Since March, I was plagued by an adductor pain self-diagnosed (with help from my
friend L) as abdominal tendinopathy. I skipped a race in May and was down on
running, squating, and even surya namaskar. From what I read, I'd better let
time work its magic. The Chinese folk wisdom says it could take more than three
months. Two months passed and it showed no sign of relenting.
It was particularly frustrating to me because, in the wake of daily street
attacks on Asians, I was eager to go back to martial arts. The adductor pain,
however, made me feel like an invalid. L, who was nursing the same injury a few
months before me, switched to mountain-biking. I instead did some research and
decided to ruck.
I read about rucking from Mark Rifkind's (aka Rif) blog years back. It sounded
nothing special: one simply loads on his back some poundage and marches, as done
in the military. Rif must have done it for a reason, I thought. Maybe he
couldn't run due to injury or he didn't own a car to get to the trails. I was
attracted to the idea at the time but was too busy running and recovering.
Well, things changed. I needed an alternative for cardio. I used to swim, but
swimming felt inpractical in a pandemic. In a haste, I threw frugality out of
the window and ordered a ruck sack and 40 lbs of plates.
Two plates of 20 lbs arrived the last week of Apr. The afternoon of the same
day, I stuffed them in my backpack and loaded it on Tim. "Let's go for a walk."
We both noticed the huge difference between swinging a 20lbs kettlebell and
carrying the same amount of weight on the back. The latter felt much more
stressful on the shoulders. The kid took to it well, however. Since then, We've
been rucking almost everyday.
[Recently, I was inspired by some amazing mushroom hunters in north-east China.
At a body weight of 120 lbs, one could carry 100+ lbs of goods for three hours
through the mountains.]
Sunday morning, I revisited the podcast where Pavel talked with Tim Ferriss
about strength training. I relearnt of Plutarch's observation that the training
of a soldier and that of an athlete are radically different. The athlete has the
luxury of a pampered lifestyle and the soldier doesn't. I should've realized
that a long time ago. The point sounds obvious once pointed out but I wonder how
often do we reflect on its truth, let alone acting it out with practice.
Fri May 14, 2021, the 64-year-old Rifkind recorded
45lb ruck
5 laps
3 miles
45 min
BW 177.6
BF 13.7
Sun, May 16, 2021, I carried 40lbs for about 70 minutes over four miles. I
sweated but afterwards the muscles felt no burn at all. I guess the kettlebell
swings and running up Mission Peak prepared me well for rucking.
