Graduation, Part III

Yesterday was the day I never expected, never wanted, and hope to never experience ever again.

Graduation.

It's been an exceptionally long 6 months of rehab, for the 3rd time.

As I'm old hat at the whole physical-rehab-for-ACL-reconstruction thing, I had no questions for Dr. K, so we spent time chatting about our iPhones and favorite apps.

I have two iPhone / iPod Touch apps that have proven invaluable in my PT and ongoing goal-setting endeavors.

Round Timer - This app is the classic training ring timer. You can set up any number of rounds, with a countdown timer, and separate recurring timers for warning and rest times. For interval training, this thing is tops--and much less expensive as an iPhone app than purchasing the real thing, typically upwards of $200!

For each round, you can set up a warning time and rest time. So a 2 minute round with 10 second warning would sound a tone at 1:50, indicating there were 10 seconds left in the round. Rest time is a period between rounds, handy for actually catching your breath--or in the case of sparring class, switching partners.

As a bonus, you can play songs from your music library while the timer is running, and it will automatically mute the music to sound a tone. This allows you to crank music for your workout, and not miss your intervals!

Tallies - Just like it says, this app helps you keep tally counts of anything. In my case, I have some Summer goals - like 1000 push-ups, 150 reps of my forms, 45 minutes of aerobic activity each week, and 1500 slow-count kicks. Completely customizable, and really cheap, putting my goals on my phone keeps me on-track.

What software or mobile device apps do YOU find helpful on a daily basis???

Time

I'm back to Karate, recently cleared for non-contact kicks, and assigned these brilliantly complex plyometric exercises--jump forward on one foot, but turn 90 degrees right or left and land on the same foot in a squat to absorb impact. Yikes!

Running has been great, recently did the full 4-mile course I ran last summer without stopping.

Lately it seems time is slipping away from me. Just when I'm getting back into the groove of working out, there's a string of commitments that have me over-booked and exhausted! Fortunately, though, I'm taking a few days off to travel with family and friends to Door County.

I'm looking forward to slowing time down and smelling some roses among the lighthouses and other attractions!

As for sparring, I'll be taking a very cautious approach to re-entry. My PT is incredibly insightful, and commented that right now I'm doing a great job of maintaining proper body position with regards to the knee(s), but that it's still a very conscious effort.

He recognized the common link between my ACL tears is poor positioning; the true challenge is to evolve that sense of proper position into an unconscious effort. This is most important when sparring, since it involves so much spontaneous movement and reflexive action.

So after I see him at the end of this month, I expect to re-enter sparring classes. However, the plan is to limit the risk early on, concentrating on controlled drills and hand work and skipping the open point sparring for now.

Out of a healthy sense of superstition, I also plan to take November and December off from any sparring activity, picking things up in January to prepare for next April's tournament at the end of the season.



Until then, I plan to make grown men cry by walking away with the gold in all the weapon and open-hand forms that I can.