Massage Week

I’ve always had a tendency towards muscle cramps in the early stages of training and that tendency certainly hasn’t abated as I’ve gotten older. This month is the first of three planned months of ever heavier workouts intended to take me to a level of training capable of supporting true competitive swimming (at least for Masters) and the accumulated wear and tear of the past three weeks combined with Coach Brad’s emphasis on speed work has set off some bad cramping in my feet and legs. It’s always worth the effort to try to swim through the problem and typically this will succeed about a third of the time, but last Wednesday when I tried to do this during a short set it backfired on me, especially after I ‘tweaked’ my left hamstring starting the set. The cramp fully blossomed shortly thereafter on the second rep when I felt the hamstring start to tighten and, in the effort of trying to relax the muscle threw my left calf into spasm, quickly followed by my left foot, and then to completely screw me, my suffering hamstring joined the protest. I believe that’s the first time in my life all three of those muscles have cramped at the same time. Part of my problem probably lies with the fact I haven’t scheduled a massage in over three months since I lost my therapist to marriage and a move this past spring. But perhaps, and on a more hopeful note, another contributing factor may be yoga related back realignment and increased hip flexibility is causing my muscles to recast themselves to their subtly changed roles. In any event I’ve decided to kill two birds with one stone by scheduling three massages over this week by three different therapists. The idea is to work on all my muscles rather than target one specific problem while at the same time determining which therapist will be best for me. One thing is for certain – I can’t take these muscles cramps for much longer. They’re really starting to hurt.