Pre-Hab

One of the things that my sports medicine guy (Dr. Michael Li at Mobility Plus in Seattle) has been drilling into my head the last few weeks is the concept of "Prehab".  Instead of relying solely on rehab, you can actually move your body into a state to help it be strong during the time that you're healing.

So he has me doing a few routines to help with the idea that my arm is going to be immobilized for a few weeks.

One exercise is to strengthen the deltoids and some of your upper latissimus.  The idea here is to help keep your arm and should back instead of letting the pectorals pull your shoulder forward and weakening some of the muscles around there.  Simply go to a cable tower and attach an ab hanger or anything with a larger webbing.  Move the cable pulley up to the top.  Get your arm into the sling and stand directly in front of the pulley.  Utilizing solely your back muscles, pull directly back as if you were doing a row. You really have to have your mind/body connection handy with this move as it's really easy to pull back with your elbow or your core.  If you do about 15 of these, you'll feel it the next day.

The other one strengthens your core and opens up your back and it's very very simple.  Grab a foam roller and place it under the arch of your back.  Do 10 crunches. Move the foam roller up about 6 inches to just below your armpits.  Do 10 more crunches.  Move the roller up to about your shoulder blades and do 10 more crunches.

The idea with both of these exercises is to do them every day so you can keep your shoulders back and your chest open to counterract the idea that the sling will pull you forward.

I'm also really working hard this week to get ready for the surgery.  Monday through Wednesday are a combo of extremely heavy weights, low reps, and 4 or 5 sets with a counterbalance of lower weight sets with higher reps and 45 seconds of rest between sets.

During lunch I've been doing a bootcamp class here at PopCap that focuses mostly on cardio and plyometrics.  I feel like this is a great balance to the strength training I've been doing in the mornings.  It has also helped strip some of the weight off that I gained from Spring Training.

Thursday, will be all cardio and bootcamp.  This should let all of my muscles finish healing from the earlier workouts while still giving me a good heart rate boost and letting the good endorphins run around in my system.

I've also been eating lots of lean protein and vegetables as usual and drinking tons of water.  After surgery, I'm planning on sticking to that as well as adding some Omega 3/6 fatty acid supplements to help with the healing process.

I think preparation here is key and will help in the short term healing process.  It's given me something really positive and fun to focus on and it'll be interesting to see if it works. I have no idea if it will or not, but I don't see any harm in it anyway.  It's always fun to see what you're capable of and this is just another example of that.