Backwards Walking

After trying out the first two AGT (ATHLETIC TRUTH GROUP) Zero workouts from the Knees Over Toes guy, I’m feeling very hopeful. The kinds of exercises we are doing legitimately make the knee feel stronger and more flexible and like it was worked out in the right ways.

The main issue is inflammation. After a few days of non-stop traveling, weeks of stress and sleep deprivation, and a workout that left my knees shaking, it’s no wonder I felt extremely inflamed and depleted afterward, the thing I always worry about when I work out.

Luckily, I talked to my coach today about feeling like I shouldn’t work during depletion even though work sometimes makes me feel stronger and more energetic. I finally have a sort of solution to depletion and inflammation. It’s a version of self-soothing that I like to call self-cuddling. I thought of it because sometimes I just wish my girlfriend was here so I could cuddle with her, but I can actually hold myself and freeze in soft comfy positions that I can then move and change. There are elements of stillness and comfort and delicious movement.

There is a sort of feeling that work is similar. That interesting and powerful work can be delicious movement and calmness can be holding myself and cuddling with myself.

All this is very similar to the dance practice I used to do all the time. Some self-massage, holding myself in comforting poses, and fast spinning clearing movements.

A short test of this yields amazing results. I felt the inflammation moving and melting. My system fluid and de-stagnated.

Today in looking into how to increase strength and mobility into the tendons and ligaments, I made an exciting discovery and change in direction.

I’ve heard of the Knees Over Toes Guy ever since I went to Thai Massage and the massage therapist told me that he helped a lot with his knee injuries from doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

I know this challenge was to make my knee stronger just for going to Zion National Park, but this changes things completely.

The Knees Over Toes Guy has a program that costs about $50 per month. I decided to try it out as part of this challenge…but also as part of a bigger effort to regain my life. For the longest time, I have been searching for something that would let me be active again in life. Specifically, I want to get back into martial arts and work on Jiu Jitsu, wrestling and striking. I know that is completely impossible right now since I can’t even sleep on my side without pain in my knee.

This guy has renewed hope in me because apparently he was struggling with knee pain for 10 years and has had 6 surgeries and now is able to play basketball with zero pain even though he is pushing his body farther than ever (now dunks the ball).

This of course, changes my approach to the challenge and I need to rewrite my syllabus. I didn’t want to get rid of the syllabus because that is what has created such happiness and progress in all my challenges, but this is an excellent opportunity to improve the process. I have always felt that rigidly following something even when it isn’t the best path anymore is inefficient and wastes time. Being able to adapt the syllabus when you feel a major shift (not just all the time for no reason) makes a lot of sense.

There is a major shift that needs to happen because I realized that the current syllabus is not perfect due to the fact that even day 1 I realized that all exercises involve muscles, fascia and ligaments and tendons, yet they are all spread out over days in the syllabus and that makes no sense.

So here is my revised syllabus:

Days until Zion: 8

UNIT 2: Testing Knees Over Toes

Day 1 – Surface Tissues

UNIT 2: Testing Knees Over Toes

Day 1 – Day 5 – ATG workouts (Zero Program)

UNIT 3: Recovery

Day 1 – Cooling and antioxidation
Day 2 – Cleansing and Fasting
Day 3 – Fortifying and Nutrition