I didn't get any exercise in Sat (aside from vacumming, hauling laundry, dusting, etc). Funny, I'm always sweaty cleaning the house! I did 2 loads of towels on the closeline yesterday!! That's how nice its been here lately! It actually got up above 15 degrees - son and I took the dogs to the park in jeans and tee's!
A note on the running - I believe it has irritated my 'bad' knee : ( I have Petella femoral syndrome (have had it for many years). What the hell is that you ask?
Well, my very un-technical answer is this: The knee cap naturally moves in all directions (to a degree), however when I walk, run, bike (or generally exercise with repetetive knee movements) my right kneecap (patella) tracks out of place - in my case it tracks out to the right. This is because my VMO (vastus medialis oblique) is stronger than the other 4 muscles that make up the quadricep.
The VMO is only one of the four quadriceps mucles (together we think of these 4 as the Quad) - in fact, it is really the smallest of the quadricep muscles (I've always called it the 'little troublemaker'). Each of the 4 pull in a slightly different direction. The idea that one small part of one muscle can make enough difference to overcome the other three larger and pull the patella 'off track' seems adsurd -sadly, I'm here to say it is possible.
The tracking out doesn't hurt, what hurts is that each time the patella tracks it irritates the fat pad under it. With enough repetition the fat pad can swell and become irritated. (Friday after Ryder I had to actually ice it (which I haven't had to do in YEARS). I was smart during the class and listened to my body - I didn't rise of of the saddle as that was putting extra pressure on it.
I had a scope done in my late 20's to determine that PFS was the issue, and to clean the joint up a bit. At that point the doctors said the only/best option was to reduce the outside quad muscle (vastus lateralis) to balance the 4 quads and therefore stop the patella from tracking out.
The reduction is just that - REMOVING PART OF MY MUSCLE! I did years of physio to try to strengthen the VMO, but it didn't work (pretty common actually). Needless to say I passed on the surgery. I've just come to live with it, and honestly it hasn't been much of a problem in years because I've become much less active! And now that it's rearing its ugly little head I'm going to have to be much more careful about what exercises I chose to so - this means no running (bummer).
Ok, so there is your sports medicine lesson for the day! LOL! After writing this I've decided to take today, Sunday, off as another rest day from heavy exercise. I'll take the dogs on a nice long walk, and prepare for this coming week: I will be training with Laurissa 5 days so maybe the rest is best!
Later!
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