Figure Skating Time Machine

Today, Madam Mim wanted me to work on three-turns. Apparently, my return to skating stroking, crossovers, stops, swingrolls, and edges/rolls are adequate. Even my back stroking was improved and that's  my bête noire.

I'd been practicing some single three turns and felt okay about them, so when she asked for a three turn, I did threes around the circle--successfully.

Of course it makes me dizzy

But in doing my 3 turns, I found I went back to habits from 4 years ago, I stuck my free leg out to the side. You know, a 'paddle turn', for when you're afraid to fall. It took a good ten minutes to fix that.

So, relearning skills is like a time machine. I seem to go back a couple of years in technique, then speed through all the changes I need to bring the skill back in a few minutes.

A week ago I was the guy on the left, now I'm the guy on the right.

Still, lots of stuff to work on. Haven't even started inside 3s. I'd only had them for a short while, might have to relearn tm completely.

"We'll have to work on your power next." Madam Mim said.

No,  Power is deep knee bend and strong push!

Good Friday Practice

I had a choice today. Do the Stations of the Cross or Tre Ore or go skating this afternoon.

I went skating.

"Go ahead, skate at that light
freestyle session on Good Friday."

But cut me some slack, I just got back from an hour and a half of evening service, so I'm good.

And skating was good today too. It was my 4th hour on ice since I started skating again since the injury, and skills are rapidly getting back to where they were in October.  It also gave me the opportunity to pull out all the stops in my "Learn to Skate" repertoire.

First, I armored up: Pad in the Hat, Wrist Guards, Knee Pads. And I warmed up. Then I did some alternating crossovers. And when I got to the part where I was relearning backward stroking (again!), I applied The Five Minute Rule. I paid particular attention to pre-positioning the blade on my stroking and crossovers, and my skating smoothed out.  I don't just write this stuff, I live it.

So, much, much better than last week. I hope Madam Mim appreciates my progress.  Except, if she's like every other coach I've had, it will be,

Madam Mim says, "Stop you're doin' it wrong!"

Yep, story of my life.

The HIP DIP

I was at physical therapy for the knee today, and I asked my physical therapist, Rapunzel the Cruel, why I was having knee pain when I skated backwards.

She had me stand and walk in various backwards skating-like positions until I was able to duplicate the pain. So there I am finally, balancing with the bulk of my weight on the ball of my right foot, with my left foot forward, and the inside of my right knee burning like fire.

"Oh," Rapunzel says, "I see the problem.  Your knee is buckling inwards because your hip isn't strong enough." When I balance going backwards, my right hip dips, making my right knee collapse sideways.

I now have exercises to strengthen my gluteus medius.

I have to strengthen the little muscle on the right

This explains my lousy right inside swing rolls, right three turns, and whatever else.

My total daily average workout requirement is now an hour and a half--off ice.

Much rather be ON ice.

The Magic Shot

My orthopedic surgeon says: "I have a magic injection for you"

I shouldn't call it a 'magic' injection, but it has success 70% of the people who get it. It involves injecting a replacement for synovial fluid in my knee.

My prescriptions are of the $3 variety normally. This time, however, my insurance company made me jump through paperwork hoops and they filled the prescription from a special pharmacy. The prescription costs a mortgage payment for a small house in a nice neighborhood in a big city, but I only had to pay the cost of a premium gas fill up for a Ford SUV. I had to wait for a month for the prescription to be delivered to my doctor's office. This thing was a "big deal".

The day finally came when it was obvious that physical therapy could only take me so far, so the doctor elected to inject the fluid.

Some advice: DON'T LOOK AT THE NEEDLE! AT ALL. TURN YOUR HEAD!

My doctor spritzed my knee with some painkiller, then told me this long story about taking his son to the DMV to distract me while he put in the needle.

Yeah, it still hurt. However, it wasn't the worst I've ever had. I've had rabies shots and those were worse.  It was the kind of pain that makes you yelp a swear word or  "Hail Mary!". Fortunately, it didn't take very long.

My doctor told me I should see results anywhere between 2 days to 4 weeks.

By the next day 50% of the pain had gone, and what was left was diffuse rather than of the ice pick ti the joint variety. So, doing good!

This is not a permanent cure. It lasts from a few months to a year. But this will give me enough time to up my exercise and get back in shape.

Looking forward to seeing how it affects my skating knee bend!

"Bend ze knees, five dollars pleeze."

