Plyo Workout

Hello Camp Folks.

At long last, here is the Plyo Tutorial.  There are of course more exercises than these that you can add in or do as part of a bodyweight strength workout, and there are all sorts of different variations you can do on the exercises listed.  If you contact me, I'll get you a print out with a 'menu' of possible exercises.
The basic instructions, as identified in the video, are to go 1 minute on, 10 seconds off.  If you need to, work into it though.  Build up from 45 secs on, 15 secs off, to 50 secs on, 10 secs off, then up to 1 minute on, 10 secs off.  In any event, if you did the Plyo workout at camp, this will come back quickly to you.

Remember, you can't just run to get faster.  You need to be a total athlete to run FAST.

Surgery!

So the day prior to heading up to Concord Retreat for Gotta Run Running Camp, I went in to see a specialist about my ankle.  It just wasn't making any progress, even with consistent physical therapy. 

So the Doctor took one look at my MRI, and told me unequivocally that it was going to need to be surgically repaired.  If not, without my calcaneofibular and anterior talofibular ligaments, my foot/ankle bone structure basically was just sloshing around and clattering bone on bone, and would eventually wear through the cartilege and fuse together.  Plus there was a buildup of scar tissue on my anterior inferior talofibular ligament, which was getting pinched on my talus (bone directly under the tibial shin bone) and constricting my peroneal nerve, and causing my shin and lower leg to go numb as I ran.  Not fun.

So today, I went in for surgery to get all this repaired.  After I came out of anesthesia, the doctor told me, "It was a mess in there," and that besides all those ligaments flapping in the breeze, and the scar tissue, and some damage to the cartilege already, there was also a loose chunk of ligament just floating around in there.

In any event, its all done now, and wrapped up in this cast for the next 10 days, then I go into a walking cast for 4 weeks, then a boot (of the plastic, removable variety) for an additional 6 weeks.  Then I get to start returning to running with a Walk-Jog plan.  Awesome.

Ah well!  My ankle is repaired, now we hope it's fixed.

Active Isolated Stretching Video

Hello Capon Ridgers!

Embedded here you will find an unedited video of the normal stretching circuit that we used for warmup prior to running.  Over the next few days, I'll be putting up edited versions of the same stretching routine, the plyo workout, and the core exercises, as well as a list of other resources, and my instruction documents for each of these.  While I'd love to put everything up at once, I hope you will make sure you are stretching in the meantime!  Active Isolated Flexibility work will keep you healthy and help you recover faster. And don't forget, even if your team uses static stretching (or no stretching) at practice, you can add AIS flexibility into your evening routine - take 10-12 minutes before you go to bed and fast-track your recovery and flexibility gains.

(Also enjoy the background commentary as the Coaches and counselors get completely distracted and fixated on a tick, and what sort of viscous fluid they should use to remove it. Gross. Just ignore that, and pay attention to the stretching....)