Week 21 - "Jelly Legs" and "the injury"

Funny, my one-step vertical was up this week, but I had no energy and my legs felt like jelly (my favorite SportsCenter quote: It must be jelly 'cause jam don't shake like that!). I had to cut my plyo and weight workouts in half.

• Standing vertical: 26 inches.
• Hang power cleans: Missed 225 pounds, but I was closer this week; I almost got the bar as high as my clavicles.
• Squats: Because my legs felt like jelly, I dropped the weight and focused on really exploding through the movement. I did 225 pounds for 3 sets of 5 reps. I could've done more, but I also wanted to improve my balance. I set a bench right below parallel so that, as soon as I barely touched it, I would explode upwards. It's not a true box squat, but rather a way to improve my balance and stability during the eccentric portion of the lift. In the past, I would pause at the bottom of the lift to make sure I was balanced. Because of this, I had difficulty exploding out of the hole; the end of the lift would be explosive, but I would struggle getting out of the hole. In order to explode out of the hole with a bench present, I have to be balanced throughout the entire lift.
• Deadlifts: 225 pounds for 3 sets of 5 reps. Very easy but, again, I took it easy.
• One-step vertical: On a 9'10" rim, I almost got my entire hand above the rim (see video below).

 

I still struggle with squats because of my feet. We are taught that our knees and toes whould always be in alignment to prevent knee injury and to have a more powerful squat. Here is what my feet look like when my knees are facing forward:

 

 

My left knee will track my toes while my right knee, in my nautral alignment, doesn't track any of my toes. So, I have to focus on where my heels are placed and the direction my knees are pointing and not pay as much atention to my toes. Is this an excuse for not squatting well? No, but I've had to modify the rules a little bit in order to accomodate my natural alignment.

 

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Well, it's Saturday now and some of my goals are going to have to wait for a while. During a church league game this morning, I tore a muscle and some ligaments in my left hand. While stealing the ball, my left pinky got caught by the ball and bent in a weird way; it happened so fast that I can't describe exactly what happened. Immediately, I couldn't move any fingers on that hand. After a few minutes, I could move all of my fingers but couldn't move my pinky when any resistance was applied to it and I couldn't pick up anything with that hand. My hand starting swelling almost immediately.

 

Right now, my hand hurts constantly. The swelling and pain won't allow me to use that hand for much: I can barely pick up a thin book; I can't tie my shoes; struggle getting dressed; and I'm struggling to type this using two hands. Needeless to say, my upperbody workout had to be postponed. So, there won't be anymore upperbody lifts or hang cleans for a while. As is, I'm going to have to tape my finger like I would a turf-toe injury in order to play in my city rec league (even with the tape I'm going to be limited in what I can do.). I'm frustrated right now because I was close to lifting 225 pounds on the hang clean and I was going to test my bench press max next week. At least I can still work on my vertical since I should be able to still perform most of those exercises.

 

I'll let you know what happens with my hand in the days to come.