(This is either Frick or Frack)

My Grand Entrance---

We all have dreams.

My dream was that when I got back on the ice, I'd make a GRAND ENTRANCE....You know: style, sweep, smoooooooth.....

             I come in the rink and I'm welcomed with              
 love from staff and skaters

Then I get on the ice and I'm
strong and powerful

Meh, what I really looked like was wacky flailing inflatable tube guy..

Yeah, lookin' like a Basic 3 skater, sad....

And to top off the humiliation while standing still at the boards, with my hand on the boards, I caught a toepick and went down like wacky flailing inflatable tube guy when they turn off the fans...

How can I do a faceplant while I'm holding onto the boards?

Other than that, good day on ice!

Skating Again after Kneemageddon!

I went to freestyle today at my old rink and skated for 30 minutes.  Honestly, that last minute was torture. I've lost so much muscle tone in my right leg, and my balance was all over the place, that when I cautiously got on the ice I looked like this....

Slip, Slidin' Away

 This is one of the things I anticipated. As you get older,  the body loses muscle and flexibility at a rate that's positively depressing. Even though I continued my weight lifting and stretching exercises over the last 3 months, there was nothing I could do to keep my legs strong. I had to let them rest and recover. Now I have to rebuild them.

I started out with some simple stroking, the lack of practice showed, It took me a few minutes to get my posture and upper body back in alignment. I knew I looked like a Basic 3 skater, but the kids knew me and avoided me (the sweethearts). I was able to do forward and backwards crossovers by the end of my half hour; three turns and mohawks were where I was a year ago.

So what's a good thing for an elderly  mature woman to do to recover?

I did some research and everyone agrees that the four fitness goals for a 'mature' adult are the following:
Endurance
Strength
Balance
Flexibility

Endurance. What's a good exercise for this on ice? Swizzles. I found that swizzles were very demanding on my weaker leg, and I had to work hard to make the swizzles symmetric.  Also I wouldn't let myself do 'lazy swizzles'. I did them so I touched my feet together then out again which I find harder than 'lazy swizzles'.

I've been doing strength training of upper body during kneemageddon, and just started rebuilding my leg muscles. Pnysical Therapy starts Monday. When  I look at the strength exercises for the 'mature' online, the weights are at the 3 and 5 pound level. I'm using 15 and 20's and have a personal trainer. I guess I'm not the traditional little old lady.

Balance. Believe it or not I've been working on my off ice balance during Kneemageddon.  It's not the same as real skating. Cross fingers my skating balance comes back quickly. And what, you ask, is a balance exercise? Stand on one foot--working up to standing on one foot with eyes closed, on a Bosu Ball.  Still at standing on one foot with my eyes open. Man, the whole one foot on the Bosu ball, not happening.

I'm on the left....sigh.

Flexibility. Use it or lose it, baby. I do 30 minutes of flexibility work every weekday. My DVDs for this are here. I also have a knee rehabilitation DVD and a few others. My orthopedic surgeon was amazed. If I had one thing I would unreservedly recommend to 'mature' adult skaters, it's regular stretching training, and these DVD's are really good.

Now you're wondering how I was skating after the half hour of practice.

Ta Da!
(I am this cute!)

Back On The ICE Approval

So the surgeon approved me to go back on the ice--gently--and build up my leg strength. I was clutching my copy of this month's Skating magazine in my clammy little hand when I asked. He tilted his head to see the picture on the cover, and I think that was the first time he understood I meant "ice" skating. But, he said, "Sure."

Now since I haven't really skated for more than 30 minutes since this started, I've completely lost all memory of every freestyle session within an 80 mile radius. I mean it's a blank. I used to know every rink's schedule, and now I know nothing.

OMG, I feel so empty....

One of the things that came out of this whole kerfuffle (TM applied for) is that the doctor uncovered my right leg is much weaker than my left.  I now have to see a physical therapist to muscle up one leg. Maybe this explains my handedness issue and inability to do things in the clockwise direction and my total failure to do two foot snow plow stops; it's not just the 'handedness' thing. So, it's not me! Well, it IS me. Darn it. Just a different part of me.

What happens when you have one bad leg....

My dream though is to get a doctor to write me a "Letter of Medical Necessity" so I can use skating as an approved rehabilitative exercise. Then I can get reimbursement from my health savings account for ice time and be able to use my 40 years of accumulated sick leave to skate (for rehabilitation). That would be sweet.  But, haven't had that happen yet.

