Monday, December 14, 2009

Volleyball's Lexi Sullivan: Surgery and The Recovery Process

Lexi Sullivan will be writing a blog as she works her way back from an injury she suffered against Idaho State in the fall.

Waking up at six to go to the hospital was not a fun time. My friend Noel Guevara on the soccer team went with my mom and I. I was not that nervous for surgery, I was more nervous for what I would feel when I woke up. It took the nurses four stabs to find my little veins and then came the leg block. What a weird feeling that was! I got a numbing shot in my groin so they would make the feeling in my leg go away for 48 hours, and I am so glad I did it because when I woke up I did not feel my knee or hamstring at all. Instead, I was extremely nauseous from the anesthesia and had to stay there until two.

Sleep was my favorite thing for the next four days thanks to the Oxycodone that I was on for the pain. The third day was the worst though. The pain was terrible. I could not even get up and crutch to the bathroom without wanting to cut my leg off. I had to start bending the day after surgery to start to get my range of motion back, which did not feel too good either. Ice was also a continuous thing to try to get the swelling down. Then came the quad….or I should say the non-existing one. It looked almost as if my muscle had deflated. There was nothing there! I would try to flex during therapy and there would be NO movement. Talk about frustrating when you see what it used to look like on my other leg. I had to get stim treatment to try and get my muscle to wake up again.

It was also getting a lot harder to watch the sport I love. Especially because our last three matches were away so all I could do was watch and hope they could pull out a win against one of the top three teams in the conference. I have never wanted to play so bad in my life.

I am at six weeks now, but it seems like my injury was forever ago. I get new exercises in therapy every week but the wait to get better is not a fun one. All I want to do is run and jump around but I have another three months until I can run and even longer until I can jump. The one thing I have learned since sitting out is how easy the game is. When you are forced to watch your sport for a long period of time you notice things you never understood or saw before. I can completely see why coaches get so frustrated with their players now because unforced errors should hardly ever happen. It is just you, a ball, and six people trying to stop you from winning. Just six, and there will always be a chance to score if you are smart about it.

Injuries are difficult, but playing the game, that’s easy!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Road to Omaha: December 4, 2009..925 days until Olympic Trials

After getting approval from Steve to continue to write up my blog, here is the workout from yesterday afternoon.

SCM (Short Course Meters)

4x following for warm up

50 free, 25 dolphin kick on my back, 50 free, 25 breaststroke kick (900)

3x the following

2x25 with an inner tube around ankles freestyle

4x25 build

2x25 breaststroke with excellent breakouts. (600)

Main Set

4x (4x100s on 1:45)

#1 – All Free

#2 – 50 Free 50 Breaststroke

#3 – All Free

#4 – 75 Free 25 Breaststroke (1600)

200 nice and easy

4x150s with fins and paddles

50 freestyle breathing every 5 strokes, 50 backstroke, 50 freestyle breathing every 5 strokes.

200 easy for warm down

Total – 4100 meters.

Today, Friday December 4, 2009, is a dry-land day again, same abdominal workout as Wednesday.

Saturday, I will be swimming in the morning before NAU practice. Should be exciting!

See you at the pool!

Dave

Coach Rollins’ Road to Omaha

Today, December 2, 2009 officially started my comeback into the world of competitive swimming. The ultimate goal is to qualify for the 2012 USA Swimming Olympic trials in Omaha Nebraska. This will be a challenge as I will be not only training for my specialty event the 100 meter breaststroke, but also adding in the 50 meter and 100 meter freestyle. I have given this a lot of thought and been in and out of the water for the past year working on my stroke mechanics and I feel that I am at a place where I can start to commit more of myself to the water. The largest setback has always been my own body. From years of torture and pressure my knees are extremely weak. I had surgery on my left knee last year, and it is feeling great. The right knee is weak and I am consistently going to physical therapy to strengthen it. Unfortunately, I believe that I might have to get surgery on that one as well. We will see.

It has been a struggle making this decision. My wife, Caroline, has always told me she will support me in whatever it is I want to do. My family has also always supported my efforts. The coaches that I have asked to help me train are some of the best in the country. My father-in-law will be sending me workouts from Cincinnati, Ohio and I will be training in the afternoons when not coaching or working to better the Lumberjacks.

The reality started a couple weeks ago when I competed in a Masters swimming meet in Tempe Arizona and swam three lifetime best times. This includes my time as a swimmer at The University of Arizona. I thought to myself that if I can swim that fast with only a minimal workload, I can probably get back to the Trials.

I will be writing blogs daily about workouts and how my progress is going.

Today was my first dry-land workout followed by a light swim. The dry-land workout consisted of the following:

50 crunches, 50 crunches to the right, 50 to the left, 50 med-ball leg raises.

2x the following

20 stretch cord fly pulls, 25 full sit ups with the med-ball under my chin

20 stretch cord triceps extension, 50 side to side med-ball touches

20 stretch cord biceps curls, 1:00 of flutter kick on back

3x the following

5 pull ups, 15 over the edge leg raises

Afterwards got into the pool and swam a nice easy 1,000.

This was a good start. I am looking forward to getting a good swim in tomorrow and probably going around 5,000 meters.

Thank you all for the support!

See you at the pool!

Dave Rollins