you!

Blisters!

<insert swear words here>

See, when I got blisters from my running shoes last time I thought it was because they were new... After a while the blisters stayed away and all was well. Now after not having run in those shoes for about a year, the blister galore is back. I really don't want to buy other shoes. I might try out some insoles if it doesn't get better. But it f*cking hurts!!

Anyways... the result from today:

10x7, 8x(2x10, 1x6), 10x6 (170 - 155)

So my heart rate had gone down a bit while doing the same thing. I do not have the delusion that that is an indication of my fitness level going up though. It's more an indication of my body remembering how to do this running intervals thing and using the inhaled oxygen a bit more efficiently.

I don't feel good BTW... I think it's worth mentioning that running does indeed use different muscles than skating so in stead of feeling slightly tight in just my adductors and glutes I am now also feeling tight in the hamstrings and tensor. I can expect a nice muscle ache in my quads to be added to that tomorrow after doing one legged squats on a balancing board today (preventing ankle sprains). The strength training was nice.. I haven't lost as much strength compared to last time as I expected. And PA-LEASE can we do something about bulky, suntanned gym douche bags!? Usch.

So there you go. A not-so-good day. Those are important too. If it was easy, everybody would be super fit all the time. ;)

First weeks plans

Now that I know where I stand, I can slowly start devising a plan. I'll start with a one week program and see how I feel at the end of that. We usually have derby mondays, thursdays and sundays, but just this week the thursday moved to friday.

Intervals: 10x7, 8x(2x10, 1x6), 10x6 (here you can read on what this means)

Friday - 2 hours of derby training
Saturday - intervals + strength training
Sunday - 2 hours of derby training (including some dedicated strength with MADicken)
Monday - 1 hour of derby training (probably)
Tuesday - intervals + strength training
Wednesday - no time. (child from 6.30 to 8.00, school from 8.15 to 16.00, stables from 16.30 to 18.30, then dinner and then there's death on the sofa)
Thursday - 2 hours of derby training

I'm keeping the next two times of running on starter level because of two reasons: 1. to ease my body into more training than it has done the last couple of months, and 2. to ease my mind into it as well. I'm not Sporty Spice. It's hard for me to stay motivated and then it is important that you don't forget what is important: It is better to move a little at a time than to not move at all. So keep it easy and enjoyable. It will get harder soon enough. And I say "easy" but it's not like I didn't break a sweat ;).

So what strength training to do? 

Well obviously the whole body is needed. But I just don't have the time between my studies, family and derby to put in such thorough training. So choices have to be made.

I will leave the legs for now... They get trained while training derby and while running. They will need explosiveness, but that will come later in the program once my general fitness is at a higher level.

The part of utmost importance is, as always, your core. Every movement you make originates in your core. That goes for everyday life as well as for derby. What's your core? Imagine wearing a corset that reaches from just underneath your breasts down to your pelvis... That IS your core. Your core is exactly like that but sits just underneath your skin (and possibly some fat). It is several groups of muscles that work together to make sure you can stand up straight without collapsing at the waist. It is the groups of muscles that can keep you in derby stance.

So... back lifts, side lifts, sit-ups, diagonal sit-ups, plank, sideways plank, etc. Take your pick and make sure you get all sides.

I really think a strong upper back and shoulders is important too. Derby people never seem to think of this and hardly ever agree with me on this, but I'm a stubborn almost-physiotherapist, so i'm going for it anyways: whenever you fall on more than just your knees or get a really hard hit, your shoulders and neck always have to absorb a lot of energy. Your shoulders are the most unstable joint in your body and are not built to take that kind of force. The only stabilizing factors there are some ligaments (untrainable) and muscles (very trainable!). So let's strengthen that area up and prevent injuries! (plus a trained upper back and shoulders are just god damn sexy!)

A trained woman's back... so beautifull.

I don't really want to write a strength training program here, It's not the main focus of my goal and what works well really depends on the individual so if you need inspiration on which exercises to do, look around online. If you have specific questions I can surely try to answer them. I like answering questions, so go ahead! :)

Keeping track

So, today I went to the gym to see where i'm at and to be honest, I am very positively surprised on how much capacity lingered around from when I stopped running last year. Of course I have been skating at least twice a week, but I had still expected a much worse result than what I got today.

