Pain Is Our Business and Business Is Good

Though I am not a derby girl personally, I believe we do have a few things in common. First of all, we are both in the business inflicting pain. On some level I believe we both enjoy this almost too much. One other thing that we both have in common is that we both know what it is like to be in pain. I am not talking about an injury or soreness from a workout. I am talking about halfway through the season, body is pissed as hall at you, every now and then something shoots through the white noise of your everyday aches kind of pain. I understand this all to well. The harsh fact is that there is a price to be paid for the mentality that allows you to push your body as far as is necessary to play at the level you truly desire. There are a few things that you can do to help minimize any less desirable consequences as far as your body is concerned. Here are a few basics:

1. Do not stretch without first warming up. If you do, it increases the risk of tearing your muscles.
2. Skate the opposite direction occasionally. The long term effects of only using one muscles in one direction will be bad. You need to mix it up and keep yourself balanced
3. Focus on some resistance training. Resistance will build muscle that is crucial in supporting joint health and fighting against decreasing bone density. This is far more important for women than men. (Who'd have thought weights are better for women. Keep that in mind the next time you run across a worthless meathead!)
4. Range of motion is key. When you are exercising it is important to move your joints through a full range of motion to allow you muscles to develop and protect against injury at weird angles( such as the way a jammers body contorts while being smashed by three blockers and whipped by her own team)

If you can keep these things in mind they will help you in the long run. So will continuing to work hard! let's get after it!

5 min. warm up
Stretch
3x 10 squat thrusts (burpees)
3x 30 sec. mountain climbers
3x 10 pushups
3x 10 inverted rows
3x 10 overhead press
3x 10 tricep dips
50 meters of lunges
4 planks to failure
2x 10 3sec. abdominal presses
5 min. cooldown
Stretch

If you have any questions feel free to ask. I am hoping to have a reference guide for the exercises ready this week but we'll see. Enjoy!

J