Wed, 25 Jan 17

Block 9, Wave 3 - DL

This week I moved my Thursday afternoon training to Wednesday morning since my clinical instructor was helping teach a class at UMB during that time and we were scheduled to work a little later on Thursday this week.  Things started off well, but Murphy's law kicked in and everything went sideways quickly about halfway through.

Power Snatch Off Boxes (above knee)

complex x 20 kg

3x40 kg

2x50 kg

1x60 kg

5x2x64 kg

Deadlift

10x45

5x135

5x225

3x315

1x405

5x465

3x525

1x590

A video posted by Andy Deck (@andydeck) on

So there I was, feeling pretty good and calculating that I should be hitting a solid 3 or more reps at 590 today since my deadlift has been doing well and I am feeling rested and refreshed and all systems were go.  Then right before my last set of deads, I happened to check the clock to see what time it was and it said I was 30 minutes past when I needed to leave to get back and shower and get to work on time.  Boom!  Adrenaline rush combined with a horrible feeling of failure and stupidity.  I doubled checked and the other clock in the room said the same thing - disaster!  And when I say late I don't just mean 5 minutes late, I mean a solid 30 min or more late depending on traffic.  This is not ok!  I honestly had no idea how it had gotten so late though since all I had done was warm up and do almost two exercises.  So I got a third opinion from my cell phone and it said the time was an hour earlier than both clocks.  They weren't set for daylight savings time!  Crisis averted, but I still felt flustered and all kinds of rushed now.  I went to pull my last set (where I should have been good for several reps) and immediately got out of position and lost some low back and ab tightness, but it wasn't awful so I kept going, which leads to my mistake.  I felt a pulling in my right low back, but it wasn't bad and I was moving steadily toward lockout for my first rep.  Locked it out, but knew I had twisted myself so I put it down and ended up with only a single.  Stood back up and immediately had to get down on it like Kool and the Gang.  I took off my belt and laid down on my back as fast as I could.  I did not really twist or shift much that I felt, and the bar didn't helicopter, but I still managed to rotate my right innominate (i.e. right side of my pelvis).

Here is where some of my skills learned during my clinical come into play.  I checked myself as best I could for a leg length discrepancy in supine and then again after sitting up while keeping both legs straight out in front of me.  Based on the change in leg length and my pain, I figured out that I had posteriorly rotated my right innominate.  Knowing now what I had done, I also knew how to help correct it using a muscle energy technique (MET).  Through a combination of isometric hip flexion, isometric hip extension and then both together, and then shotgunning my pelvis, I was able to move things back into closer to their correct alignment and drop my pain level low enough to get up off the floor and proceed to unload the bar, clean up all my equipment and pack up to go back and shower and go to work.  I still had some discomfort and had to be careful how I was moving, but prior to doing this, I had been in a position where I didn't know if I could stand up straight because of pain.  No effing bueno.  I got my clinical instructor to do the same MET on me after checking me to be sure I had made the correct self diagnosis, and I had no major problems all day at work.  It sucked that I jacked myself up because I was rushing and that I had to skip my supplemental and assistance work, but it was also pretty cool being able to instantly diagnose and treat myself with knowledge gained from the clinical affiliation I am currently in.