Finally got the MRI results.

I’ve got a 70-80% tear of an ankle ligament (Anterior talofibular). There’s fluid, inflammation, and supposedly a bone chip floating around (tho directly reading the MRI results I don’t see “bone chip”… a mention of a large osteophyte, so perhaps that’s what he means).

So it’s not so bad, despite the initial horribleness.

Options? PT and Surgery

Surgery would work to repair the ligament, clean things out. The theory is 4-6 weeks in a cast, 4-6 weeks of PT, then maybe another 4-6 weeks until I’m really active again. Of course, nothing is certain, even that it will be “stronger than before”.

PT will be 4-6 weeks of someone telling me to trace the alphabet in the air with my toes, band flexion/extension, calf raises, etc.. And paying someone for it. End result is that it will heal via scarring, won’t be as strong as the original, but will be strong enough.

Feh.

Look. Over the weekend at the LA Fit Expo, Brandon Lilly was squatting 744# on his third attempt and collapsed while in the hole. It’s horrible to watch. Well, he’s out of surgery:

Brandon may have set a world record in ligaments/tendons that needed repairing with tears to both quad tendons, patella tendons, MCLs, meniscus, as well as the left ACL, hamstring tendon and breaking the left knee cap in two.

– Chad Wesley Smith

So you know, that requires surgery. (BTW, get well, Brandon; can’t wait for the come back!)

What I’ve got? Nope.

In fact, I’m not even going to go the professional PT route. It’s just too expensive and I don’t see the gain.

A short trip around Google shows all sorts of ankle PT to do, and it’s all basically the same things. Yeah, being under the watchful eye would be useful, but then it comes down to cost — and after the sudden massive expenses I’ve recently had, just can’t do it.

My plan is to do ankle PT exercises pretty much every day at home. I’m looking at adjusting my lifting to follow something like Paul Carter’s “man-maker” template, but I don’t know just yet. I will do leg work at the gym, but very VERY light. Like squats may start out just being bodyweight, deadlifts would just be the bar with the lightest bumper plates, empty-machine calf raises, etc.. And I may do some “heavier” extensions and curls just to give me a little real work in my legs. 🙂  Slowly over the next 4-6 weeks ramp it up. And watch it week to week to see how it goes. If things don’t seem to be improving, or certainly go bad, then I’ll reevaluate.

I do expect to have ankle problems the rest of my life. I expect to injure it again, probably in a worse way. It’s just going to happen, all things considered. I’ll wait for surgery until I have to.

Whatever…. MRI results today, hopefully.

• Bench Press – Explosive
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 155 x 3 x 8
• Close-grip Bench Press
  • 165 x 5 x 2
• Bench Press with 1″ pause off chest
  • 145 x 8 x 3
• Lat Pulldowns
  • 110 X 15
  • 110 X 15
  • 110 X 10
  • 90 X 15
• DB side raise
  • 20 x 10 x 3
• Fat-Man chin-ups
  • bw x 5 x 3
• Foam Rolling

MRI results didn’t happen because of the Great Austin Ice Storm of 2014. Doctor cancelled all his appointments. So supposedly today I’ll get results.

Originally I hoped to have results and this week would have started a new routine based upon those results, but lacking the information I just stayed the course and did another “explosive” day modeled after the Cube Kingping program (1st cycle). In many respects, it was a “going through the motions” sort of day, which is fine at this point.

I did walk to the gym. My ankle isn’t quite ready for “angry gorilla walking” sort of walk, but I could walk at a pace slightly more than a mosey. I figure I’ll slowly work my way back up.

In other news….

I weighed in at 240 this morning. Color me surprised. That’s 10# lost in about 6 weeks. Not too bad, really. I want to be happy about it, and I am, but I’m not feeling like a clean win. See, lost 5# pretty quickly, then been hovering in the 243-246 area for the past some weeks. Either yesterday or the day before I weighed in at 242, and now 240. Why the sudden change?

Is the loss because of the program? Or something else?

Is it because I haven’t squatted nor deadlifted in almost 3 weeks, and I’ve lost some muscle?

I thought the 242 might have been dehydration (I didn’t drink much at all on Friday for whatever reason), but I drank tons of water all weekend. So that’s probably not it.

