A Friendly Nudge - Too Much of a Good Thing
...because we all could use a little encouragement!
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you.
My achilles tendon sent me a memo. I’ll paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of “don’t be a fool.” Since it needed to get my attention, the language was a little more colorful.
Fortunately it’s not ruptured, but it’s riled up enough that I’ve had to back off from longer walks or some of the light jogging that I had started doing on the treadmill.
The assessment from my physical therapist is that I irritated the bursa that surrounds the achilles tendon on my heel.
I don’t know exactly when it happened but pretty sure it started with some single leg heel raises that were flirting with failure. (I’ll talk more about failure in a minute.) I didn’t follow my own advice. I let my enthusiasm, or maybe more accurately, my ego get ahead of my connective tissue.
I’d read something that said that 35 single heel raises was a great target for 30 year olds so I decided that I should be able to do that as I’m closing in on 70. I’ve done 35 a few times in the past, but this time I did it without any type of warm up and it had probably been a couple of weeks since I’d done heel raises of any type.
That’s how injuries happen.
Let’s talk just a second about something called training to failure and then we’ll talk about training intensity and avoiding injury.
Training to failure is when you push yourself with a weight or an exercise to the point that you can’t manage another rep. That’s different from not feeling like doing another rep. Failure is if your life depended on it, you can’t do another rep.
Training to failure, especially with heavy weights, is pushing your body to its limit and if your form isn’t perfect or you have some underlying weakness or strains, failure might be an injury instead of just an unfinished rep. Training near failure without adequate warm up isn’t a good idea even if you’re not lifting heavy.
So let’s use me as an example of what not to do.
I should have done some easy sets to warm up the muscles and the joints. I was impatient and jumped in with a tough set and pushed too hard too quickly.
Strength, and maybe more importantly, power or the ability to quickly generate force play crucial roles in how we navigate aging. Being able to regain your footing if you stumble depends on your ability to instantaneously adjust your leg and foot position and apply enough force to halt your fall. The fast twitch muscles fibers that make this type of recovery possible are lost as we age if we’re not deliberate about hanging on to them or enhancing them. It’s why I include things like slam balls, skipping and jumping in the exercises I post.
But before we jump into either strength or power building mode we need to give our bodies a chance to warm up and to be prepared to respond. It’s why I have foam rolling and a gentle warm up ahead of the exercises.
I started enjoying cooking a lot more once I embraced the idea of mise en place or having things ready to go before I started cooking. The same thing applies to exercise.
I could have gotten away with 10 calf raises using both feet without any type of prep or warm up because that would have been a nice warm up set. It would have given the tissues in my feet and legs a chance to wake up and get on board with where we were headed. Some ankle circles ahead of that would have been even better. And some single leg balance work would have also helped prep my feet and calves for a more demanding set.
For almost all of the exercising that I do I make sure that I have at least 2 and maybe 3 reps in reserve. If I’m going to really push with some heavy sets, I make sure that I’ve done multiple warm up sets first.
Injury is always possible when we’re exercising, but we can reduce the likelihood by paying attention to our bodies and being smart with our approach. Avoiding exercise doesn’t eliminate injury, it just guarantees that we’ll have less influence on how we age and deprive us of the strength and resiliency that comes from giving our bodies something challenging to do.
Now let’s shift our attention to food and make something tasty to eat.
Lebanese Inspired Coleslaw
For me, summer includes coleslaw and I’m always looking for interesting variations. So when I saw this recipe in Food & Wine, I had to give it a try. In addition to using dried sumac in this dish, it’s also a great rub for roasted salmon. It has a citrus-like flavor. I also added za’atar seasoning with the pistachios as a garnish and za’atar is one of those herb blends that I always try to have on hand.
Ingredients:
Dressing
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 ½ tsp honey
¼ cup lemon juice
½ tsp ground sumac
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground pepper
Salad
½ head green cabbage, diced
½ head purple cabbage, diced
1 bunch scallions, chopped thin
1 large handful of mint, chopped
Garnish
⅓ cup pistachios
Za’atar seasoning
In a large bowl, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, sumac, salt and pepper and honey and whisk or stir to combine.
Add the chopped green and purple cabbage, scallions, and mint and mix well.
Top each serving with pistachios and a pinch of za’atar.
Enjoy!
Now that we have something tasty figured out to eat, let’s put together some exercise options for next week.
If you’re just getting started with exercising, it’s always a great idea to get checked out by your doc and get a “cleared to exercise” verdict. You still have to pay attention to your body but it can give you a little reassurance.
I frequently do exercises individually as snacks unless I’m at the gym, so my recent reminder that I’m not bulletproof has convinced me to do an easy set or two of an exercise before trying to ramp up the intensity.
Take as much time as you need with the foam rolling and warm ups.