Falling. One Too Many Times.

About a month ago I started to experience pain in both my knees.** It varied, one day the left one would hurt and the next day it would be the right one. I went to see a doctor about it, but the only person available that day was a PA. Nothing against PAs but I came out of the room with very little as far as understanding what was wrong or fixing what I thought to be a problem. She said some knees just make a “clicking/popping” sound naturally so I shouldn’t worry.

March came and went and the pain has persisted. Sure, I’ve continued working out and skating at the same crazy rate that I have been for the last few months. So, if rest could have helped...I sure haven’t let it. I met with my real doctor today and a problem definitely exists, why else would she have ordered an x-ray and MRI on the spot? This shall be fun. I’m supposed to keep from exercising my legs for at least one week, but preferably two. And while she didn’t say it outright, I am pretty sure that includes skating too. Do you hear that? That was the sound of my heart breaking.

I’m not sure how this is going to work. I am trying to come to terms with it, but it’s going to be difficult. I am already experiencing skating withdrawals and I skated yesterday. On the one hand, learn to skate is cancelled for two weeks for a hockey tournament so I won’t be missing any official classes. On the other hand I do have a private lesson scheduled for this Saturday and if I cancel it I won’t have a lesson for two weeks because my coach is going out of town. Decisions. Decisions.

There’s also this whole no exercising thing. What am I supposed to do, not go to the gym that I’m paying $70 a month for? Half a month of not exercising is $35 down the drain. Another way of looking at it is saving myself from having surgery in the future if I don’t take it down a notch or two.

On top of all of this I have my first competition is the first weekend in June. If I manage to stay off the ice for two weeks I will only have one month to choreograph and learn a program. ARGH!

** If this is your first time reading my blog I am having all this knee pain because I am constantly falling on my knees while skating. Every time I fall on my knees they usually take the impact from the fall. Like all my body weight is thrown onto that one spot on my knee. I fall on my knees while doing crossovers most of the time because I hit my toe pick on the regs. Last week I took a hard fall while stepping forward from doing backwards crossovers. If only I was being a little more careful I would have stepped properly but I was so caught up in the music I was listening to and not my foot work. #skaterprobs

Am I Insane?

The question I asked myself all week long. Why in the world did I think that committing to a 5 hour exercise schedule 5 days in a row would be possible? Am I insane? Surely, I am not normal. Normal people don’t spend their entire spring break working their butt off, but I did.

Spring break boot camp did not go as planned, obviously. I was not physically capable of doing that much activity daily. However, I still think that I was very successful. My skills on the ice have improved and I have lost a few pounds in just about 10 days.

So my original plan for spring break was an hour at the gym in the morning, then a one hour break, warm-up/off ice training for a half hour, ice time for three hours, go home nap and eat dinner, then get back to the gym for another hour of workout or yoga. That worked for about 1.5 days, by Tuesday afternoon I was already done with the whole gym and ice thing. My week looked a little more like this: wake up, yoga at home, breakfast, off-ice training for a half hour (stretching, jumping, running laps around the rink, and stairs on the stadium), ice time for 3 hours (4 on Friday) then nap, eat, sleep, and repeat. Still exhausting, just not as bad as I had originally intended.

One other goal of this week was to stick to my diet religiously. This worked pretty well throughout the week, I have pictures to prove it (haha!). I gave it up Friday at 8pm unfortunately. The last day of boot camp was by far the hardest day, I pushed myself like I’ve never pushed myself before. 4 hours of ice time total and a full hour of off ice training (half hour before each session). I was at the rink all day on Friday, I arrived at 9:15 and left at 5:15. I had brought snacks for the day, but I got home starving and was too tired to make anything to eat. I just barely made it to my bed before I crashed and slept until 8, when the decision was made to order pizza. Yes, I ordered pizza on health nut week. I needed a quick pick me up and it felt like the closest, easiest, and quickest option. Two slices later and I found myself in bed for the night. Exhaustion does not accurately describe how I was feeling.

I'm Not Dying From The Pain!

Well ladies and gentlemen, the day has finally come! I was on the ice for three hours yesterday and this morning I didn’t wake up sore. Now, if you’ve been keeping up with my posts, then you probably know that on my three hour ice days I can barely move when I get home and I have trouble getting up on the following day. Last week I had a three hour day and my muscles were sore through the weekend. 