I did start taking some Konsyl psyllium husks over the weekend. Been avoiding that hoping I could just get enough fiber through veggies, but alas, no. Thing is, a lot good fiber-rich foods are also carb-rich, or at least carb-enough they won’t play with this CarbNite stuff. Even Kiefer suggests a fiber supplement so…. I’ll just say things are happier, and who knows if this contributed in some way.

I’ve upped my daily dose of caffeine, and while not a coffee drinker, I’m drinking some while doing this. Maybe this?

In my quest for sweets that work, Wife and I hacked up a “pudding” consisting of coconut cream, my unsweetened chocolate whey isolate, and some Splenda. Works out that about 100g of the stuff has like 55g protein, 12g fat or some such like that. Had 3 servings over the weekend. I noticed after having it, my heart was a little “happy”… Wife reports coconut oils can do this to her heart too. Could that, and the caffeine, and whatever, have some impact? Maybe the MCT’s?

So you can see, there’s a lot of possible questions here.

I really don’t know.

Funny thing is, as I squeeze the fat around my middle, it feels really squishy. In some regards, it makes me feel much fatter than normal. But then, I also think that when it was a lot more, it felt more solid… so maybe more squishy is a good sign — i.e. same amount of skin, but less stuff filling it up?

Anyways, lots of unknown at this point. I’m wanting to be happy about the 240, but it’s just going to have to be continued progress to really know if this is happening or not. Just push forward, stay the course.

Gas… I no haz it.

Injury work

• Work Set – Bench Press
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 155 x 3
  • 185 x 3
  • 205 x 3
  • 225 x 3
• Face Pulls (superset with the bench press warm-up sets)
  • 45 x 15 x 5
• Close-grip Bench Press
  • 135 x 10
  • 135 x 10
  • 135 x 10
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 7
• DB Rows
  • 50 x 10
  • 50 x 10
  • 50 x 20

Again, just winging it until I find out what’s up with my injured ankle.

Worked my way up doing triples. It was hard. Close-grips, hard. I realized I forgot to superset my back work, so I opted for a little faster/shorter and did some Kroc-style rows. Grabbed a 50, 10 reps, change hands, 10 reps, 15 seconds rest, another round of 10, then just crank. After 15 reps on one side, I was peeding out; the muscles were fine, but the gas tank needle was on “E”. Ground it out to 20, and felt like I could have done more but told myself “whatever you do here, you gotta still do with the other hand” so I stopped at 20. And boy, trying to do the right hand was killer. 10 reps and I was dying… I was running on less than fumes. The last 5 were pure sloppy willpower. I was spent.

That sucks.

I had no physical nor mental motivation to keep going. And hey, that says a lot when all that’s left is arm work. I mean, what guy willingly skips arm work! 🙂

But no gas. I guess it makes sense… today is CarbNite, so in theory I’m at my lowest point for glycogen/carb reserves. Sessions like today are better for immediately after CarbNite, which is why doing this last week worked so well. Well, I learned something.

In other news….

Tomorrow I get the MRI results. We’ll see what comes of it.

I picked up Paul Carter‘s 3 books. Been following him for a while and really like what he has to say — the powerlifting philosopher, the Socrates of Strength, the Plato of Poundages. His books have been on my “to read” list for a while, and he’s presently having a special/sale on them so no time like now to buy them.

Still feeling frustrated in my fat-loss efforts. The scale isn’t moving, but pictures seem to be telling a different story — but who knows if the camera is lying to me, or I’m lying to myself. Funny thing is as I flipped through Paul’s books, there’s some dietary addressing in there. It would seem I’m on the right track, I just have to keep at it. There are perhaps some things I could do better, and well… once I know what’s up with the ankle, I’ll see what I can do.

Continuing to experiment while on the shelf due to my ankle.

• Bench Press – Explosive
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 155 x 3 x 8
• Close-grip Bench Press
  • 165 x 5 x 2
• Bench Press with 1″ pause off chest
  • 145 x 8 x 3
• Lat Pulldowns
  • 110 X 15
  • 110 X 15
  • 110 X 12
  • 100 X 10
• DB side raise
  • 15 x 10 x 3
• Band-assist chin-ups
  • bw x 3 x 3
• Foam Rolling

I go in for for the ankle MRI later today.

