Off road.

As you all know, i've been suffering a bit with general aches and pains especially my niggling left groin which has been steadily getting worse and started to affect my hip. Started getting nasty headaches again over the past few days so last night I decided to do something about it and reassess my training and find a new strategy for dealing with injuries.  I know I should probably see a specialist sports therapist but (probably foolishly) i'm very independent (as well as tight when it comes to shelling out things like that!) so I want to know i've tried everything I possibly can on my own before I go down that route.

  

I started by having a warm bath to completely relax and try to clear my mind of any rubbish that has been going around it recently, then the last 10 minutes I topped it up with freezing cold water!  It took my breath away, but when i got out I found that the pain in my hip had eased a bit
This morning on my training plan was supposed to be a 30 minute easy run but I thought i'd give the running a miss and head off to the gym to give my body a rest from the same old movement.  I began with a 5 minute slow warm up on the cross trainer before upping it for 10 minutes before a 20 minute session of hills on the bike.  My hip was still a bit sore after this so I headed to the pool next for a gentle swim and some underwater hip stretches.  This did help a bit so I went for the foam roller when I got home - now, that really hurt! Concentrated all around the painful hip and a long session on both quads and hamstrings then jumped in the shower for some more freezing cold therapy.  But at the end of all that hell my hip felt a hundred times better so it seems that self torture is the way to go!

Tomorrow, I'm due for a 50 minute tempo run session but i'm going to do a spin class instead so that way i'll get the same cardio workout but without aggravating my hip too much!