This is a huge accomplishment for me! I did a few things differently yesterday and I believe they greatly impacted my health following a difficult session. I drank a ton of water, I kept my body moving, I ate right after practice, and I went to a yoga class at night. 

A few days ago, I was reading up on figure skating nutrition and I learned a few new things. Not surprisingly, water was at the top of the list. In order for muscles to recover fully after a workout, you have you hydrate, a lot! Yesterday, I drank 64 oz of water in the time between my practice and bedtime. The second thing I did differently was kept my body moving. Usually after these practice sessions all I want to do is sleep and while this was still true yesterday, I kept myself from napping. But mostly because I had to get to my second job. There I walked, jumped, jogged, and stretched with the kids on the playground. Despite my lack of energy I kept it up and felt like I wasn’t dying, so that was a good sign! On the nutrition site, they also mentioned that eating was very important right after a session. So I packed myself a healthy snack and ate on my way home. It consisted of low-fat string cheese (1), almonds (10), triscuit wheat thins (15), and a small bag of carrots. When I got home I was still hungry so I had yogurt and a piece of wheat bread with crunchy peanut butter.  The last thing that I believe made the biggest change for me today was the yoga. 

I attended my first yoga class at my gym. I have never before done yoga in a class like this. Now on to the experience itself, it was meh. I felt lost for a quarter of the time. I was tired. I had to keep looking around to get clues from other people, and it was really humid in the room (on purpose). Following this learning experience, I felt amazing. My body was restored, my muscles felt “fresh” and once again - I didn’t feel like death! 

I went home, ate a salad, and was passed out by 9:45. I slept really well, like really really well and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to take on another day. I am so happy that I made this progress because I feel like my body is ready to get back on the ice for another long session today.

Sleep & Two-a-Days

I never thought I would actually spend time writing about sleep, but I also didn’t realize how much it would be affected in this process. Simply stated, skating takes it all out of you, it sucks up your energy. Just yesterday I skated for an hour. One hour. I went home, spent some time with my family and got dressed to hit the gym for a two a day (explained later). I never made it to the gym. I hit the sack at 8:15 pm. How do I know exactly when I slept? Well, I woke up to a handful of texts all time stamped around 8:30 that I never saw/responded to. I also have a fitbit that tracks my sleeping patterns. And I never plugged my phone into the charger, a daily routine for me.

When I took classes on Saturday I would often stay for the open skate afterwards, on these days I would go home and rest or nap for hours. If you know me well you know that I have difficulty sleeping during the day. I only nap if my body is 100% exhausted.

I think it’s important to note that I don’t feel exhaustion on the ice. That’s what confuses me about this. Ice time in my mind is glorified, I feel like I’m in my happy place. I smile when I succeed at something that I’ve been working on. It doesn’t hit me until about 10 minutes after I’ve been in my house. Nowadays, I don’t even let myself sit when I get home. I literally have trouble getting up every time. So I figure if I avoid sitting I can make myself a quick/light dinner and head to the gym for the two a day. Rarely the case.

Two-a-days are intense. They are the days when I do two complete (1 hr +)  workouts. I know it sounds crazy, but it makes sense to me. As I’ve mentioned before, I am really committed to my plan and my goals in figure skating. If I am going to start jumping I need to be in good shape. Second, I am paying for a membership at a really nice gym. If I’m paying for it I better be going every day, sometimes twice a day. These two-a-days occur on very specific occasions, they occur on skating days because I can only do a workout after skating (otherwise I’ll be too tired for ice time), and skating is a complete workout in itself. They also occur on friend gym days. Luckily my gym is right next to my place of work, and because I end at 2pm (and literally have nothing else to do until 6) I hit the gym for an hour knowing that I’ll be heading there again at night with my girls. Surely this changes my workout, I usually go hard on my magic machine in the afternoon so that in the evening I can walk on the treadmill while my friends are on the ones next to me (they hate my machine and I hate running on the treadmill, so I take it easy at night).

Two-a-days are my favorite. I feel my best on those days and I sleep really well too. I come home, shower up, and hit the sack. At first I used to wake up feeling sore, but as this goes on it doesn’t feel as bad in the morning, some days I even wake up refreshed.

Diet and Exercise

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I re-started my Lifetime Gym Membership. Figure Skating has become my motivation for the gym. I am also really lucky to have my best friend right by my side, pushing me to do my absolute best.

