Session 3: Going slow, to go fast

Good session 3 today - not so sore - less thinking and more focus.

The warm up is starting to make sense - about half of the 16-steps are committed to mental memory, inchworm, toe-flicker, prisoner walk, over-under hurdle,... still working on the kinetic memory.

Phil occasionally says, "them" in referring to the body or parts I'm not use to talking to. "open up - teach them , open up - teach them", he says. It's all about doing things correctly - good spine control, good body position. I'm still rushing things a bit, and when he says, "relax, slow it down" I get too mechanical - old habit of thinking the movement rather than moving through the movement. Did someone say "white boy ain't got no rhythm"?

"Going slow, to go fast", so he says. It's all about teaching my body the right things to do, while my head is still muddling around in the past 50 years of bad habits and compensation. We're going at this three days a week. Consistency is critical to building body memory and to give Phil a chance to see response, not negative or positive, just response. It's clear he is looking at me in a far different perspective than I can see myself; there in lies the value of a coach. I have never had a person coaching just me. Ya, I have been on some teams and as a runner had enough success to garner some individual coach's attention, but a coach actually focused on the whole me? No.

So going slow to go fast is like learning to drive a car. He's got me in the parking lot of the Formula One race track. For now, confined, I'm little danger to myself. It's in there I can safely knock a few things over as I learn to get control of the whole body. Mentally, I long for the open road. Right now it's about, "Going slow to go fast".

We spent a bit of time on the wobble board's (see session 2) cousin - the "eye ball", as he calls it. A big circular board with a half rubber bubble on it. Like the wobble board, in the short-term you are reminded of how unstable you are, in the long run, core stabilization and strength are at the heart of it. In various two-footed and single-footed slightly squatted positions my objective is to balance. At first it's akin to watching geese land on an ice covered pond. Every movement feels like a semi-controlled crash. Frankly one of the toughest things was standing there, arms spread, on one leg, and having Phil just nudge me in the slightest manner - little more than breeze-like - my hips, legs, arms, hands, etc., staying still was a ridiculous challenge. In the back of my brain I start asking myself "what the hell have I been doing (or not doing) all these years to be so... so... unbalanced? I have some work to do.

The back got a bit inflamed today. We're communicating a lot about that - trying to find that balance between constructive rebuilding and tipping the scale into damage. There again we are going a bit slow now, until we both know my body better, so later we can let the F1 out on the streets.

Every session is a learning lesson - my body relearning to move, my brain learning to stay out of the way - but proprioception remains the over arching concept. I still need to create a body that communicates with all its parts.

Then it was roller time. Still discovering my body with the roller as well. Funny how a hard piece of foam can be so enlightening.

Rebuilding the Back: Session 2

Today's session was tough - the body was sore coming into it. After back-to-back 80 plus milers and then Monday's initial workout session I was really feeling it - especially the legs. But there are no excuses with Phil - so I barely slip in the door and he slides out of his animated (a word I will use often in connection to Phil) conversation to tell me "four laps when you are ready" which meant now.

Despite being sore as hell, especially hamstrings that felt like a twist-tie on a bread bag after an NFL lineman had made a sandwich, I actually felt mentally more connected to the warm-up routine than I thought I would. Now, that doesn't mean that I didn't need Phil, with a smile and an intro mime routine, reminding me of each of the exercises, but still, a few new synapses were firing in that proprioceptor part of my brain.

Today I also discovered my new friend - well, I hope we will be soon - the wobble board, or balance board (photo above). Trying to balance on this thing is a sobering experience under normal conditions - probably not improved by the number of pints I had at Alex's birthday fest last night. The idea is you stand, at first with both feet spread and try to maintain a balanced position so the platform remains parallel to the floor. Oh, so much easier said than done. But after a few tries I got the basic hang of it.

Now comes the fun part, something new. Phil hands me to sword-looking things - flexible metal blades about five feet long with a centrally placed rubber handle. They looked less like a battle instrument and more like a strange musical one. Okay ready, squat, balance, and start gyrating these sword blades up-n-down - YES - while continuing to maintain balance on the wobble board. Quickly I was wobbling out of control and Phil says, "relax" and I try, "relax" again he says, now I'm trying to be a jellyfish of relaxation while holding on to two gyrating blades on this tipsy little board... "RELAX... get off the board", he says. OH, I get it! relax equals - get off the board. Ya, I guess I was more tensely focused than I realized. So we start again only with the sword blades vertical - not any easier trust me.

Finally we try the "dragonfly" version. This one has me standing on the WB, squatting with one leg while extending the other leg out behind me (ala the dragonfly's tail) and then gyrating the sword blades to imitate the beating wings. Mostly I got it, except for my dragonfly's tail has trouble remaining aerial. Of course I have watched plenty of dragonflies over the years and females depositing eggs on a pond do exactly what I was doing, although after several reminders to keep my "tail" up I assumed Phil wasn't interested in my natural history acumen.

All this gyrating is about stregthening my core - and anything else in the neighborhood of my L5 vertebrae. If that fails maybe I take my egg-laying dragonfly routine onto some reality talent show.

During the cool down with the roller it was clear the soreness from the weekend and Session 1 had not flown the coup - maybe it was that grimacing expression while doing little more than lying on my side that gave me away? That's when Phil breaks his animated monologue of cycling in the early '90s in Europe and says, without missing a breath, "that's good [the pain part] Gerry, we're going to rebuild you from head to toe" and then he tosses this in, "we're tak'n it down to basics, peanut-butter and jelly stuff". Well, basics like crying for your mother might be another version!