To be able to keep track and to compare later results with earlier ones you need a way of record keeping and a way of testing that is easily repeatable (for example always the same part of a trail or just on a treadmill or something like that). Since there is still lots of snow here (and more to come) I have decided to make my "test environment" the treadmill. There I can easily keep track of time, speed and heart rate. Those three parameters are linked together like your skin is linked to you. So if you want to asses how fit you are you need to be able to have some sort of measure of all three of those.

Time is of course no problem! Stopwatch, phone, watch, etc.
Speed is also easily come by. You either run on a treadmill which will tell you your speed (NOT comparable to outdoors), you know how long the trail you use is and calculate it with using the time measurement or you can even use the GPS in your phone. If you have an iPhone there are a ton of aps that can help you with that. When I ran outdoors I used to like "1, 2, 3, run!" or "Runkeeper."
Heartrate can be a bit trickier. If you are serious about your training it is well worth it to by a pulse watch. It exists of a band that you wear around your chest (just under the bottom band of your bra) that sends the signal to either a wristwatch or a gym machine. You could of course also use the metal handgrips of the treadmill/bike/crosstrainer so that your heart rate shows up on the display, but I don't recommend it since those are usually not placed in the most ideal positions. Another option is to use a self estimation scale. It's a scale invented by a dude called Borg and goes from 5 to 20. You estimate how exerting your current level of activity is where 5 means laying on the sofa and 20 means "water.... need... wa-..." Smart people have found out that a Borg estimation times 10 roughly equals current heart rate in the estimator: a Borg estimation of exertion of 17 roughly equals a heart rate of about 170. If you are about 20 to 25 years old, that is. The problem with this is that it is of course a lot less objective than a measurement of your actual heart rate: "*panting*... *coughing* I think I feel.. like.. *more panting and stumbling* .. mwoah.. 9?"

Ok, my way of record keeping for this first goal will be like this:

10x7, 8x(2x10, 1x6), 10x6 (heart rates: 175 - 165)

Wich means: a warm up of 10 mins of walking at 7 km/h then 8 sets of 2 mins of jogging at 10 km/h followed by 1 min of walking at 6 km/h, closed of by a cooling down of 10 mins of walking at 6 km/h. The two heart rates is the highest heart rate measured during the last run and the lowest heart rate measured during the minute that followed that run (of course it will go down more after that).

Why do I want the heart rates there? Because I probably could do the running parts at 12 km/h right now, but my heart rate would go up accordingly since it would be a much heavier thing to do. So only writing down what you can do is not a measure of your fitness. Also knowing how easy it was to do what you did tells you how fit you are.

Where do you stand? (or step 2.)

In the previous post I talked about there being two important things to start with. Here's the second one:

2. How close to your goal are you?

Your current training level has a huge impact on what the first weeks of your program will look like. It influences how you train: which activity, which intensity, which dose? If you are a beginner (NO other physical activity than needed for work and daily living) you will have to take into account that you have to start at a much lower intensity than you might think. This has at least two reasons: 1. it helps you wanting more and 2. it eases your body into the notion of training so you wont hurt yourself. 

I haven't done any running in a very long while. I basically stopped a few months after I started skating. The snow was disappearing so why spend time running if you can skate!? Well, this time I will do both! But since I have no clue on my level now, I will have to test that in the gym tomorrow. 

Important things to remember:

• To be out of breath and to be in some pain (burning sensation in your muscles) is not dangerous. 
• Listen to your body, your joints should not be in any pain. 
• If it's hard to stay motivated, the intensity of your training is too high! (to keep going is MUCH more important than anything else)
• Keep some sort of record where you can check your progress.
• You get good at what you train, but...
• Variation will let you book progress. 
• To gain health effect you need at least 3 times a week 30 minutes of heart rate heightening activity (for the kind of fitness we're going for you need more than that).

Next post will probably be on choosing intensity based on goal and current level and tools to find that level while training.

Designing a personal program, step 1.

