Example Physical Therapy day

Non-Competition week day

7:30 AM - Wake up, put neosporin,and then specific lotion onto my foot. The skin around my foot is breaking up because I have been using tape so often. This helps it heal faster for the next Friday when I tape up again.

9:00 Morning School

11:00 - Free Period. Go out to tennis courts, Complete a routine usually consisting of multiple sets of 3-4 exercises mainly with bosu ball. Examples include: foot circles, side raises, front raises,  lunges onto bosu ball, single leg squat, juggle while balancing, pass ball on wall while balancing, etc.
I follow this with Hip stretches - 3-5 min jogging/sidestepping warm up. - Leg up on support twist - Wide stance dip under.
This usually takes about 25 min and then I go get lunch.

4:00 - I try to play very light tennis every 2-3 days during the week to keep myself where I need to be for competition. If I'm playing that day I'll play around 4, if not I go home and ice the injuries. After icing, and the water has dried, I put more neosporin and lotion on again.

9:00- I do another physical therapy routine. During this one I really try to feel how my foot feels so that I can understand if I did too much, too little, or just right that day. This helps me plan for the next day.

9:30- Ice again. I usually don't ice my foot here, just my elbow for a quick 10 min.

Injury Progression

The first out of the three tennis tests was sectionals, last Friday-Saturday. It was scary because I've put so much work into tennis, and now my injuries almost prevented me from winning. I created a "speed limit" so that I wouldn't destroy my elbow, and never took more than three steps to a ball so that my foot will heal. Fortunately, the strategy worked for the best - I qualified for state qualifiers with a #2 seed, and didn't further injure myself too bad.

These are the last two weeks of my tennis specific training. The tennis specific training is mostly my physical therapy, but also I add in training that is not specific to my injuries. For example, the side lunge is a great exercise for tennis because it mimics side shuffling and cutting. To include it in my routine I side lunge onto my bosu ball, which works on my ankle stability as well.

Dad vs Son Push-up challenge

My Dad and I have agreed on a push up challenge. In his past,  my Dad was extremely fit, and recently he began training with the weights again.  I have tendinitis in my elbow, so we are going to have the competition when I decide it OK (most likely after states in 3 weeks). He's 50 years old, I'm 18. To make up for the difference, I have to do two extra push ups for each year between us. That's 64 more push ups for me! I have done 80 at once in the past, so if he gets 25-30, I'll have to get 90-95... It's gonna be close!

The tennis-specific training has been difficult due to my injuries. My collapsing arch limits me to exercises where there is no pressure on my foot. I also take it easy on the things I can do because my knee has been bothering me. When it comes to upper body, I cant do anything with my right elbow. This leaves me with core training. Unfortunately, its the only area I can train pain free right now. I'm so frustrated with all this. Physical therapy/icing takes an hour out of my day, and I have a doctors appointment about 3-4 times a week. I'm determined to go as far as I can at states this year though.

Injuries Part 2

Two days after experimenting with a new pattern of taping, I've been able to confirm that the problem stems from the arch in my foot. This is great, because now that I know what the problem is I can zone in on fixing it.
Taping is only short term (Until the end of the season), past then the plan is to use Orthotics. Orthotics would do pretty much the same thing as the taping, lift up the inside center of my foot. To create an Orthotic shaped that way I'll curl my arch by turning my knee outwards, and then standing on a moldable Orthotic that is placed on a foam pad. The foam Pad will push the arching area of the orthotic up, creating support for my weirdly shaped foot.


Another way I'll be working on to improve my foot is my Hip flexibility. I hadn't thought about it myself, but my Physical Therapist pointed out that because my hips aren't flexible, when I attempt to turn, my hips do less, and my feet do more. This whole process has been full of twists and turns, making it seem like a mystery. I will be studying to become a Physical Therapist next year, and my interest in this issue makes me think I made the right choice in major.

I'm going to try to measure my hip flexibility. There is only one movement (lateral movement) that I know Ill be able to measure without tools, but I'll try to improvise best I can.

Lateral Flexibility (Distance from knee to ground):
5/6/15 -

Happiness revisited Entry

1)I feel most happy when I'm in environments that I enjoy and laughing. There is no one specific type of environment I enjoy most. Some environments I love are friendly and full jokes, while wrestling environment is tough, and yet afterwards all is full of laughter.

2) The article had great progression of thought. It was easy to understand, yet hard to read because it was so unnecessarily long. The point it made, can pretty much be summed up in a sentence - People do things that make them happy enough to forget, or be content, about the rest of things.

3) I'd put myself in the A2 section. Currently I do things that I don't enjoy, for not much of a purpose. I want change to happen.

4) The project is the only thing in school that I enjoy. Its the one portion of the things that I do that "matter" that I enjoy. I do things outside of school that I enjoy, but they don't help me move along on events of my life.

5) After thinking of all this, it's pretty obvious what I need to do. If I can make the things that I enjoy into things that move my life events along, I think I would be content and loving an enjoyable life. What I'm doing now is good, but its not where I want to be.

Injuries

I've been seeing Sports Doctors from CMCU, and Physical Therapists from McCune and Murphy, the last two months about fixing pain in my foot. I've been training around the pain, sometimes through it, for that time. The pain is not something that's new however. Last Spring, and the Spring before that, I've had the same pain. Its a reoccurring thing. This time around, I'm fed up, and motivated to fix it for good.

I've been running experiments, such as only doing a certain type of exercise for a couple days, or wearing certain types of inserts/taping, or increasing activity by different increments per day. Though these trials, my Physical Therapist and I have so far agreed that the pain is most likely caused by a weakness in the arch of my foot, which is causing the rest to collapse.



It makes perfect sense. The pain I have isn't through a certain area in my foot, but more over the entire arched area. I also have three extra bones in my foot, that cause my flexibility to be limited, which decreases my flexibility. My guess is that the combination of a collapsing arch, and limited flexibility is making certain tendons receive way too much overload, which causes tendinitis, or whatever else is causing the pain. I have a feeling its not just one thing causing the pain, but they all stem from the same problem.

This is my hypothesis so far. If I'm correct, 300lb+ squats won't be helping my foot's arch heal up. I'm going to have to stay away from things like that for now. My next appointment is on Wednesday, so I'll follow up on this entry then. I assume I will be given physical therapy exercises to strengthen the arch and strengthen balancing muscles.

Update 5/1/15

I had some of my subjects try out the Protein Bars. I didn't expect anyone to say that it was good, but I was still hoping that someone would. Unfortunately, everyone agreed that the bars were extremely dry, and I can't blame them. I'll use this input for the next batch.

I've been limiting myself to one strength/bodybuilding session per week now, to get ready for states. I'm now focusing on tennis specific movements and injury prevention. I'll be back to the heavy lifts in the beginning of June, when I hope to break the strength goals I set. Until then, everything goes towards tennis.

Imovie has been extremely difficult to use so far. I think I'm going to buy a different video editor that is easier to use.