At the conclusion of the last cycle I had a nagging calf injury that I tweaked during a "Sgt. Ryan" workout. I rushed to do the workout and did not warm up properly and strained my calf as a result during the workout. It bothered me for the rest of the cycle whenever I did jump rope doubles and was starting to bother me during our Sunday night runs. I decided to try something new during our recovery week. I visited Kerri Kuhlsen and had my first acupuncture treatment. Kerri, a fellow MBG'er, was able to pinpoint the area immediately and gave me a treatment. As my kids chuckled, Kerri proceeded to place the needles in various parts of my calf. My daughter thought it would be cool to take a picture so I included it in the post. It was a weird sensation as the needles were placed. I could literally feel the muscle moving around. It was a good feeling and it was exactly the area that was giving me a problem. Kerri explained that I would be sore and to rest it a day followed by stretching and rolling it out. I experienced some pretty intense soreness for about two days. I made sure I was properly hydrated, stretched and used a roller to treat it on my own the next couple of days. Three days after the treatment I decided to engage in a light run. The calf was sore but was not altering my stride like it was prior. The fourth day I continued the stretching and rolling it out. The fifth day I ran again and the soreness was drastically reduced. I decided to increase my distance and my pace on the sixth day after the treatment. I am happy to say I felt great. I could barely notice that anything was ever wrong. I could have ignored it all together and for sure it would have lead me to a greater problem. It is important for all of us to listen to the feedback our body provides us everyday. It will let us know when something is wrong but it is up to us to address it. The point I am making is to take advantage of our recovery week to heal your body. This will aid you in maintaining a high level of performance. Remember, nagging injuries become serious injuries if we allow them.

It's been a while since I posted and I am going to try and stay consistent going forward. There's been a lot going on and I neglected the blog a little. As you all know we just finished our Spring/Summer training cycle. I feel it was the best yet. We had the appropriate variety, teamwork and challenges to enable our fitness to increase over these eight weeks. We concluded this cycle with a 3 1/2 hour Monkey Bar Gymnasium Warrior Boot Camp Challenge. This was the first time we did this and it was a blast. We busted our behinds for over three hours and loved every minute of it. It will definitely be something that we do throughout the year. This cycle also saw another successful whole food, plant based recipe swap. As always the food was delicious! As we enter our recovery week tomorrow it is important that you allow your body to heal. The focus of this weeks workouts will be to restore the body by resting and working on mobility. Try to get your rest this week. Drink plenty of water and eat strong foods. If you are a person who likes to run than maybe this week just walk and focus on your breathing. Let your body rest! Maybe take the time to go and see our very own Kerri Kuhlsen for a acupuncture session or Michele Fitzgibbons for some massage therapy. Whatever you choose to do allow your body to heal so that we can crank it up once again next Monday for the start of our new cycle! Jimmy