Meantime, I continue on doctor’s orders to do no lower-body work. So since it’s all upper, and since pressing is out, benching it is. I’ve been curious about The Cube Method for some time, but various reasons have kept me from going whole hog on it. I always said if I got injured, that’d be a good time to focus/specialize/experiment on something, so here I am.

The above session came right out of the 365 Strong book. It’s the “week 3 – Bench Explosive” from Cube Kingpin (née Cube Boss). So it’s the explosive bench session of the first rotation. I guessed a bit at the weights to use, but I think they were pretty close, especially for a “first rotation” (read: a wee light).

I liked it. It was different. I am sure I will get better simply due to repetition because my body will get more efficient at the explosive part. I don’t feel dead to the world after this session, but I do feel worked.

All in all, not bad. 🙂

My current feeling (and this could change depending upon circumstance) is once I’m off the fat loss train and start eating carbs regularly again, yeah… Cube. I may actually do a cycle or two of 5/3/1 to get back into the groove and reestablish my maxes, then Cube it. But I really want to give Cube a try.

But that’s later. Right now I have to deal with my ankle. So what to do the rest of this week? I don’t know. I thought I’d do “heavy bench” on Friday, and Wednesday I’d do some bodybuilding stuff. But am I wondering if I might be setting myself up for too much work to recover from (I keep thinking Texas Method here, and I know that’s a lot for an old fart like me… esp. one that’s working with a fat-loss-oriented diet, and an injury). Not sure, will think about it. Else maybe I’ll modify for now and go 2x week, going Thursday to bench heavy. I dunno. I’ll take it one day at a time and see.

Meantime, it’s MRI time.

Back in the saddle… sorta.

The Ankle Injury Sessions

• Work Set – Bench Press
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 3
  • 155 x 3
  • 175 x 3
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 3
• Face Pulls (superset with the bench press warm-up sets)
  • 40 x 15 x 5
• Close-grip Bench Press
  • 135 x 10 x 4
  • 135 x 8
• Seated cable rows (superset with the close-grip bench press)
  • 100 X 10 X 5
• Flared arm DB extensions
  • 30 x 12 x 4
• BB curls (superset with the extensions)
  • 50 x 10 x 4

First session back in the gym after my ankle injury. I did wear my brace boot, and also a running shoe because the boot has such a high sole and the running show gives a lot more evenness, tho it’s still shorter than the boot. Besides, why do I need a flat-shoed shoe? not like I’m doing any lower body work for a while.

Given that, I figured the best course of action for right now was to just go in and see what I could and couldn’t do. I’m healing decently since the initial injury a week ago, but things still aren’t stable. So I knew things like t-bar rows weren’t going to happen due to the pressure that’d put on my ankle. But seated cable rows weren’t so bad because the boot stablized most of it and there just isn’t the added pressure of the bar and my bodyweight.

I decided that I’d bench and just work up to a “heavy” triple. 215 is far from heavy, but I can’t tuck my feet nor generate much leg drive. I just opted to put X on the bar then go up in 20# increments. And I thought I could then try 225 but opted against it because 215 was a hair hard to get off my chest with no leg drive. No sense in pushing it.

Otherwise, the rest of the session went about normal, which was cool. I am liking the flared arm DB extensions.

You know I’ve been considering the Cube Method for a while. While now is not the time for Cube, I thought I could play with concepts some.

So my general approach — for now — is going to be: Monday bench dynamic, Friday bench heavy, Wednesday do some “light bodybuilding” stuff. All upper body, and doing what I have to do to keep pressure off the foot/ankle. Just going to wing it. I mean, I finally got the MRI scheduled, then that plus the post-MRI consult with the doc… maybe just a week left? So hey, winging it for a week is fine. Once I know more about what’s going on, I can make a better decision about exactly how I want to proceed with the lifting.

In other news… CarbNite.

I’m still frustrated, but I may see a glimmer of hope.

