cha59's log

I hope your recovery is going well Cha. Very sorry to hear what happened.

Thanks!!

I haven't been spending a lot of time on 2+2 lately, but I will post an update.

She says thanks!

I've been doing a lot of stuff the past several months, but still I'm a long ways from being able to compete yet.

Mid September, I got PRP injections in my thumbs and elbow and knee (again). That went fine.

My left thumb joint still gets sore. Both thumbs have some lateral weakness/stability issues, but I can grip a barbell pretty well.

I've maybe pulled as much as 565 or 585, I cant remember what the heaviest has been, but I'm definitely weaker than I was.

I've avoided squatting with a straight bar because I don't want to test my thumbs or left elbow, but I have been doing SSB, Transformer bar, and Marrs bar squats. The right knee is doing well. I've been hitting good depth without knee issues, and I've worked up to the low 600s in briefs with a Marrs bar.

I was benching, but I stopped for now. The triceps tendon seems ok, but I keep re-tweaking the left forearm flexor tendon. I actually got up to 375 using a Titan Magnum Ram, and that mostly felt good, but every once in a while, sometimes just with weight as light as the bar, that damn tendon acts act and it sets me back.

Doc says it has some tendinosis. Chiro says that the pronator teres is jacked up, and that attaches to that tendon. I've done tons of soft tissue work, and that has helped. I still seem to tweak it doing various things though, so doc says I should get imaging done. Its been over 9 months since the surgeries, so its time. Doc is going to order an MRI, then he will look at it under ultrasound to see what he thinks we should do, if anything. I am guessing that he will be able to help.

Hope you can get back to fully recovered soon. Injuries suck balls

This. Sounds like a real slog this time. Hope things start feeling solid and good soon.

yeah, these were pretty serious injuries. Thanks!

It is a slog. My doc friend says that it might take 12 - 18 months until the nerves start functioning normally again (I forgot the words he used to describe this). It has something to do with the fact that my pronator teres is still trying to compensate for the triceps. I'm really lucky to have good friends who are docs as good as this guy is. I'm sure he'll figure out the best things to do going forward.

Thanks!

Thanks Rich! Great to meet you too!

I have a couple things going on:

Left elbow - Doc did a significant PRP procedure on my left triceps tendon, flexor tendon, extensor tendons, and inside the elbow joint yesterday. The tendons had some small tears in them that were not visible on the MRI. He said he did some "fenestration", which involved poking some new holes in the tendons and filling them with PRP. It was really stiff yesterday, but its way less stiff today. He told me to be careful and sort of play it by ear as to what I do with it going forward.

I feel like this will get me over the hump to the point that I will be able to bench significant weight again. I'm going to be cautious & try to not overdo anything.

Neck - My neck got really jacked up several weeks ago. I did not notice it at the time, but my hunch is that it got aggravated after I squatted fairly significant weight with a buffalo bar. I never liked that bar.

For a couple of weeks, I wasn't able to even do forearm rehab, so I have not been lifting much for a few weeks.

I've had it adjusted a few times and its improved some, but its still not great. This is probably the worst my neck has been since 2017 before I got my first stem cell & PRP injections. Its not as bad as it was before that - I am not getting terrible nerve pain in the arms at least.

About three Fridays ago or so, I could not even DL without it bothering me. DLs usually fix this sort of thing when I use good form because they align my upper back & neck pretty well, but I think some facets were so jacked up that I could not perform them with good form.

This past Friday, I was able to DL with good form. I just worked up to a raw single with 405 and that moved surprisingly well, so I put a suit on and pulled 495. That went fine, but I was starting to feel like more DLing would be counterproductive, so I stopped and did some other stuff. The neck is slightly better since, but still not good.

Doc friend has a guy who does Atlas Orthogonal (SCALE—Stereotactic Cervical Alignment methods). I've been aware of him for a while, but hadn't had a good enough reason to see him before. I've seen him a couple of times now for diagnostic and planning visits.

My neck is really messed up due to old injuries and years of wear & tear resulting from the original injury about 43 years ago. Atlas doc says my head is something like 16 MM forward and 5 degrees off to one side. In addition, C1 is turned sideways in one direction and C2 is turned sideways the other direction.

He says that my neck will be in the top 10% of most difficult to correct that he has worked with. Thankfully, he has about 30 years of experience in dealing with this and he's confident that he can make it much better.

I get my first adjustment tomorrow, and the next one on Friday. I am very optimistic that this will help a lot of things, not just the neck. Apparently, there are 10 - 14 trillion fibers in the brain stem that run through the atlas (C1), and if its even a tiny bit out of alignment, it affects all the nerves below it, which eventually leads to wear & tear and injuries of everything below it.

Everything that atlas doc said is consistent with what my prp doc friend has told me in the past, so this atlas doc sounds very credible to me. I'm optimistic that this is going to help a lot of things, not just my neck.

fingers crossed. hope it goes well and you can get back to full training

Fingers crossed here too. 👍

Thanks!

Thanks!

The adjustments felt like almost nothing in real time, but afterwards, I noticed a lot.

Prior to the adjustment of my neck, C1 & C2 only, my left leg was a half inch longer than my right. Minutes after the adjustment, my legs were the same, and lots of muscles relaxed. As the day went on, I noticed a little muscle tightness on one side of my neck & then the other - this is expected after the first adjustment.

I also noticed that some of my muscles that had not been firing well are now firing. My left side glutes and some of my left ab muscles now feel alive when they were really difficult to get firing before.

I also immediately noticed that I was able to breathe through my nose better. For many years, my eustacian tubes frequently get closed off, and I know that's due to tight muscles contracting in the area. This causes lots of ear and sinus issues.

So far, it really feels like this type of chiropractic is very effective. This office is always extremely busy and this doc is always booked up for a week or two, so I am assuming he's getting good results for a lot of other people. My doc friend who recommended this guy really knows his stuff, and he knows a lot of the best practitioners around.

I get adjusted again tomorrow, then next Wed. I'm hoping for continued improvement.

👍 ARTist gonna ART 👍