Blurting out before more organized thinking – differences among sports
When I suffered the accident that ruptured my ACL on June the 8th, about 10 days ago, I was among friends and fellow powerlifters. One of them followed me to the hospital. My physician, also a friend and someone who knows me for years, was there.
It was easy to face it lightly: “ok, another stupid powerlifting injury, we’re all ogres anyhow, we break stuff, we recover, we get back under the bar and that’s that”. I got home feeling ok and painless. The pain started the following day, when I also developed a very strong infection, possibly a zoonosis caused by bird and bat guano. Impecable timing, isn’t it?
Spending a day emptying yourself on a toilet doesn’t do much on the ways of keeping your spirits high, neither does a 40o (Celsius) fever. But… powerlifters are Vikings, “this is just a bruise”.
One day, though, you must get out of the cave, even a consultant who works in front of the computer such as myself. And then… there’s the real world, made of pessimistic people, whose depression, frustrations and anger they are eager to hang over the next miserable person. What if the person doesn’t feel miserable?
Then come comes the “estrangement”. They – “the normals” – will work hard on you in order to produce enough “miserability” to create the symbolic hook they can hang their crap on.
My MRI came back – the injury is worse than we thought. More structures were compromised, but the team (physician + physiotherapist) still believe we can go through the competitive season and have surgery soon after the last championship.
Today I will drive alone to Minas Gerais – a neighboring State. A small meet. I simply NEED to lift weights in that sort of festive environment the championship is for powerlifters. We are a brotherhood of weirdos and in a time like this, I simply need to be among them. Even if they have no idea what I’m writing about to you here. Even if they don’t even know what a doctorate or a postdoc mean.
It is among them that I feel at home and get my guts on the right place to face anything. “Normals” are quite toxic to strength athletes…
A nice link to share:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=164909
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Powerlifting and music
I have a friend who is in pains to decide exactly what he wants with his double career: he is a Physical Educator, Strength Training specialist (note that in Brazil this doesn’t exist legally, there is no accreditation actually) and a musician (and sings in a rock band). One of the things I tried to suggest was making a compromise and bringing both interests together. I thought about the “musical cultures” in sports, for example.
Our sport, powerlifting, is very strict about its musical associations: heavy metal, hard rock and some urban sounds. This is it. Last year I have been to a meet in Rio where a small town team brought a “cheering committee” with drums and honks. The rest of the athletes were outraged. There was a typical clash of cultures at this moment.
The “focusing” sound, however, is quite different from athlete to athlete. Although we all like our meets with hard rock playing on the back, many of us use our mp3’s with completely different musical material.
These are some interesting links I found and decided to share. Have fun
http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/music-sport-and-exercise-update-research-and-application
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Jan01/Sport_and_Music.htm
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/2007/08/12
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1743577.htm
http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2008/11/06/sports/1_music_081106.txt
http://books.google.com/books?id=MWnr5W0PPEgC&pg=PA1&dq=music+and+sport&lr=&hl=pt-BR
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Mental skills and personal experiment (18): serious injury and illness – re-configuring mental representation
Monday there was an accident at the gym. Another gym, with a power cage I am not used to. When I racked the bar with a relatively light weight, therefore, no equipment (120kg), the left side of the bar slipped from the support. I didn’t see that and proceeded to get out from under the bar. The bar twisted my knee and immediately ruptured my anterior cruciate ligament.
My physician – the one I trust my life with – said (after insistent and relatively stressed questions from me) that this might not compromise my performance this year, even in squatting and deadlifting. The ACL stabilizes rotational movements. I’ve been reading a little about this and there is a lot of material on squatting and ACL. I think I trust my physician better, but there’s a lot to take into account.
One of the things that concerns me in this experiment is that I will need to change my technique. More consistent isometric leg flexor contraction will be important, so as to keep more balanced foreces from the quadriceps and the flexor and gastrocnemius. This means re-configuring my mental representation of the movements that constitute the lift.
Quite a challenge…
I’m tired.
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