Drills, and cross training

This week can pretty much be summed as a drill and cross training week, not by choice but necessity. Last Saturday while at the NCAA Championships I was still having excessive pain in my shin from my tumble with the hurdle last week. I swear I was not being a baby when I said it was painful, it was still sore to the touch and a beautiful array of colors ranging from just below my knee into the middle of my arch. Derek had asked the team trainer to take a look at it and the faces he made were not all too promising as he began his initial prognosis. He said that I had a lot of "pitted edema" which typically results after serious trauma to an area. Well... I guess my tibia thought that landing on a hurdle was a bit traumatic. Ben's initial assessment in Arkansas planted a seed of worry in the back of my mind that I could have perhaps fractured my tibia. I have never (knock on wood) had a broken bone in my life, other than my big toe that I swear was broken after I dropped a 45lb plate on it in the fall of 2007. I was still able to grit my teeth and do drills and get my lifts in while in Arkansas, although it was painful to do, I could grin and bear it. Dude!! What if it was really fractured?

After work I made it into the training room for a more thorough assessment. Ben (LSU team trainer) poked and squeezed and made me wince in pain until he made the statement that I had hoped for. "Well, its not fractured but....." I really didn't process much beyond the "not fractured" I was just relieved that I wouldn't be hobbling around in a boot, loosing valuable training time. Basically Ben's assessment was that although I did not fracture the bone, it was pretty badly bruised. Derek and I had to adjust the training for the week and limit throws to only two days where I threw only half the reps I typically do. Then I ended up drilling more and doing more cross training rather than aggressive lifts.

Soooo.... I finally pulled my bike out of the garage and dusted it off, pumped up the tires, located my helmet and took a awesome bike ride on the levee. I also spent some quality time on the elliptical this week. Yesterday I got back into the ring for high rep throws and did a squat workout in the afternoon. Derek adjusted my reps for squats this week to be higher than they would typically be this time of year, but it was necessary to wean myself back to loaded exercise. I believe that today I will FINALLY have a high rep day in the ring and test out some short hurdles and cleans. Although I typically HATE to drill, perhaps this little injury set back will benefit my throws in my opening meet at LSU on Friday! Have a great week everyone!