So I jumped ahead a little bit in the last post. After the amusement park incident and our Friday attempt to work out in the east end, I thought back to a conversation I once had with Waldemar in his living room while drinking one of his fantastic cups of tea with lots of manuka honey.
“Do you know what the biggest injury risk to athletes is?” he asked. He paused for dramatic effect then barked, “Women!”
He recounted a story from when he was working with an international soccer team, and they were visiting another city for a match of some importance. The players had been rested and carefully prepared. Upon arrival in the visiting city, their rooms had been placed on the ground floor, and Waldemar suspected there was evil intention behind it- so that girls could easily sneak onto the balconies and into players rooms. The athletes would then show up the next day to the game looking poorly rested with tight muscles despite the coaching and therapy staffs best efforts.
Of course, Waldemar is no ordinary man- he is the Alpha King Jedi-level recovery and regeneration specialist, so he spent the night pacing the hallway in ninja-like fashion listening for noises emanating from rooms, and when he heard something, busted in and threw the women out.
Basically, he was saying that no matter how well you prepare an athlete, they can unknowingly turn into their own worst enemies, and sometimes you have to engage in somewhat paranoid behavior and protect them from themselves. (As Charlie would say, “Total paranoia is total preparedness!”)
So the answer was clear. My athlete was going to have to move into my place until Trials. To be honest, I’m single, no kids, no problems, so though this wouldn’t work for everyone, it certainly was easy for me to accomplish.
I have a pretty small apartment, so I vacated my room and slept on the couch. This way he had no excuse not to get a good night’s sleep. His girl could stay over occasionally- no problem. He had put himself under a self-imposed sexual moratorium from the day after the amusement park incident, so I wasn’t too worried about him screwing himself up in that sense. I made sure that things got pretty boring once 11 o’clock hit. Here’s a sample of one of our late evening conversations:
“What, you don’t have cable, and you have a 20” tube television?"
“Uh, yes.”
“So what do you do for fun when you’re at home, just watch movies and listen to records?”
“Yeah, pretty much that or read.”
“Jeez man.” (Totally judging me and pitying my boring life)
I showed him how to use my turntable. Stereo geek is my number two hobby after track geek. (Ask ESTI- he showed up to my place and was shocked to find my living room dominated by a totally impractical speaker placement called “The Cardas Method”)
My athlete occupied himself by playing through my record collection over the next few days. He actually got pretty into my stereo, and I must say there is almost nothing you can do to hurt yourself while listening to records, which was comforting when I had to leave during the day to go to work.
I knew for a fact that he was getting to bed earlier by staying at my place; like many people with ADHD he has issues with getting to sleep at a reasonable hour and the record playing routine was providing a welcome calming period before sleep, allowing him to settle hours earlier than normal.
Our next couple of workouts went well. We had 200+200, where he hit the first tempo rep in an absurdly easy looking 21.99 and backed it up off a few minutes rest in under 24 seconds- I don’t have exact notes for the length of rest and the exact split of the backup rep, but it was what we needed. He is a speed creature, and our prep was seriously shortened, so obviously endurance was going to be below ideal.
The rest of the taper went very smoothly. To be honest, we didn’t lift much during the season, and since things were progressing, I didn’t want to overcomplicate things so there were mostly just medball throws (squat throws over high jump pit, hop throws, double hop throws, overhead back, squat throws with vertical push) and minimal safe plyo work (despite the foot issue, he feels plyos really help him so we included some). Keep in mind this is a guy who can bench press 300 lbs. with ease off of pretty much no work, so at the time absolute strength gains were not a major priority.
We had a workout with some accels to 30m with a couple of 60m to 80m runs at 95%. Everything looked good, and his muscle tone was coming down nicely, just like Charlie said it would on the 10 Day Taper download. I was doing the massage myself during the taper, and it was a daily occurrence. You could feel the muscle becoming more pliable, and he was complaining less of tightness in his legs as the taper went on, except the tightness in the left hip flexor remained an issue though I hoped we would get away with it.
On Sunday afternoon two days before we left, I gave Waldemar a call and thanked him for the assessment he had done for us, as it really helped me to understand some key things. I told him we were leaving Tuesday morning for nationals and we were sorry that we didn’t get up to see him again for a final check before heading out. This was something I really wanted to do. That was when he dropped a bomb- “Well I’m heading to Hamilton on Monday- would you like me to stop in Toronto so I could give him a final check?” WOULD I? Are you frigging kidding me? Obviously we jumped at the chance. I mentioned to Angela that Waldemar would be stopping by to work on my guy and invited her to come and hang. She instead invited us to work at her place as she has a couple of massage tables, and I could avoid the expense and hassle of renting one. Wow- talk about a confidence boost of epic proportions!
These are the type of people we here at CF.com are dealing with. I can’t tell you in words how incredibly generous and kind Angela and Waldemar are with their time and energy- their actions tell you right there. It is such a blessing to be able to interact with people who have a passion for what they do. It makes success a much easier thing to attain!
