Recovery from hamstring pull: week 4
I’m writing and publishing my (rather raw) notes on hamstring pull recovery. I hope by taking detailed notes, I can swing my own recovery towards success. And I hope the techniques, thinking patterns, and simply the story might inspire others battling against chronic physical injuries.
Notes from previous weeks: week 1, week 2, week 3.
Week 4
I concluded the notes from week 3, by writing about a failed attempt to ride my bike from Basel to Zurich and back. I didn’t make it back due to adductor tightness. Week 4 is about struggling with that muscle problem.
On Monday (June 18th, 2018), I talked about my biking experiment from the weekend. I went on to describe precisely the development of the muscle tension, how it spread through the leg. Fabienne inspected my adductor and agreed it’s bad. No other PT for me except massage. Fabienne performed deep muscle massage, trying to release the tension (with some success). Next, I laid down on a mat attached to the Chattanooga rehab stimulator set for a gentle, 20-minute long massage.
We’re convinced by now that my problems are not purely muscular. The complex patterns of how muscle tightness develops and spreads through my leg tell me one thing: I need a plan b or maybe even a pivot. A friend of mine mentioned to me a long time ago a chiropractor that founded an experimental lab focused on pushing the performance of AC Milan soccer players to the limit. He was famous for unconventional methods and results. His name is JP Meersseman, and I started reading online about his background. My intent is to figure out if additional pair of eyeballs would help with understanding my condition.
On Tuesday, I had an extended, two hours session with Fabienne. We did a thorough massage of my thigh, followed by balance exercises. I was sitting and balancing on a board supported by a metal tube that I described in my earlier notes. We also stretched my adductor by doing abduction of my leg with the help of a small skateboard. During this exercise, I noticed I have acute pain in the area above the greater trochanter of the femur. Or, in layman terms: above a ball-shaped end of a bone that enters the hip joint.
I got a green light to go to Como and visit JP Meersseman. Fabienne, my therapist, is curious herself what will come out of that meeting.
Wednesday is traditionally the day of dry needling for me. This time we focused on dry needling of my glutes, and we did a back massage. The message vastly improved my performance in prone scorpion exercise, which is one of my benchmark routines. The adductor tension is still there, and it spread to strong calf tension. I also did my standard core muscle workout.
After PT, I went for a 500m swim to see if it relaxes muscle tension. It did not.
Thursday, was the day of working on the tightness of my back. It’s concentrated mostly in the middle and upper parts of my back. After a deep and meticulous massage, my back felt a lot better. We could see this in my reach in the prone scorpion exercise: it was even between legs and further than before! The adductor tightness eased considerably, and my calf tightness is almost entirely gone.
On Friday, we focused on back and hamstring massage monitored by the scorpion test. We also did some lunges on a balancing platform that were fun to do. This PT session was short as I was traveling for the weekend.
On Saturday, I did a full stretching routine, and it was the first time since my “Wednesday ride” with VC Peleton from my week 2 of training. It took long 2,5 weeks to correct a single ride that maybe was a little too demanding. But how do I know where’s the line? Am I just done with sports forever just to be safe? I’m determined to figure out an answer.
On Sunday, I did my stretching routine and I started reading Play On: The New Science of Elite Performance at Any Age by Jeff Bercovici and I found it excellent. I came across this book while researching JP Meersseman.
