November 4, 2014

Rest, Acupuncture and Oxygen

Week of 10/27 ~ 11/2

I did two easy runs Monday and Tuesday, then tested my sore glute/hamstring (pain seems to be right in the middle of the two) on Wednesday, which did not go well. Ran 3,000m of the 5,000m time trial, at about half marathon pace, steadily getting slower and more sore, so bagged it.

It seems that "active recovery" is not helping, so I am just going to rest until the 16th, and hope I can run a Half pain-free. Which I am beginning to doubt, since it is still sore today if I try to jog for a few steps.

I went to an acupuncture guy in my town, and he is quite good. It definitely felt better after both visits, although obviously not healed yet.

He also has a hyperbaric chamber, called "oxygen capsule" in Japanese which is much easier to understand, so I tried that for 30 minutes on Saturday (only 2,000yen/$20!). Can't say that it helped, but who knows? The literature on it is contradictory. Of course most of the stuff on the web is very positive, because it's put out by the companies selling these things, but even some of the objective articles indicate that hyperbaric therapy could possibly help reduce inflammation and promote healing (it does in fact seem to help heal wounds). Other pieces downplay any positive effects, and of course, the question is whether just 30 minutes or even an hour will do you any good.

It's like lying in an MRI thing...or like a coffin - appropriate since I did it on Halloween. The oxygen is under pressure (so it's forced into your blood and not only blood but tissues, hence the possible healing effect), so your ears get unpleasantly pressurized, in fact a bit painful for 6-8 minutes. I was almost ready to press the button to call the sensei, but then my ears normalized and I nodded off for the last 5 or 10 minutes. Anyway, interesting, and interesting that this guy would have one, it being just a small clinic out in the suburbs. He says rugby players come in to use it, so I guess the japanese sports world knows about this kind of therapy.

So I won't be running, may not post anything next week.
But I hope you are all healthy!

2 comments:

  1. Hope you are back running soon.
    I tried acupuncture ( Russ Stram) and think it did SOME good. I tried the chamber thing and did not get any benefit.Although a lot of footballers use it in Australia.
    Good luck.

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  2. The footy players down here use them all the time to speed up injury recovery. Anyway, hope that and the needles have you feeling good enough to have a crack at the half. If not, be sensible.

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