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.