Going to take an injury recovery break from karate
I'm going to talk with my instructor about this, but I've decided to take a total six week break, in hopes that it'll give my leg a chance to recover.
When I last spoke with him about this, I told him about the continuing problems with the knee, and he suggested I do just modified work: no kicks, no sparring, just form and self-defense. So I've been trying that for a week. The thing is, it's not quite that cut and dried. What about karate marching basics? There is a lot of knee bending in that. There is also a lot of knee bending in form--part of what we're working on is to get the stances deep enough. No kicks--does that include slow kicks, which is a large part of strength building?
I went to class on Tuesday. I sat out the fast paper kicks, but I did the slow kicks, using the bar to support me on the injured side, since my injured leg has no balance at all anymore.
Yesterday, my office happened to bring in a couple of massage therapists. This is something my law firm does a couple of times a year as a nice thing to do for their employees, and this week they're celebrating administrative associates day or whatever they're calling it these days. So I told the massage therapist about my knee and asked her to take a look at it. I like this woman very much; I always go to her when we have the therapists in. She works in a chiropractor's office and is extremely knowledgeable about anatomy.
Oh. My. God. She started to work the muscles around the knee, not even going very deep, and I just about levitated off the table, it hurt so bad. "Shin splint," she said, tracing one muscle that wraps from the knee and extends down the front of the leg. "Your muscle is separating from the tibia. And here," she pushed some trigger points in the hamstring and I yelped again. "Your muscles are inflamed, and they're pulling against the joint. I'd recommend stroking with a body brush until the skin pinks up, in several directions. That's to encourage blood circulation there, to help it heal."
So I did some research on shin splints. They are very slow-healing. So, as I said, I've decided to simply take a break from karate for six weeks, in the hopes that I can get the inflamation to die down and then will resume after that and see how it goes.
This sucks.
( What I did yesterday to make the world a better place )
When I last spoke with him about this, I told him about the continuing problems with the knee, and he suggested I do just modified work: no kicks, no sparring, just form and self-defense. So I've been trying that for a week. The thing is, it's not quite that cut and dried. What about karate marching basics? There is a lot of knee bending in that. There is also a lot of knee bending in form--part of what we're working on is to get the stances deep enough. No kicks--does that include slow kicks, which is a large part of strength building?
I went to class on Tuesday. I sat out the fast paper kicks, but I did the slow kicks, using the bar to support me on the injured side, since my injured leg has no balance at all anymore.
Yesterday, my office happened to bring in a couple of massage therapists. This is something my law firm does a couple of times a year as a nice thing to do for their employees, and this week they're celebrating administrative associates day or whatever they're calling it these days. So I told the massage therapist about my knee and asked her to take a look at it. I like this woman very much; I always go to her when we have the therapists in. She works in a chiropractor's office and is extremely knowledgeable about anatomy.
Oh. My. God. She started to work the muscles around the knee, not even going very deep, and I just about levitated off the table, it hurt so bad. "Shin splint," she said, tracing one muscle that wraps from the knee and extends down the front of the leg. "Your muscle is separating from the tibia. And here," she pushed some trigger points in the hamstring and I yelped again. "Your muscles are inflamed, and they're pulling against the joint. I'd recommend stroking with a body brush until the skin pinks up, in several directions. That's to encourage blood circulation there, to help it heal."
So I did some research on shin splints. They are very slow-healing. So, as I said, I've decided to simply take a break from karate for six weeks, in the hopes that I can get the inflamation to die down and then will resume after that and see how it goes.
This sucks.
( What I did yesterday to make the world a better place )
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