Then it was off to icing down the back and ten more minutes of colorful life at the back of the pack pro racing in northern Europe stories; Phil has forgotten infinitely more about what I like to call the "beasty boys days of cycling", those pre-1993 times, than I will ever discover - but my anecdotal archive keeps growing with every session - hopefully so will my core strength and proprioception.

Back to the Back: Session 1

As promised I'm going to try and post after every session of my back rehab and overall rebuilding of the body - for cycling and life. Today was the first real workout with Phil. After time for the holidays and giving Phil a chance to analyze an approach, we got down to actual gym time this morning. I was coming in as a blank slate - mentally letting go, putting my body in Phil's hands and focusing on building this body into something better than it was before.

A focus of today was a new term to me - Proprioception. It's something that I'm, ...well, maybe more accurately I'm not. Ya see, I can't dance (except that silly excuse for a thing Jenn is kind enough to laugh at with great kindness) or anything else that requires independence and rhythm from my arms, my hands, feet and brain. Coordinated communication is proprioception:

"Proprioception (PRO-pree-o-SEP-shən) is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body. Unlike the six exteroceptive senses (sight, taste, smell, touch, hearing, and balance) by which we perceive the outside world, and interoceptive senses, by which we perceive the pain and movement of internal organs, proprioception is a third distinct sensory modality that provides feedback solely on the status of the body internally. It is the sense that indicates whether the body is moving with required effort, as well as where the various parts of the body are located in relation to each other."

Today's first session was about dumping old data, and rebooting Ger's mental hard-drive so we can start reprogramming the new Ger. According to Phil that's the first step before we can ever get to rebuilding what 50 years of active living on this planet has damaged.

This first session was about "bookend" as Phil called it - teaching me how to warm up properly, and cool down. As he says, "We're gunna go slow, and do this right". That began by telling me he was going to break me of the habit of stretching before warming up. See how little I know - I thought stretching was warming up?

We began with a light easy (a word I'm going to become reacquainted with) with a few laps of jogging. Then a series of walking, then walking while bending, walking lifting legs, and walking swinging arms, etc. None of these to any length or extreme. C'mon how tough could thsi be? After 45 mins of stopping and starting to focus on my back position, proper body alignment, proper movement and technique I finished extremely "worked" and completed the warm-up that someday I'll do on my own in 10-12 mins max. For now that was it.

Then he pops out the "roller" - I thought I knew about this - a 6" x 15" hard solid foam tube. But like everything else today, it was time to learn. We started with the IT band (Iliotibia band). Ouch! This is good, I kept telling myself, Phil called it, from where he was comfortably sitting, "pain is your friend", and then remind me to slooooooow down. The goal here was to sit for 15-20 secs on pain spots in the IT band before rolling slowly on up towards my hip. If stoping at pain was my goal, then I wasn't going to be making swift progress - but "slow is good" Phil kept reminding me.

After the IT band was adequately mutilated - so it felt - we moved on to the interior of the upper leg and the same slow roll from interior knee. It's truly amazing the body parts and pain you can find when you go looking for them. OUCH! Slowly I was reminded. Repeat on left leg with equal pain and then it was off to ice the back for ten minutes - more on iceing later.

Session 2 on Wednesday..... think proprioception

We can rebuild it, we have the technology

No, not the environment or Tiger Wood's reputation, I'm focused on something simpler and closer to home. In fact, it can't get any closer and more personal - my spine.

Specifically I'm facing a degenerative disc (see x ray - not mine but similar) and I have what's referred to as Spondylolisthesis: The word spondylolisthesis derives from two parts - spondylo which means spine, and listhesis which means slippage. So, a spondylolisthesis is a forward slip of one vertebra (i.e., one of the 33 bones of the spinal column) relative to another. Spondylolisthesis usually occurs towards the base of your spine in the lumbar area. And then there are a range of issues, some from previous bike crashes (broken ribs, clavicle, scapula, etc) and the wear-n-tear of 53 very active years on this planet as a photographer, as I found out yesterday.

Spondylolisthesis can be described according to its degree of severity. One commonly used description grades spondylolisthesis, with grade 1 being least advanced, and grade 5 being most advanced. The spondylolisthesis is graded by measuring how much of a vertebral body has slipped forward over the body beneath it.

I have grade 1 Spondylolisthesis, painful, but good news - we can rebuild it, we have the technology... now I need the patience and determination to stay focused.

So I'm dealing with two phases - recovery and reconditioning

I initially started seeing a chiropractor, Dr. Jason Lindekugel, who has initiated the recovery portion - with regular visits to correct alignment, and egoscue static stretching as well as yoga.

And today Jason and I met with cycling and fitness coach Phil Claud. It was Jason's recommendation I (and he) meet with Phil to be part of my back rehab team. Phil became a professional cyclist and joined the USA national team, eventually racing in Europe for five years. More about Phil.

What is clear from our first meeting Friday - I have a lot of work to do. Phil's first objective is going to be to try reteaching my brain/nervous system to be more adaptive. He does know I can't dance (dance lessons may also be in my future - more on that later).

Funny - one of the last things he commented on was my saddle alignment - I had ridden my race bike over in case - he said, see that saddle position, nose is down, we'll get to that later, we have other things to work on first.

Over the next several weeks and months, maybe years, I'm going to try, with the help of some very skilled, experienced folks, try and rebuild this anatomy into something that will motor me more efficiently, faster and pain free on the bike, but also my life. If you are interested I hope to share as much as I can - please feel free to comment here or write me. I'll post all of these entries with the Label: Cycling pain free