Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Pluralize the Plank

"You only do one plank? Nicole my new PT questioned.
"Yes", I replied with my tail in-between my legs, "and only on rare occasion" adding salt to the already embarrassing situation. I wish I were more like Jamoosh with his hard core workout (sorry I can't find the link but if someone emails me I'll update the post) being able to do the plank for 2 minutes.

Nicole pushed, prodded, twisted and watched my legs, knees and feet all with the amused look of putting together a picture of the sky puzzle without all the pieces. You know that type of puzzle...all the pieces look the same shape, the same color but there is just a little variation. How does it all fit together?

I'm fortunate Nicole is a 3:15 marathoner and like she says, she drinks the kool-aid so she understands the desire, the passion to run and how totally sucky not running is.  She's interested in figuring out the bio-mechanics of why my injury happened and getting the root cause fixed.  And she actually seems excited to try and figure it out. Nicole did say my injury isn't common based on the location, which is the top of calf, back of knee and into the hamstring. I guess usually an injury is lower in the calf, or higher in the hamstring.

Nicole's experience is many running injuries are related to the three B's
 Big Toe

 Belly

Butt

I completely understand the belly and butt but have never heard the big toe.  Luckily for me, my big toe is ok.  This is very good because I don't know how I would do big toe exercises.  Would I lift weights with it? Make it do push-ups?  To improve the belly and butt Nicole gave me these exercises

  • monster walks
  • lunges
  • with an exercise ball put my heels on the top of the ball and lift the butt and hold for 3-5 seconds (10 times)
  • with back and butt on wall slide down and hold for 5-10 second (10 times)
  • and pluralize the plank and do more.. 10 of them and hold for 5-10 seconds and also side planks.

I have another PT appointment tomorrow but in the meantime, I'm off to do my homework...pluralize the planks!

Happy Running!

7 comments:

misszippy said...

Planks are the best, even though they are no fun. And there are lots of different ways to mix it up with them. Good luck with it all.

{will run for margaritas} said...

Planks are no-joke but totally worth it. You'll get your plankS! :)

Jim ... 50after40 said...

I try to do planks every weekday ... but I would give a week's paycheck to never have to do another one!

Unknown said...

Should you be small promptly the ideal core workout routines will be all those performed using a suspension trainer. They’re reasonably new about the sector and are getting used by athletes, celebrities, and any individual just wanting to develop muscle, get rid of fat, and get flat abs.

Unknown said...

You are going to constantly would like to give muscles at the very least 48 hrs to recover ahead of education them once more. One solution should be to execute core workout routines to the days concerning your common routines. Usually quit doing an workout immediately in the event you encounter agony.

Jamie said...

I definitely need to be better with the planks too. Good luck with the new exercises!

The Green Girl said...

That's like a tongue-twister!

Do it during commercial breaks while you're watching your favorite tv show - or even better, while watching your favorite show!