1/30/21

Taper – Microcycle 1 – Saturday

Walk/Run 4 miles
Bike 1hr 40min

3 x 15 heel drops

Breakdown / Achilles Tendonitus Saga Cont.

This was supposed to be a 10 mile run, but you know…

The idea is to keep feeling out the leg. I will say that my tendon was feeling real strong during the lifts. So, if I can run the whole thing tomorrow I will. I’ll cut out any of the bike that I can run, if not I’ll continue with the plan.

The heel drops are feeling really good too. I actually started interchanging them will deficit calf raises and it’s almost like I can feel the tendon is doing good things.

This plan is pretty much the same as my lower back recovery. This really hits the nail in the coffin.

When in doubt, lift your way out of it.

…Intelligently

So, this is definitely not the most scientific line of thought, but I will say the heel drop studies do back this up.

Humans, at least as our bodies exist now, have more or less existed for tens of thousands of years if not into the hundreds of thousands. My thought process is that there is no way our bodies have survived and evolved this long without having a very efficient and robust recovery system.

While we do live different lives in the modern era, the real difference is the amount of activity we do, and you can argue the foods.

So, since we understand so little about working out, and about nutrition, I’ve always felt it made the most sense to go back to the basics if there wasn’t a clear cut path forward.

No, I don’t think I’m a caveman, though I may look like it sometimes. Just the more I’ve learned about the body, the more it makes sense that it’s recovery is built around the body doing what it’s meant to do.

Tendons are a good example, so when you tear them, the body starts healing them. The problem is it starts laying down new fibers in almost like a half hazard spaghetti like fashion.

It basically fills the area with so much s*** that eventually everything connects and you have tendon.

The scientific community started backing heel drops for Achilles tendonopathy, because it basically made you scrape up that scar tissue that’s forming, aka the spaghetti like s*** thrown down, and almost massage/scrape everything but the straight tendons away, then, boom, recovery.

There’s also a lot of backing to you still moving around and doing stuff up and until you feel pain.

So, essentially, if you were a caveman back in the days, you would keep moving around and doing stuff unless it became unbearably painful and then you would stop.

Then we had to get food again and/or it didn’t feel painful again and you would start moving again. And sure enough your tendon would heal in the best way possible as what we know right now.

This also backsup how Mark Ripptoes and Bill Starr have talked about back recovery.

When you hurt your back, you just slowly progress to the point of pain and then stop. Then you keep going until it’s painful again and then you stop.

Granted, like I talk about in my ultimate lower back recovery article, it’s more controldd because we can be and we think about it these days, but the principles are the same.

Injuries to me don’t mean stop, it means finding a new way to keep going.

… Intelligently

Our bodies have been doing this for a long time, despite how highly we like to think about ourselves, we ain’t always that great.

But, even a dumb process, over enough time and with enough trial and error statistically should get it and I tend to think that might be our bodies.

Side note, still pulling 425 on deadlift while intermittent fasting 20/4. Autophagy may be playing a part in my recovery.