Thursday night, June 29, 2017.
I made a conscious decision to not play pickleball though it would have been very easy to make it happen. I can feel pain in my knees (particularly my right one) when walking up stairs—I typically take them two at a time—and I can still feel my hips, but they are a bit better. I need the time off to recoup, unfortunately. Plus I don’t want to be in too bad of a shape to play in softball game tomorrow night.
Brommer
Photos of the new permanent courts were posted to the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club website today. They look great!
Night Game (Friday, June 30)
Now, you might be thinking pickleball, but no. My softball team had a 9 p.m. game. I could feel my right glute muscle and I was a little stiff. The most eye-opening event of the evening—for me, at least—was while I had swapped myself from left field to center field.
A grounder was hit toward our shortstop. It whizzed past him and I was backing him up. The ball was coming and I was closing on it. We’re talking maybe 3 seconds from the time the ball was hit to the time I was in position to get it. I leaned down to stop it with my glove and “NO!”. That was my back talking. My back just wouldn’t give. It was as if I had a back brace on that kept me from full range of motion. The glove didn’t get down far enough and the ball just kept going. Fortunately, my brother John (playing left field) was backing me up backing up the shortstop and he was able to make a play on the ball. Still, I was shocked. What happened?
Later, I tried touching my toes. Back when I was running track in high school, I could just reach the ground with my knuckles—not the first row, the second row. Now, in my attempt, there might have even been a foot—a foot!—between the end of my fingers and my toes. ACK! No wonder. If that’s my range of motion, that’s horrible!
I realized I have to improve my flexibility. A lot more stretching!!
Oh, and we did win the game. We’re in sole possession of 1st place in our league at 3-0. Pretty nice. Especially since we won only two games all of last season and one was a forfeit!
Hobbling (Sunday, July 2)
Another day of no pickleball. Boy. My hips were really hurting. It was painful to get in and out of my car. And even getting out of bed. Not excruciating, but definitely very uncomfortable.
I posted a question on the Facebook Pickleball Forum as follows:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1340630926008388/permalink/1574686709269474/
“Ok, you doctor/nurse/PT people. For some me reason, recently, pickleball is hurting my 49-year-old hips. I play hard, so that probably stresses my body a bit. (I’ve even ended up on the ground a few times in the last 6 months.)
Are there stretches I can do? Or other advice?
(Aside from just taking it easy—which I’m doing, but I want to get back to playing!)”
There were plenty of interesting suggestions. Most involved stretching. I read up online about the piriformis (they connect your pelvis to the top of your femurs). Other suggestions were proper shoes (I should be good there), compression shorts, getting an X-ray/MRI to see if I need my hips replaced, taking zinc magnesium the night before playing, restorative yoga (yeah, stretching), core strengthening, sciatica, get the book “Pain Free” by Pete Egoscue. I’m going to start with stretching and see where that takes me.
Monday, July 3
Today the pickleball club is having a celebration game day at the new Brommer courts followed by the big BBQ at noon. Being that moving is uncomfortable, I’m not playing. Another missed opportunity to play and have fun with my other pickleball addicts.
4th of July
While at my family’s annual big family gathering for Independence Day, I talked to my Aunt Gail, who is a chiropractor, about my hips. (She was the valedictorian of her class. Smart cookie.) After I explained what was going on, she said she’d be happy to see me for a consultation. I had her look at my neck about 10 years ago when I was scheduled to compete in bagpiping and was having shoulder/neck issues. She did some adjustments and while I can’t be certain it helped—it did improve—it definitely did not hurt. We’ll see how things go and I might have her check me out. But my hips are already improving some. I can get in and out of a car without noticeable pain, which is great!
Wednesday, July 5, 2017 (Court Day #41)
This morning, my niece Clarissa, in town for the big family gathering for the 4th and my parents’ 50th anniversary celebration, took me, my son Nicholas and his friend Casey to U.C. Santa Cruz to their west field gym to show us some exercises. Clarissa is no stranger to a gym and is in very good shape. (She currently has an Instagram account called “leanlenz”, you can look it up.) We did that from about 9:15 until about 10:45. We did some work with weights and some core exercises. It was mostly “show” with some “do”. When we finished up I felt I was feeling good enough to play some pickleball. Not 100%, but workable.
I got to Derby Park shortly after 11 a.m. and played a few games with a couple of women from Walnut Creek (‘Sharri” and “Cinnamon”) and Janet (Bruce’s wife). I was the best player on the court, though Janet is coming along, for sure.
While breaking down the net shortly after noon, Janet mentioned that she was going to be back at 6 p.m. to do some drills and wanted some people to work with. I told her that I have relatives in town but I might be able to make it. I found out later than my wife and daughter would be gone from the house (on a sailboat) until about 7:45 and there was no plan for any extended family activities for visiting relatives.
Drill Night
Shortly after work closing time (6 p.m.)—I only put in about 3 hours today—I raced home, changed, and headed back to Derby.
There were Janet, Sharri, Cinnamon, and Mara. Almost immediately after I arrived, Mara said her knee was telling her that her time was up and she left.
We did a number of drills that Janet had printed of from a website: split-stepping on opponent’s contact, directional dinking, a few others.
After 7 p.m., Eric’s woman friend—the one who started a few months ago—showed up too, returning us to five players.
We did a dinking game for a bit, rotating in upon errors. Then we switched to allowing drives after the fourth dink, again rotating out whomever made an unforced error. Janet and I were of a mind that whomever served up a winner by hitting a dink too high should be out. Sharri was convinced it should be the person who couldn’t return a smash/drive off the bad dink. It was an exercise in futility in trying to change Sharri’s mind.
We did a variety of drills then about 30 minutes before leaving we switched to playing a game where whenever someone made an unforced error, the 5th person took over that player’s spot. I’d like to say that I never rotated out, but I spent my time on the sideline just like everyone else. Maybe not quite as often as some, but I was there nonetheless.
We played until about sunset at 8:45. We had enough light to put away Janet’s net, make sure we hadn’t left anything and head out without tripping. It was a helpful evening, though I could have used more than 10 minutes of work on the hardest shot in the game—the 3rd shot drop!
Number of days on a court: 41
Number of total hours: 116.5
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