I still do not need any progress on the scale. That’s frustrating. Because while maybe I am losing fat and perhaps gaining muscle, the reality is if I am aiming to drop 40# of fat, there’s no way I’m going to put on 40# of muscle in exchange — just won’t happen. So I NEED to see some sort of actual drop in scale weight. So that I’m not is really getting to me.

But I’ve been taking weekly pictures and when I took one a couple days ago… well…. comparing to my start pictures, I swear there’s a difference. Looking at my torso, it looks like there’s not as much “roundness” on the sides. Wife looked and she sees it to.

So… that gives me some hope to carry on here. It’s only been a month, and I did expect more dramatic results by now, but well, even if it’s slow so long as it’s coming. I guess I’ll see where things are in another month.

Well, still no training.

I actually wanted to go to the gym today, but when I woke up it wasn’t happening. My ankle is getting better every day, but something just said “leave it” and give it a few more days to rest. Fair enough. I’m at a point where I’m nervous about what’s wrong, and really don’t want to risk making the problem worse. I really don’t want to have problems walking for the rest of my life, y’know? Hopefully it’s not that bad, but better safe than sorry.

That said, my plan was to wing it.

I am going to formally abandon 5/3/1 for now, tho I’m sure I’ll have principles still with me. I was going to just go in, bench press and work up to a “heavy” triple. No idea what that would be, because I don’t know how much lower body involvement I can have. Certainly can’t tuck my feet back and push into an arch. After that, probably do some close-grip benches, and see what back work I could do. I’m sure I can do pulldowns, but rows would depend. I thought maybe I could sit on a bench and do some seated shrugs with dumbbells. That’d be about it.

Point is, there wouldn’t be much structure to the session. It’d be more about figuring out what I can and cannot do.

I also thought if all I can really do is bench (as a main movement), I might start to try some Cube-inspired approach. I thought maybe Monday work up heavy, on Friday work on speed. Wednesday could be some sort of lighter rep day doing other things, like seated overhead presses or some such. I don’t know. It might be too much for me given the diet restriction. But at this point, it’s just temporary while I wait to see how the MRI goes. No long-term plans being made, just gotta get through until there’s more information.

Speaking of diet, I am frustrated. I just don’t feel like I’m shedding. I’m hovering at weight. Body doesn’t look much different. Clothing doesn’t feel much different. I’m annoyed and not sure what I’m failing at. But that all said, I’m staying the course with CarbNite. However, depending what the MRI shows, I may go off it. I mean, if I need surgery, I will need to focus on recovery there, and there’s no sense in depriving myself when my body will need it. But again, no plans, just thinking out loud.

We’ll see how things go.

Managed to see Dr. Arush K. Angriasa with the SW Orthopaedic Group. I figured a podiatrist would be the right person to see. I don’t know him from Adam, but searching around seemed to have a lot of positive review and comment and seems to be well-regarded. So why not.

Exactly what my problem is, hard to say at this time. But based upon the examination it’s one (or more) of three things:

1. some ligaments on the outside of my ankle are highly inflamed and could even be calcify.

2. there are some tendons that run down the back of the calf under the ankle, which could be in play.

3. I may have lost some cartilage between the end of my fibula and top of my foot. Can happen with martial arts, due to all the impact of kicking.

Please don’t quiz me on this… I could be getting some details wrong, but basically it’s some soft tissue problems. Massive swelling.  And yes, it’s probably my old injury coming back to haunt me.

For now, I have to wear one of those “boots” to restrict my movement. I’ll be getting an MRI done to see what it looks like, and based upon that, we’ll see where to go.

I asked about lifting. I can’t do anything lower body. Not even stupid leg extensions and curls. Nothing. Ugh. I even know some upper body work shouldn’t happen, like pressing (since that’s done standing). But I might modify it to use dumbbells and sit down, or try the smith machine or something. Ugh. I really don’t know yet what I’ll do and how I’ll modify things, but it’s safe to say I’m somewhat on the shelf for a bit. I will figure something out so I can at least do SOMETHING.

Really, now would be the time I’d do something like Smolov Jr and see about kicking my bench press into high gear. But with the diet focus, that won’t happen. It is enough to make me want to come off the diet. 😉