BS: The Joy of Pain

Subject: BS: The Joy of Pain
From: 3refs
Date: 27 May 09 - 12:09 PM

Well, I did something on the weekend I hadn't done in so long, I forget when the last time really was. I played baseball in a league game!
My two sons both play "slow-pitch" on a team that's made up of their buddy's and a few others. Most of them are in their 20's and one or two in their 30's. At the beginning of the season, my oldest asked if I would go on the "reserve list" just in case they needed a body so as not to forfeit any games because of a lack of bodies. "Ya sure", not thinking it would ever happen, but it did!
Starting at 1st base, the other teams first 6 hitters were all lefties, so it was initiation by fire! Of the 4 innings I played there, I made only 1 error and it wasn't even recorded as an error. I played 2 innings at 3rd base and caught a line drive that just about removed my left thumb(self preservation). It turned a really nice shade of purple, from the first joint near the tip down to the meaty part near the wrist. I couldn't wrap my thumb around the bat for my last 2 plate appearances. I played the last inning as catcher. I went 3 for 4 at the plate, with 1-RBI and 1 run scored. We lost 11-4.
Aside from the thumb injury, I thought I came away unscathed. That was until the next day. It has been years since I hurt so bad in so many different places. Muscles I'd forgotten that I had, reminded me I still had them. Both knees, back, throwing arm, wrists, shoulders and neck all felt like I'd gone the distance with Ali!
I joke with my kids and their friends when they get too cocky, that even though I'm 51 I've still got 30 seconds of stark raving mad lunatic left in me, so don't mess with the "old bull". They all agree, except now they add, "but have ya got 7 more innings left in ya?". Unfortunately, I think the answer is no! It felt good at the time, but I think the joy of pain has left me!

Subject: RE: BS: The Joy of Pain
From: Smedley
Date: 27 May 09 - 12:29 PM

That's a deceptive thread title. I was expecting some kind of avant-garde discussion of the relationship between folk music & sado-masochism..............

Subject: RE: BS: The Joy of Pain
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 May 09 - 01:02 PM

threefer,

I am well familiar with the phenomenon you report. My own rehab and then continuing recovery have meant putting myself into that situation over and over and over, in so many different ways I can't even list them. What I have learned (and what any mature athlete will tell you) is that once your muscles speak to you in this way ("I'm here, that was too much, I had fun!"), you MUST respond to them or, in a few years, you will seize up completely and become chairbound. Not kidding.

How to respond, in cae you do not know already, is:

Do some very gentle, very slow stretches TODAY of what hurts. Move around a bit instead of huddling brokenly in a resting mode. "Active recovery," as athletes call it, will allow you to build the strength that pain is asking you to meet with WORK. Yup, you gotta git back to working it. Stretch today, tomorrow, then start gingerly planning how to get back to your workouts. And not as fast a progression as you used to enjoy, younger. Start ridiculously slowly. Small increments of time, reps, load. TINY. But track them and remember not to add recovery from injury to the need to recondition.

It doesn't matter how often you STOP working out. What matters is, do you re-start?

~Susan, re-starting at the usual time of year

Subject: RE: BS: The Joy of Pain
From: 3refs
Date: 27 May 09 - 01:38 PM

Yer right Susan! I've not really done much of anything since hockey season ended for me(except golf). I guess this means no more summers off when it comes to working out! Something a little bit heavier than mild stretching and elbow bending!

Subject: RE: BS: The Joy of Pain
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 27 May 09 - 02:39 PM

Regular exercise is essential but for the immediate situation, these work for me:

When aching shoulders were keeping me awake, Magnesium malate provided immediate relief.

When 8 hours of Bulgarian dancing had my knees complaining, a heavy dose of MSM/glucosamine sulfate (4000) enabled me to dance another 3 hours pain free and continued doses had me upright and pain free to host the Tribute to Woody the next day, dancing through most of it.

The later has also helped twinges in the hip which started a couple days ago. But I ignore the recommended dose and take as much as I need. After the dance workshop, I hit as high as 7 at one time and then went down to none after a few days. (I use a pendulum to determine dose. Works for me!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Joy of Pain
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 May 09 - 03:08 PM

Do what NHL officials do, pal-- which we do. Two different seasons, two different regimens. We take a month off in between them. Some athletes think of it as cross-training.

Hardi, for example, is on indoor equipment and for-real cross-country skiing supplemented but the rigors of snow removal, in one season. In the other one he's on the road bike and lifting at home, plus summer camping rigors.

My one season is aquatics indoors and the other is aquatics outdoors-- two completely different types of exercise in each environment.

You, hockey-aerobics one season plus a little weights, and the other season flip them around?

Or hockey winter, softball league summer?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: The Joy of Pain
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 May 09 - 08:12 AM

Why do we need another thread about Sarah Palin?

;~)
Charley Noble