Athlete • Speaker • Guide 
Athlete • Speaker • Guide Date: 22nd January 2007
Training:
The elbow seems to have reached some sort of sticking point; not getting better, not getting worse. I can sort of climb on it if I’m gentle (going at all hard puts it back a step for sure), but total rest seems to make it much more painful and “creaky.” Last night I went back into the weight room for the first time, avoided any power movements on my elbow but hammered on the rest, damn good. There’s just something so overwhelmingly positive about blasting your body, I’m typing with sore muscles for the first time in a month, hell yeah! And the elbow feels about the same… Maybe I’m being stupid, but my latest theory is that I likely have so much scar tissue from training over the years that resting just “sets” that stiff tissue and generally makes thing worse. Massage seems to help the most, so I’m doing that while driving and resting, plus ice, see what happens…
Geekery:
Playing WMV (windows meda files) on a Mac has always really annoyed me. Quicktime is a far superior format because you can pause it mid-video, scroll back and forth within the player without causing malfunctions, etc. WMV files play slightly better on a PC, but still suck compared to Quicktime (especially when playing WMV files within internet sites). The solution for Macs is to get Flip4Mac, which plays WMV files from within Quicktime. Full Quicktime function, way better than Windows Media Player. You can upgrade for $29 and then use most of the Quicktime Pro functions too, pretty cool.
Geek (or, as I’ve been admonished, “Nerd”) mode off.
Posted in: Blog
Will,
Don’t know if this will help you or not, but I too busted up my elbow on 12/10/06. Went to my orthopod on 12/19 who said 8 weeks without stress. Between the 10-19th I climbed in the gym a couple of times but really couldn’t do anything. But it’s been complete rest (meaning NO CLIMBING) ever since. In the last week it’s felt +90%. No real pain. Just weak. I’m back to Crossfit, getting my heart rate up and being careful to work around the injury. But I think it’s the “complete rest” that’s really made the difference. The idea is that you don’t want to do ANYTHING that gives you pain. I have a partner who says I have as much time as needed for recovery, but no time for reinjury. I try to remember that when I’m jonein’ for a climbing fix.
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