Making amends to my mending process

Exactly 2 weeks have past since my last rah rah post about the Rangers, so I guess I should be even more cheerleaderish in this post since they made the World Series. Alas, I shall not. I got a little cocky last year, and the Rangers ended up getting their poo pushed in by the buzzsaw known as the '10 San Francisco Giants. This year I'm going to keep my mouth shut and pretend like I'm just happy to be along for the ride. Unless, of course, they win and then I'm going to be more obnoxious than a front running Yankee fan. So, today I'm going to share a few new items I've picked up to help some of my injuries be less painful.

I'm going to reveal something embarrassing now. I have small wrists. I know, you thought I'd finally admit to having full blown HIV (or what we in the professional medical community call "AIDS"), but no. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sad to report that my parents again failed me and left me with frail wrists. Somewhere along the lines of my youthful exuberance to have sick grip strength and be able to perform 360* ballistic pull ups I severely injured my wrists. I've talked about that. I failed to go through the proper progressions. Again, live and learn. Since then I've tried a myriad of shit wrist wraps and braces, all which have not worked. That ranges from McDavid to Nike to athletic tape to KT tape and more. All of those products are decent and have their applications, but it wasn't what I needed. Some of the power lifting wraps were great and all, but super bulky and not conducive to what I'm doing.

So what did I do, much later than I should have done? Bought these:

Garage Ink wrist wraps. The support these things give is unreal. On top of that, they don't cut my circulation off even when I tighten them fully. That right there was a major downfall of the Nike and McDavid wraps. Well, that and the support is only good for frail old ladies picking through apples at the grocery store.

I digress, the wraps are well made and I'm actually able to do press movements again. I was even able to carry 90lbs of kettlebells (50lb and 40lb KBs, my gym hates the metric system) in my hand with zero discomfort. I decided to give them a full test yesterday and did a lot of bench pressing and DB pressing. Simply fantastic.

Just how small are my wrists? Well, those wraps are the smallest ones at 12". There is a larger size. Check them out over at Garage Ink Powerlifting. I actually bought them from christiansfitnessfactory.com, but whatever. Side note about CFF.com: good customer service and I received those wraps in 3 days. Not bad. If you go over to the site try not to get too nauseated by the Crossfit (tm) (c) stuff. The kool aid is strong, so be stronger than it.

What else did I get to assist my injuries? Well, this purchase was moreso to prevent injuries. As I said in an earlier post I transitioned too quickly to the minimalist shoes and my knees and feet were a tad sore. So, I scaled back and bought shoes that still provide me what I want in a trainer, but give a tad more cushioning.

It's a pair of custom Nikes using their NikeID "system" on their website. I mixed the Nike Free Run +2 cage with the Nike Free 3.0 sole. My thoughts on them so far? If you have a dog that sheds a lot then be forewarned as these are fur magnets. Even the soles. My dog also doesn't seem to like them very much. Perhaps that is because they were made in Vietnam and there could be some dog parts used in them. How about that for a complete and utter butchering of a stereotype? Don't judge me.

"How do the shoes fit? How do they feel? Are you FREE?!"

Good question, self. They fit fantastic and I can't wait to train in them tomorrow. If you're looking at purchasing a Free model, whichever one it may be, just know that the toe box runs very small so you absolutely must go up a size. For instance, I'm a 12 and I had to get a 12.5.

Oh, and yes the tongues on the shoes really do read "CHAMP IS HERE". That's my small dedication to the Mavs. Sure I may suffer from a slight bout of megalomania, but I promise I'm not referring to myself.

So, given the progress I'm making I should finally be able to get back to actually training and writing about the same. I'm a bit tired of these filler blog posts, although they do seem to be a hot topic amongst all the fly ladies around the vending machine at work.

Stay hard.

p.s. Mavs 2011 Champs

The Rangers win! The Rangers win!

Sorry. If it's not obvious I just finished watching game 4 of the ALDS. My (yes, MY) Texas Rangers just beat the Rays 3-1 in the uncomfortable 5 game ALDS. Now it's off to face either the Tigers or the Yankees. At least that won't be a 5 game series, unless one team loses in 5. My prediction? As long as the Yankees lose at some point, I don't care who wins. Kidding. But seriously I love it when the Yankees lose. Kind of how the nation loves it when the Cowboys lose. Of course, those people are inbred and beat their children. I read that on wikipedia.

So the last three weeks I've done zero upper body outside of core work. I should have completely cut off all stress in that area MONTHS ago, but I'm stubborn and had the "bug". I just couldn't stop training, lest I go insane and find other, less healthy outlets for my over abundance of energy. You know, like impaling virgin puppies on unsuspecting unicorns' horns. Don't judge me. You know you've come close to doing the same. We're all human here.

I'm happy to report that my elbow and wrist have made significant improvements. Both areas are still tender, but I'm actually able to exert force and pressure with minimal discomfort. That's huge. At least for me. So, hopefully I'll be ready to get back at it sometime in the next several weeks. This blog will update at a significantly higher rate at that time.

Until then, I shall continue reading this historic cluster F of a thread on Irongarm. Now, that thread is old news to many, but new to me. Yeah, it's really 1111 pages. It's as if you're watching the evolution (or devolution if you prefer) of the world of strength and conditioning. There is literally no way to give you a summation of said thread. It's basically just one huge Crossfit bash session with some incredibly intelligent, and not so intelligent, people. There are also quite a few big names from around the industry posting in there, which I always find fascinating. For those of you not familiar with Irongarm, it's a spin off site from the Dragon Door forums. A group of many were tired of censorship, John Du Cane or whatever else, and created that site. I think it's happened about eleventy times across the internet. If you must know, I've literally read every word through page 74. Again, don't judge me. I've actually learned some things, but I'm pretty sure whatever I learned is going to be buried way below all of the inane stuff I also read.

BTW, my girlfriend won't even subscribe to my blog. How sorry is that? I mean she can't read and always drools on my keyboard due to not having a properly tensioned jaw or a full set of teeth, but it's the thought that counts. You know, perception is everything and all that.