Are you my right hamstring in a compression sleeve? If not, then shut-up.

I ran 9 miles on my treadmill yesterday and woke up today with my Achilles feeling freaking awesome.  Like, no pain whatsoever awesome.  It hasn't felt this good in months.  So, in an unusual moment of workout clarity, I decided that today's workout would be low-impact and shorter than normal (I usually work out for 90 mins or so) so as to keep the good Achilles vibes a-flowing.  Thus, I whipped out Cathe's Afterburn workout again, because it is about 50 minutes long and because I still wanted to give the ol' lungs a peppy little workout without all the jumping.

So of course 15 minutes into the workout my right hammie would start whining.

This workout is very butt- and leg-intensive.  You squat a lot.  You lunge a lot.  You also do a hell of a lot of push-ups, sometimes using gliding discs to drag your body around while in a plank or to do jack push-ups.  But I like to do it at least once a week in order to build up any glute-strength I may be missing out on so as to enhance that whole running thing I do.  I have been reading about non-firing or weak glutes that may be the cause of some Achilles injuries (although mainly I think it's just my stupiditude at running too much too fast rearing its ugly head), so I've been trying to work on the ol' posterior region through this workout.

Well, I worked it alright--right into a nice little almost-injury in my right hamstring.  It's like it was protesting the 9 miles I ran yesterday AND working out today, that lazy skeletal muscle.  In another rare moment of clarity, I then realized I should go upstairs and put on my quad compression sleeves from SLS3 that were freaking pricey but have saved my quads and hammies on many an occasion.  After throwing those suckers on and continuing the workout (squat! lunge! pushups! faster!), the pain subsided, and now it doesn't even hurt at all.  Amazing things, those compression sleeves.  I know some people say they don't help, but they've never been my injured right hamstring during a Cathe Friedrich workout with a compression sleeve on.  And until they are, then I'm not listening to them.

(I tried to find a cool picture for this post, but when I searched Photopin using the word "hamstring," this photo was in the mix:

Yeah, I don't get it either.  But enjoy it while it lasts.)


photo credit: PETER9914 via photopin cc