Last weekend I traveled to Texas to see my niece graduate from college, and for several days I didn't paddle or do much of anything else. I hoped that bit of rest might finish off this shoulder ailment.
Alas, when I paddled Tuesday (70 minutes in the harbor), it flared up again, and has done so a couple of more times this week. But the soreness subsides quickly, and I'm hoping that's a sign of improvement. I'm continuing to stretch and warm up thoroughly and do several exercises that target the area.
Yesterday I started up a new strength routine to run from now until the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race on June 20 (I'll call it the May-June strength routine). Because I'll be spending next week on the Alabama Gulf Coast, I wanted this routine to be easily portable; so I went with some body-weight and rubber band exercises. It goes like this:
1. Hindu squats (demonstrated in this video)
2. Rubber band exercises demonstrated at 6:58 & 7:11 of this video by reigning Olympic K1 slalom champion Daniele Molmenti
3. Four-way abdominal exercises
4. A couple of rubber band exercises that I can't find any video of
5. "Superman" plank exercises
6. Rubber band exercises seen at 8:42 & 9:30 of the Daniele Molmenti video
This was the first time since March that I'd done any sort of leg exercises, and right now my quadriceps muscles are wicked sore as a result.
This morning I went back down to the harbor and did some higher-intensity paddling for the first time since the shoulder started hurting. After a ten-minute warmup, I did three 8-stroke sprints followed by 40 minutes of ultra-short race pace training. The shoulder felt fine until about 45 minutes in, when I began to feel some soreness. I tried to stay relaxed and do the work with my legs and lower torso.
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