A few years ago I lost a ton of weight and dropped 3 dress sizes, I was comfortable wearing a bikini on the beach and I felt great. My motivation back then? To impress and feel my best. Unfortunately, in the last couple years I’ve gained the weight back. Between school and work I had little time to exercise and frankly I lost my motivation. As soon as I began skating I knew that if I wanted to get better (and do jumps) I had to get in shape. Slowly I began making changes in my diet and I restarted my gym membership. In the early stages, I had many cheat days: pizza, soda, and chocolate! Who knew I’d join the “chocolate club” as soon as I started to care? I hated chocolate before and now it’s like a delicacy. When I learned the waltz jump I knew that I couldn’t cheat anymore. I didn’t think that I would start jumping on the ice for at least another year so I had time to get in shape, little did I know that it was go time. Things got serious quickly.

I had been doing exercises at home, but I wanted to get on my magic machine [basically what I refer to as an elliptical on steroids (Precor: Adaptive Motion Trainer with Open Stride)]. I call it the magic machine because it’s a cardio workout I can do without feeling like crap, I can get my heart rate up where I need it to be comfortably and for long periods of time for maximum gain. In addition there’s a good amount of resistance that I can add which makes the movements more strenuous. When I am at the gym I usually start out by doing 15 minutes of cardio, as I continue going to the gym this time usually increases in increments of five. After Cardio, I move on to weights. I work on my arms (100 reps total, between 40-50 pounds to start), then my quads (25 reps x 2), abs (100 reps total, 50 at 60 lbs, 50 at home), then I get back to legs (100 reps total on 3 different machines).  If I have extra time I work on my calves and glutes, then to arms again). After weights I head back to cardio on my magic machine, 10 minutes to start, then as I continue going I usually bump up the time in increments of five. Finally, I stretch. Sometimes I’ll throw in a couple 30 second planks and yoga, it really depends on time.

As far as my diet goes, it is really difficult. Like I said, now that I’m in the early stages of jumping I feel like I need to lose weight and get stronger very quickly. I can’t make the jumps I want to be doing...like flips and loops until I lose some weight. This means that soda needs to be completely eliminated from my diet… for good. Soda has been my most difficult challenge in this endeavor. It is like the outlier in my life, I try to eat foods that aren’t processed often, I tend to overcome pain and the common cold using natural remedies like elderberry and essential oils...but then I drink soda? I know it is by far one of the very worst things you can put in your body, I am aware, yet it continues to challenge me.

The diet itself isn’t anything specific, motto “don’t put crap in your body”. I am eating lots of protein, mostly grilled chicken. Less carbs. More vegetables (aka lovely salads). Lucky for me I don’t like cheese very much and I don’t eat red meat more than once every two weeks, so they aren’t really a problem for me. I definately make choices that others might avoid on a diet, such as butter and real sugar. I’d rather have the “real” thing in both cases rather than the processed alternatives.

I don’t eat late at night and I try to have a light dinner (heavier lunch). If I eat most of my protein during lunch I have more energy later in the day and I have time to burn it off while exercising. Lighter dinners are great for nighttime workouts and good sleep. I hate snacking, but sometimes when I am dieting I make myself snack so that my meals are more frequent. I choose to either have yogurt or vegetables (usually carrots & celery).

I’ve posted the specifics of my diet and exercise plan for a few reasons. First and foremost I need it as a reference. In a few months I’ll update it and get to see my progress. Second, those who want to use it as a reference can! I’ve had a lot of success with this plan in the past, I know that it works for my body, hopefully it will for you too - should you choose to take this step.

Makeup Sessions - Thank God!

Well sure enough I was still sore from the strain on Saturday and didn’t make it to class, but I called the rink and they said I could make up both classes! The only other day that works in my schedule is the Wednesday evening class. I was a bit apprehensive about going since my favorite coach isn’t going to be there, but I have to make up those days somehow. The good thing here? I get to skate on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings for two weeks in a row, horah!

Today I also re-started my membership at Lifetime fitness! I am overjoyed about this, it’s been on hold for like a year. It’s so freaking expensive, but will ultimately be worth it. I know that getting shape at the gym is really going to impact my ability to skate. My goal is to be at the gym every single day. I know everyone says this and doesn’t follow through, but I am headstrong. If that membership is costing me $70 a month that means I am going to be there every single day. Or else (I’ll come up with a punishment soon).