However, since the furlough thing looks like it's going to go ahead, I'll probably have plenty of free time to skate and build up that bad leg. Trying to be positive here. 

Yeah, whatever.

Snap Crackle Pop!

The right knee is getting scary.

The exercise routines I'm using are doing some good. Although I'm pain free for 30 minutes to an hour after my exercise, and I can feel that my knee is improving, it's too slow. I've got immediate problems.

Today while I was standing in line, I turned to speak to someone and my right knee buckled. Fortunately, my left leg is almost back to normal, so using 'figure skater reflexes' I was able to stay upright, otherwise I would have had to grab a complete stranger.

And he wasn't cute.

My knee made a really obvious 'snap' when it happened. People turned and stared.

Usually the 'snapping' sound is harmless; it's a ligament slipping over a bone, but combined with the buckling, I don't think it's harmless. Today I felt I'd given the knee enough of a chance. I'm making an appointment and getting the Synvisc injections. It will only last a few months, but that may give me enough of a 'fix' to get my weight down a few pounds and give the exercises time to build up my knee strength.

Ice Ice Baby!

Back on the ICE!

For 15 minutes.

But I was doing forward stroking, crossovers, two foot turns.

Tried some 3 turns and a couple of mohawks. Weak and scary, but still I was back on ice. Fell once. Badly.

So, after 6 weeks off, I had trouble finding my edges, and finding the edges was really important. If I'm not on a good edge and perfectly on the right place on the blade, I don't have enough strength in my calf and knee to recover gracefully if I'm even a little bit out of position. For this reason, I'm not skating on public yet, just freestyle. The effort needed to avoid some kid who skates straight at me, terrifies me.

Even when I have a good edge and balance, I look a bit like a newborn bird flapping its wings. I'm all over the place.

Grumpy Coach, who was an elite skater from decades ago, glared at me. I greeted him as always in the Little Old Lady Way with a cheery, "Good afternoon, dearie."

He sort of grunted at me in an Eastern European language, then turned his back on me. There's just no making some people smile.

I blame communism.

Still, we have a suddenly open Saturday freestyle tomorrow (game cancelled). I'm aiming for 30 minutes on the Ice. Ice, Baby! On, the Ice!

I Blame Hurricane Sandy

You know you're old when you have to do stretching every day to keep from falling apart.

I need to exercise every day!

I restarted exercising a couple of days ago after I realized that I had stopped my stretching sessions when Hurricane Sandy hit. Right after that my back went out for a week, followed a week later by my knees going 'kablooey'.

All my misery is due to Hurricane Sandy throwing off my exercise schedule. Maybe I should sue NOAA .

Then this evening I got a new fitness video in the mail. Quick Fix Knee Rehab with Jen Miller. It requires two small balls in a net bag to self-massage your joints.  I did the 11 minute Pre-Hab section where you lie on and roll over the balls in the little net bag; First the hip joints, then muscles of the thigh, then the knee. This is to get you warmed up for more difficult exercises. It was a pleasant experience, not too difficult.  The instructor mention this 'weird heat' that people would get when the muscles were responding but I didn't get that while doing the pre-hab exercises. (There are two additional sets of exercises on the DVD, I just haven't done them yet.)

However, as I was seated cross legged on the floor, reading the New York Times, I started absently massaging my knee where it hurt with the massage balls. And you know, my knee felt better. I started doing the massage more purposefully. I massaged the knee with the ball until it stopped hurting, then changed the leg position, found a new pain and massaged that. So, that took another 10 minutes before I quit.

A half hour later this 'weird heat' flooded through my knee as if someone had put a space heater in my knee and plugged me in. For 10 minutes my knee was without pain.

Wonderful.

I'm going to keep up with this!

How it works, what it's doing; No idea. Just feels great--for a few minutes at a time.

Results of the MRI

I'm going to  make this straightforward.

My knees are crap.

According to my doctor, they are so bad (both of them) they should have started hurting years ago.

So there are two non-surgical medical treatments that could be tried. My research shows both are only marginally better than a placebo.

Anyway, I'm going for a second opinion, to see if I can find someone who will recommend physical therapy rather than shots and pills.

Fortunately, the knees feel enough better after a month plus of rest and anti-inflammatory pills that I'm going to try going on ice again, one more time. I've done some research and I need to apply some ice packs and that might help.  Also, getting back in the habit of doing leg exercises may help me as well.

So, I'll try and keep you amused until I'm back on ice!

Happy skating!