Thanks to well wishers and to weasel4 for the kind bench shirt offer.

I did go to that MD, he took some XRays and said between the XRays and the symptoms, he thinks it's the SI joint + lumbar strain. I can release the SI thing myself to get some transient relief, I'll try to do that prior to lifting this weekend and I'll test and see how it goes. I'm also going back to PT to see if she can release anything and get that release to stick (pun sort of intended).

Generally good news.

Cliffs on your SI joint release technique? Mine has improved a fair bit, but I still feel it a bit doing certain things (getting out of bed/off the couch, especially).

Ah, for me pulling something off the ground is the toughest or pulling w/hip movement. Getting up/squatting/etc is no problem. This is pretty cool as my main hobby is pulling things off the ground w/ violent hip movement.

Cliffs are tough. I find all of this helpful though:

1) There's some pelvic realignment thing in Supple Leopard I do that doesn't lend itself to text descriptions, where you squeeze your legs together a few times. Pray to KStar, repeat, move around somehow. I have to read it to do it, I'm too ******ed to remember. Anyway, I always feel good after that. It's good. Do you have that book? It's a little bit disorganized, but worth it imo.

2) Releasing the iliacus (or trying) with a lax ball or theracace or my hand (hand works the best, I guess). This usually makes me want to die. My PT is way better at it than me, go figure.

3) Releasing the psoas. Also painful.

4) From this page, I also find the following helpful and more of stuff I can do "all the time", at work, etc. http://thelowback.com/fix.htm
SELF-TRACTION SUPINE
SEATED PATIENT CORRECTION
STANDING PATIENT CORRECTION
ISOMETRIC CORRECTION (the one my MD recommended)

I'm sure the others ones are fine, I just haven't tried them (and this page did a good job of describing things I have tried.)

5) Just twist my lower back until it cracks a bunch, but not to the point that my torso pops off of my body

Thanks, I'll give some of that a try. Time to get the theracane out from under the couch, as I've just been slowly improving for the last month and a half. I'm at the point where I can step over the toddler gates instead of opening them, but having to be ginger rolling around in bed is getting annoying.

sucks dude. Sorry to read that. Empathy your way. Always suspicious of xrays for back issues. SI joint issue is very often disc related. Cant see disc on xray etc.

Thanks for the links too. Going to read that soon.

Pelvic realignment TLDR: get something like a pillow folded in half, med ball, really doesn't matter. Lay on your back and put it between your knees. Squeeze it hard for 30s. Take a short break. Repeat 5x.

will try/will try to try

Had a PT session today. My PT thinks it's a new facet joint problem by L5S1, not a SI joint (a diagnosis that she called lazy, idk.)

In any case, I should be fine.

Yeah, I can sleep like a baby. Which is nice.

Yeah I think MD (and subsequently my PT) are going more off of symptoms than the images. The MD said he'd have an MRI if he was even suspicious of a disc, but he was not.

The KStar method is basically this + some isometric pushing on legs (basically the doorway method above, but prone) between sets iirc. Again, a poor description and the book is worth it.

i know the kstarr thing of which he speaks. it's easier with a dowel rod.

maybe i'll youtube it for you sometime. MAYZBE.

I was able to lift today. My PT really helped a lot, I think. Hip/back seemed fine after a kind of ridiculously long warmup... and I've been doing all my PT-style exercises. But I am still a bit unstable/weak/shaky in my core (the way something feels after an injury, hard to explain I guess), so I didn't push anything and just did easy presses etc. when I felt the injury at all, after a few sets of hang snatches. I'll try to ease back into my program this week.

8/17/2014, 9am, home, bw 254, weights in kg

hang snatch
75x3x2
88x3x2

press
40x4
60x3
70x2
80
90
95xf (eh, bad setup, I don't think I remember how to press)

Push press
90x3
100x2
110
A1) Blast Strap Row 5x10
A2) Blast Strap Fallout 5x10

Up at 11 at night? Stay safe, DT.

I watched "The Beach"... I read that book a long time ago and liked it. It may have been the worst movie I saw this year. It was really bad.

Oh yeah, I took video of this. Boring.

Day 12
Tue 8/17/2014, 530am, cf gym, bw 254lbs,

Back/hip/life actually felt kind of bad this morning, but warmed up well. I spent a good half hour stretching and on mob stuff. Then an additional 10-15 mins on light snatches. (Typically warmup is more like 10-15 mins).

kg/lbs

Snatch
81 / 180 x3x2 ooo ooo
94 / 205 x3x2 ooo oox
Some of the lighter weights I was overpulling and shooting my torso through rather than dropping under. Later sets went better.

107 / 235 x2x2 oo oo
Felt fine.


Hang Clean
93 / 205 x3x2
107 / 235 x3x2

Back/hip felt tired, not painful, but I didn't want to push it so I stopped here.

Side planks
3 sets, 15s ea side w/ raised arm and raised leg
Easy, no pain

Alternating db Bicep curls
35lbs x 10 x 3

Day 14
Thu 8/21/14, 530am cf gym, fasted + bcaas

Kind of sick. Idk.

Hip/back bothering me a little the past two days.

kg / lbs

Power Snatch
75 / 165 x4x4
88 / 195 x3x4

Clean & Jerk
94 / 205 x3+1x4
109 / 240 x3+1x4
Kind of crazy volume, I was really tired and every rep was a mental grind.

Back Squat
126 / 280 x5x1
Ran out of time to do the rest of the squats, which would have been a challenge as my legs were pretty smoked. I don't feel bad about cutting it short to take it easy (well relatively anyway) on my hip/back.

With warmup this took every minute of the two hours I had today, and to be honest I'm not really interested in spending longer than that in the gym. I think if I ran this program again, I may raise percentages a few points and lower volume a bit in this portion.

2 other notes:

1) I used the cue "Move the feet" to prevent overpulling in the PS. (I've heard "feet and hands" too for the same thing.) I think it worked well. Everything felt snappy. I have to remember this one.

2) I used med Rogue wrist wraps for my first power snatch sets. They are ok, but they don't work well with straps and they felt too warm. I got the risto leather wrist things too, I have to figure out how to use them. My right wrist is a kinda painful.

I have seen it where the front foot is straight ahead while the toes of the rear foot is slightly pointed in (heel pointing out) which seems more stable than having the toes of the rear foot pointing outward. But I only judge oly, I don't do the movements.

IANA5'7"255LBS but I think it's not a huge rock and what is more important is having your foot angle very similar to your squat.

I would say this is true for the bottom position of a snatch, clean, or jerk where a split is not being utilized.

Fairly sure we're talking about the dip-drive portion of the jerk.

Guess I was fairly accurate with this then:

honestly pretty sure internal rotation of back foot is spilt jerking 101.




PM me for coaching.

kc, i'm fairly sure they're talking about immediately before the jerk...

so i'm still right tho

Irregardlessly, someone with DT's anthropometry should probably aspire to look more like this: