Day 11 I Am Walking Like a Thunderbird

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2 days ago I wrote about how well my body had adapted to my new training regime, especially my legs. WOW how I was mistaken.

After my last leg routine I was walking like a duck. My hamstrings and glutes were on fire for 3 days. Well to my surprise, my hamstrings and glutes have pulled up reasonably well after my second session. My calves on the other hand, well that’s a different story.

Can I make one suggestion. When you’re following a program, make sure you read it. My program is relatively simple and uncomplicated, 3 exercises, barbell back squats, stiff legged leg curls and standing calf raises. The first 2 exercises are 10 sets of 10 reps with a 1 min rest between sets and the 3^rd is meant to be 5 sets of 20 reps with a 60 sec rest. I made the mistake when I trained legs that I inadvertently completed 10 sets of 20 calf raises.

Consequently, I’m now walking like a thunderbird. Some of you reading this may be too young to remember this TV show but when I was growing up, it was all the rage.

Puppets playing the characters and awesome models of cool rocket ships rescuing people from all sorts of tragedies.

The puppets looked a little silly when they walked, very similar to way i’m walking up and down my stairs.

It was so bad that I had to have a hot bath with Epsom salts. It’s the first time I’ve had a bath in over 10 years. I must say, given the tiny nature of our bath, I must’ve looked ridiculous in it. It’s only just long enough to fit my legs only. When I wanted to lie down, I had to put my legs up the wall – not a pretty site. So used an old trick to try and ease some of the pain.

I lay in a hot hot bath for 1 min and then jumped into a freezing cold shower for 1 min and then repeated this 5 times. You can do it the opposite way by filling a bath with cold water and a bag of ice and go from sitting in the ice bath to jumping into a hot hot shower, 5 repetitions of 1 min in each.

The theory is that Heat opens up blood vessels, which increases blood flow and supplies oxygen and nutrients to reduce pain in joints and relax sore muscles, ligaments, and tendons. The warmth also decreases muscle spasms and can increase range of motion.

Applying superficial heat to your body can improve the flexibility of tendons and ligaments, reduce muscle spasms, and alleviate pain. Cold does the exact opposite and when you combine the two, you can speed up recovery especially from intense training.

So, that’s it for today, you all take care and I’ll talk again tomorrow.