My cold feels as if I might be ready to start my journey tomorrow, so let's get ready! :)

Where to start? Well, two things are important to know, we can start with the first one today:

1. What is your goal? 
Be specific! "I want to be a jammer." Is not a goal you can work with. You could put on a jammer panty and you've done it. What do you need to be a good jammer? LOADS.. yeah.. well.. let's break it down to something you can measure and let's make it something that is functional (running the 100m in under 11 secs is really only very functional when you compete in that line of sport or when you need to catch a bus). When I look at jammers that impress me, I notice a few things: speed, agility, fun, explosiveness, speed adjustments and the big one for me... being able to have all that during intervals of two minutes. That last one is what I will be calling fitness through out this series: the ability to keep control and speed during intervals for a longer period of time (or to have a lower pulse while performing the same thing).

My goal would be to be able to jam every third jam during 3 x 20 mins (to begin with). That means I can skate my lungs out one jam, catch my breath during the second and prepare for the fourth during the third jam.

Unfortunately due to the mechanics of the game (lead jammers calling off jams, not getting lead jam and having to do a full jam of chasing the lead jammer) this goal can't really be standardized and is therefor not very suitable. In stead I want to be able to run (not jog, run) 8 x 2 mins with 1 min of walking in between. I am not a runner by any means. At the moment a very slow jog gets me up to at least 80% of my max pulse (more about those numbers in later posts).

Goals should be:
- specific (what, when, how)
- measurable
- reachable
- small (the big fat goal of being the MVP at the Olympics can only be reached in a safe way by taking small steps... and reaching a goal every so often is much more motivating than not reaching any goals until you hit the big one)

Good luck with defining your goal! :)

Who's with me?

I have finally collected enough courage to decide to do this...

 I want to be a jammer. 

There, I said it. Now I better make it happen. Yes I'm big, but both Mad Maloony, Gothenburg and my teammates have shown me that body checks not holding on me can be a real asset. The part that lacks most right now is fitness though. I've said it before... a jammer needs to be able to skate full speed during two minutes while constantly adjusting her direction and speed based on the other "traffic" and she can't die at the end because there are plenty more jams to be skated. Two minutes is a long time to be stop-start-sprinting.

So when I reach my goal I can do this without losing control based on exhaustion. It's all about control! 

But now, after a year of skating, I have decided to no longer wimp out. I am going to do it. I have the knowledge of training physiology to do it, so why not apply it to myself? Once this cold is gone, I'm back in the gym and getting my interval fitness up! I know Miss Maniac was talking about needing a higher level of fitness... who else is with me?

It's always more fun to have a goal together with others than to try and keep up the discipline by your self.

January girl

So.. I set out to write about our teams disco-themed calendar and to show off the january pic of me and Evil Fairy, but ended up writing about training in stead...

Here is the pic anyways. My mum didn't recognize me. She opened the calendar at january, exclaimed how gorgeous it was (me thinking she was talking about me) to then continue through the calendar saying that she wanted to find MY picture before we went on with any of the other christmas unwrapping... yeah...

The fine line...

We now have a ten week period in front of us in which we want to get ready for a bout that's important to us and having been to the bootcamp with Swede and Loony I have a much better view on which "old" things we can improve on without getting into some new stuff. Let's not run before we can crawl, sort of. Well.. we can crawl, quite well, but let's be the best at crawling efficiently, beautifully, powerfully and perfectly balanced before we start running.

So five days ago we had our first real training of the new year. Badass had booked the hall for two hours which I love. Two hours is just perfect! You can focus on individual physical training (fitness and strength) as well as have time to do some team or tactical training. But since we were going to focus on "crawling" first we didn't do much tactical training this time. I had set a challenge to myself: design a training that would make everybody feel like they wanted to either die or punch me in the face but still design and execute it in such a way that EVERYbody would participate from start to finish (and thus feel great about accomplishing that). Judging from this post by MADicken, a declaration of love from Badass and the posts on Facebook, I succeeded. Yay!

This first period within the 10 week period will be a tough one. We have to improve our derby stance. We have been lazy and assumed it was only the freshies that needed to get lower, but we all need to get lower (me most of all).

This on skates, with your arms close to your body comes close to derby stance.

To be able to hold this form, you need a super strong core, so the training was directed both at training the core sections individually and doing drills in this position (to train all the muscles involved at once and to train the movement memory). Of course you need the thighs and the ass as well, but those tend to get trained by regular non- specific skating training anyways without noticing ;).

I was so proud of all that were there. Everybody fought to the end. It's nice to succeed in creating a training that dances on that fine line of wanting to die an early death vs completing.

Tomorrow is another two hour training... I wonder what I will come up with now...