Serial Game Movie

18 55 OF shoulder pain etc

Lately, I dont have a chance to get on the bike during the week until Friday or Sat. I think that is too long to go without any saddle time. The legs get stale and one starts to loose the ability to tick the pedals over well.

Last week Id done a hard high rep/low weight squat workout on Wed Enough to make the muscles tender to the touch. Then hard ride Thurs, followed by road ride with lots of climbing Fri. My legs were toasted. Yesterday I got out onto the Azure for up OF and down beast and up sidewinder.

18:55 up, legs felt better at the bottom, then started to fade. I need a new rear tire, the tread is gone and spinning out too much. Front end still feels wonky. Loosey goosey. Just cant tell if its the wheel that feels flexy, or the fork. Gotta re-bleed the rear brake too.

My right shoulder is still a mess. Time to get a little more serious about treating it. I think a combination of events and continued use has contributed to inability to heal.

It started after we did a fair amount of shoulder work with push presses and push jerks. The problem wasnt the lifting it is my bony shoulder. My right shoulder has a little bony bump protruding from it: the acromion


On my right side it is big bump. The bar ended up bruising that bone I think. Then the next 3 days I rode on the mountain bike which places a fair amount of wear on the front of the shoulders. Then with all that fatigue in place, I was doing some basic pullups. But, its amazing how much load is on the shoulders with pullups when you go all the way down and your arms are too close together. When you arms are fully extended and your shoulder is jammed up into your hear, it places a serious stress on the front part of the deltoid. That seemed to really do me in, and since then it just hasnt felt right. Just too much overhead work combined with bruising the tip of that bone. My right shoulder has always had some strength instability compared to my left

I ice it, rest it for a few days, then go and do something like a few days of mountain biking or back to working out. Ill take it easy, but there is no way you can avoid using your shoulder in daily activity or working out. Never realized this till it has issues.

The issue seems centered around the muscle at the front part of the deltoid (anterior deltoid). When I massage deeply and use the massage ball, muscle is knotted. Seems more so on the right side than the left, but the left also has knots.

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But I think there is more going on here than just muscle. The worst pain is when my arms extended overhead and I hold my right wrist with my other hand and the try to move the arm in an arc to my side. This is an adduction motion, and the thing is, that muscle, isnt used in adduction. If I do this isometric motion against a wall, that muscle isnt even flexed.

Ive been icing it and doing isometrics and stretching it, and it gets a little better, then I go an aggravate it again. The pain is sharp sometimes and even though it feels like its coming from the front shoulder muscle, when I press around with my fingers to try and find it, I just cant pinpoint it.

After more googling, I think I found a potential answer: BICEPS TENDONITIS (LONG HEAD OF BICEPS TENDONITIS). Here is another site.

What struck me was this description:

What does biceps tendonitis feel like?

Pain related to biceps tendonitis is usually felt over the front of the shoulder, often with some radiation to, but not usually beyond, the elbow. Typically, the pain is aggravated by overhead activity and is worse at night. People may report a clicking or popping sensation in the affected shoulder

Makes sense that it is this tendon and not just the muscle. When I press around hard with my fingers trying to see if there is some trigger point in the muscle that is I just cant seem to get to it. The pain is radiated from the front of the shoulder but its deeper. It seems counter intuitive for this to be related to the bicep because I consider it shoulder issue. But when you look at this diagram you can see that the bicep muscle connects into the shoulder joint.


So I think several weeks dedicated to
1) no overhead work
2) limited mountain biking
3) icing
4) isometric and band type strengthening excercises
5) stretches for biceps/shoulders
6) vitamin I or naproxen

Available link for download

2012 Election Predictions etc

The 2012 Republican primary is starting to heat up, so I want to get my early 2012 predictions out there. A lot of people don’t like to make concrete predictions this early, for fear of being wrong and then ridiculed in the future. I like to make super-early predictions though. I’ve been wrong about politics before, and I fully recognize that this post may look ridiculous in 18 months. But I do follow this stuff very closely, and I like to think I have a decent political sense. Anyway, on to the predictions.

I think the Republican presidential primary will essentially be a two-man race between Huckabee and Romney. After splitting the early states, I think Huckabee winds up winning the nomination. Huckabee, Romney, and Haley Barbour are the only candidates who can raise real top-tier money. (I’m excluding Sarah Palin because I don’t think she’ll run, but if she does run, then obviously she’ll be able to raise top-tier money too.) Barbour doesn’t have the name recognition or the charm of Huckabee and Romney, and Republican primary voters do tend to nominate candidates who are viewed as having waited their turn. Also, the mainstream media doesn’t respect Barbour; they view him as a crazy, confederate-flag-waving good ol’ boy, and fair or not, that’s how he’ll be portrayed. In addition to Palin, I don’t think Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels, or Chris Christie will run. I think Ron Paul will run though. And I think Jon Huntsman will run, but drop out early (he’s setting himself up for 2016, where he could legitimately be dangerous).

Of course, this assumes that Huckabee runs, which he may not. I think he will run, but if he doesn’t, then obviously I think Romney gets the nomination. Either way, the Republican primary is going to be a truly sad spectacle, as the candidates try desperately to out-crazy each other for months on end.

In the general election, I’m actually more scared of Romney than Huckabee. In 2008, I really wanted Romney to get the Republican nomination, because I thought there was just no way that the American voters elect a Mormon president. In 2012, I think the right’s blind anti-Obama rage will cause them to turn out in droves for any Republican nominee — even a Mormon. And Romney’s business background, his experience as a moderate Republican governor of a liberal state, and the fact that he looks extremely presidential (which is sadly an important factor), has the potential to win over Independents. Huckabee, however, will undoubtedly shoot himself in the foot several times in the general election (“discipline” isn’t his forté).

Regardless of who wins the Republican nomination, I think it’s highly likely that Obama will win re-election. Incumbent presidents have a huge advantage with Independents, who already view Obama as a very cerebral person. The circus in the Republican primary will scare most disaffected liberals back into Obama’s corner too. (I do think liberals will revolt against an incumbent Democratic president eventually, but it won’t be Obama.)

Of course, I also hope that this is how the election plays out. As I’ve said before, I’m a Democrat, and an Obama supporter. I voted for him in 2008, gave a not-insubstantial amount of my wife’s money to his campaign and campaign-related groups, and I plan to do the same thing in this election cycle. (I’m something of an easy target for Democratic fundraisers.)

There are certainly things that Obama’s done that I disagree with — first and foremost, the hiring of Rahm as chief of staff. On the other hand, Obama’s administration did address the subject I know by far the most about, and around which I’ve spent almost my entire professional life (financial reform), and I think they handled it very well. No, scratch that, I know they handled it very well.

Moreover, I also recognize that in a lot of decisions, if not most decisions, Obama has significantly more information than we do. That’s just a reality, and one that you can’t ignore. Unfortunately, it’s something I think a lot of Democrats are ignoring, since it’s deeply unsatisfying for people — and especially for people interested in politics — to say, “I don’t know if Obama made the right decision on X, because I don’t have all the information, and he does.” Given that Obama has vastly more information than we do, it’s sometimes (though not all the time) necessarily a matter of whether you trust his judgment. At this point, I still do. That may change in the future, but that’s where I stand right now.

Available link for download