Good morning!

Yesterday was such a whirl wind for me I don’t even really remember much of it. I spent most of the morning trying to get myself woken up. I guess I had some Monday blues. That and I feel a little bit overwhelmed of the amount of work I need to get done before heading out of town this weekend for Boston.

Working

This is what a majority of my afternoon and evening looked like.

I got to the gym after a couple hours of getting myself moving and did another tempo workout.

This one looked a little something like this:

1 mile warm up (around the indoor track)
0.5 mile warm up (on the treadmill)
3 mile tempo (8:27, 8:27, 8:13)
0.5 mile jog
4 x 100 (6:58 pace at a 2% incline)
400 jog in between each
0.25 mile cool down

Total miles came out to around 6.5 miles. Right on track with the mileage I did last Monday.

Tempo Workout

I have to say my body felt strong. I was a little nervous since I did my long run the day before, but my legs were really well recovered and ready to go once I stepped on the treadmill.

I am sticking with the 8:27 pace for 3 miles until I feel that it is comfortable to me. I will slowly work it down from there until I get to the point where 3 miles at 8:00 min pace is comfortable.  I don’t know exactly how long it will take but my guess is a few months.

Tempo Final Workout

After I am able to do that comfortably I will begin increasing the distance of my tempo runs.  It’s a slow and gradual process but I’m excited to finally feel like I’m getting back in the groove again.

 

After I finished up my workout I headed over to talk to a physical therapist. I wanted to learn a few exercises to work on my increased lumbar lordosis.


What is increased lumbar lordosis?

Increased lumbar lordosis

(source)

Increased lumbar lordosis occurs when the lumbar region of your back is arched to the point of muscle pain or spasms.

 

I’ve been noticing pain in my lower back a lot more recently lately.  Especially after I have finished running.  Wes mentioned that it seemed like my lower back had a bit too much curve in it.

After speaking with the physical therapist she agreed and gave me a few tips for helping to get rid of this. Generally, increased lumbar lordosis is caused back weak core muscles.  There was no fighting that.   When you tighten your core your back automatically straightens out.

You can see the difference just from contracting my abdominal muscles.  An easy thing you can do to start out is try to focus on keeping your abdominals flexed while you are running or just walking around.  This allows you to make it habit.

The other main exercises I have to focus on are obviously ab work and increasing the strength in my lower back.  I’m actually planning on keeping progress pictures to make sure it is progressing.

By fixing this it can also help improve my form which I am always working on!

 

Have you ever deal with increased lumbar lordosis?

Tell me about your Monday workout.

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