After a bad day yesterday I was hopeful for a great session in the gym and a successful start to my sixth week. No dice.

Day: 36 of 77
Date: 16/06/2013
Workout Day: 25
Weight (lb): 162.6 (9.2 lb loss)
Body Fat %: 14.3 (2.3% loss)
Health: Hip is buggered 4/10

Unfortunately I woke today with my hip even more sore than yesterday. So much for rest helping. But I faithfully took my weekly photos, made breakfast and fully intended to be able to shake off this pain for a midday workout. However within an hour my hip somehow became a lot worse, and at one point I couldn’t lift my leg when sitting. It feels almost like a trapped nerve, with pain descending into my glutes and some numbness down to my knee. As a result there was no chance of me having a proper workout. I considered swapping the leg day for chest or arms but I probably couldn’t lie on a bench or pick up a barbell or dumbbell. So I decided to just have a short but hard session of machine leg extensions and calf raises. These don’t require any hip bending so I was not hindered by my injury. My strength was definitely reduced however, which I assume is due to not being altogether connected properly and therefore not being able to properly tense my core and apply my full strength to my quads. I did 6 sets of 12 4010 reps of leg extensions which generated a few legs full of lactic acid, plus a load of calf raises, so I feel I’ve done something of use. But not much.

I’m aware that insulin is anti-inflammatory, and so in the absence of carbs I had a large protein shake to really spike my insulin and hopefully help my hip. The shake consisted of 2 x ON Gold Whey Isolate Chocolate scoops, 5g Leucine, 5g Creatine and 5g Unflavoured Whey Hydrolysate, crushed ice and water. The Whey Isolate will be insulin spiking already, but the addition of hydrolysate and leucine especially should really push it through the roof. A few hours later I ate dinner and by the time I finished eating my hip actually felt a lot better. I’ve avoided ibuprofen today so that I could tell if something else helped. I don’t know what did it, but I am significantly better now. I’m sure it’ll return but for now I’m just glad I can move around fairly normally.

I’ve no idea what the outlook will be for tomorrow. Fingers crossed a good night’s sleep will help.

This injury has the potential to really impact the overall success of this programme. It reminds me of the conversations I had with Ben Pakulski where we discussed the difficult balance between rest/recovery and gaining/losing progress. At least for me my frustration only centres around an arbitrary personal goal, and not my career and financial livelihood.

As of this morning I had also completed 5 weeks of the programme. Since I’m doing all this in 11 weeks, I now have 6 weeks left, so I’m officially at the programme’s half way point. I’ve pieced together the photos I’ve taken and I can see some positive changes, but it’s definitely not enough. I want to get a lot leaner in the next few weeks so that I can reintroduce the carbs and build some more muscle towards the end. If I do complete the programme and just look lean, then so be it, but it would certainly be nice to pack on some more muscle.