Session one down! How ’bout them cupping marks?? After one session and a week of letting things recover, my knee and elbow already feel different.

To recap – I got my MRI back from the doctor and they said I have tennis elbow/tendinitis in my right elbow, and another case of tendinitis in my knee from my lateral quad and hip flexor being too tight and pulling the knee cap out of it’s proper path on my left knee. There are many other things at play, weak foot/hip and weak shoulder/wrist, but the elbow and knee are what’s been directly hurt and are bothering me.

I’ve been referred to a PT that’s worked with a lot of the bodybuilders at Gold’s and I’m impressed after just one session. He used some slightly different techniques than I’ve had done on me before and he had a good sense of when to apply more or less pressure, and where to go to find the right spot that needed to be addressed. I was surprised that I actually felt much more sore and sensitive for several days after the treatment, but not directly on the areas that he worked on. I had some bruising and marks from the cupping that he did, and those were tender as expected, but I had a consistent dull ache around my elbow in places that he didn’t do much direct work on. It didn’t hurt as much as I just had an extra sense of awareness, almost like the feeling of when your leg it close to falling asleep  and you stand up to walk around. I took this as a good sign that maybe I’m finally getting some of the tissue freed up and it’s allowing more blood flow to get in and begin the healing process.

Long story short, I’m excited.

Being tender after the treatment, I didn’t want to irritate anything, so I stayed away from any upper body training besides working my core for the rest of the week, and didn’t do any lower body work that would bother my knee. I ended up breaking up some of my posterior chain work into several days and did some extra cardio and core work that I’ve been prescribed by Paul and Craig.

Everything was done light and for sets of 10-15, 2-3 sets per rehab exercise, 4-5 sets per hypertrophy exercise. The workouts took a while because I spent so much time with the core and rehab work, but they weren’t very taxing so I still feel very fresh.

Workout 1

Calves/Glutes

15 mins on bike at the gym

McGill big 3, clam shells, side leg lifts, forearm and knee plank variations, banded side walks, around the world/T-spine mobility, Goblet squats, Cossack squats, etc!

Standing calf raises SS w/ Machine Glute kickbacks

Seated calf raises SS w/ Abductor machine

Single leg standing calf raises SS w/ Single leg hip thrusts

Workout 2

Hams/Lower-back

15 mins on bike at the gym

McGill big 3, clam shells, side leg lifts, forearm and knee plank variations, banded side walks, around the world/T-spine mobility, Goblet squats, Cossack squats, etc!

Seated hamstring curls

Single leg standing hamstring curls

Single leg stiff leg dead lifts

Reverse hypers on bench

Supermans lying flat on the ground

** We don’t usually encourage many back flexion or extension exercises in our protocols, because we want to focus on stiffening the core and don’t want the extra shearing motion. I’ve been doing these lower back exercises with a small range of motion and with bodyweight only because I’ve noticed a lack of muscle awareness in that area, and some since working them more I’ve discovered some serious asymmetries I never knew I had that I believe are adding to some of my hip and glute weakness.