Saturday, April 05, 2008

Twinges in my Tibial Tuberosity

Since before my last workout, the bony protrusion under my right knee has felt...wrong. Not a sharp pain, not exactly a dull ache, but something that bothers me--when jogging, and especially when I squat with my weight on my right leg. I can also feel it when I lunge, step out on my throws, climb stairs, etc. I looked it up online but don't feel like assuming what the problem is, because a) I don't know and b) the recovery doesn't change based on the diagnosis--stretch, ice, rest, repeat.

So I've been stretching regularly, icing every once in a while, and refraining from physical activity to the best of my ability (go figure, the one time the elevator in my building is broken is the one time I ought to be avoiding stairs). I have an appointment with the sports-medicine doctor on Tuesday, and hopefully I'll be feeling better and he'll give me good news. Best-case scenario is that I can participate in Sectionals 100% without worrying about making my knee worse, so I'm going to focus on that.

If it is an overuse injury, it's almost certainly because of spring break. We had a lot of Ultimate condensed into 7 days, and only one day off in the whole span of time. When I consider that I put myself in a bad way with my calves a few weeks ago, I'm starting to see what kind of changes to make to my conditioning program in the coming seasons. I'm certainly going to incorporate more rehab and recovery work (i.e. stretching and icing even when I don't think I need to), and probably refrain from playing such a condensed schedule. In the meantime, I'm going to have to take it easy and play it by ear--I've experienced the foolish pain of returning too quickly after an injury, and don't want to go through that again. To be fair, though, I might've tried to push through some of this were it not for a particularly concerned individual, so thank you (you know who you are).

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