#compensating

Ah. They are eating a chicken.

“Doodling while I listen to the teacher, re-reading material 3 to 4 times, and quizzing myself with flash cards are all good methods I use.”

“My memory isn’t quite as bad as Alvin’s, but I have no concept of time passing and I rely on a lot of reminder notes and my calendar app.”

(The whole thing is worth reading, but the part below is what punched me in the gut)

Emphasis added

...In May of 2010, Chris Solinsky, a muscular, powerful distance runner, ran 26:59 for 10,000 meters, breaking the American record in his first attempt at the distance. I was a freshman in college at the time. I wound and rewound that video. I watched it with my brother. We were astounded. Solinsky instantly became a star. That same year, Track & Field News interviewed him. When they asked, “How have you stayed injury free,” Solinsky said: “I’d say luck has a bit to do with it because I’ve trained pretty stupidly in the past, like I’ve just tried to push the limit as far as possible.” He continued: “Even when I tore my PCL last year the muscles around my knee were strong enough to hold it where my PCL almost wasn’t doing any work anyway. So even if I do get injured—knock on wood—it seems the body can compensate and help me keep training.”

A year later, after nearly three months of running weeks that totaled 120 or more cumulative miles, Solinsky tripped over his dog while walking down the stairs. Ninety percent of his hamstring tore right off his pelvic bone. He was never the same. In 2016, after years of trying to get back to the same Olympic-caliber shape of those previous years, Solinsky retired from track and field for good.

After my MRI, my physical therapist watched me squat. She felt me push my leg against her hand. She pushed down on my ankle as I pushed up. She said your hamstring isn’t firing. She said your entire posterior chain is weak. She said you’ve been compensating too much. She said your quad is working more than it ever should. She said your knee is being thrown this way and that.

It is compensation that causes a repetitive stress injury. The ways my body was trying to alleviate pain were the reasons why my femur, step after step, rammed itself hard against the top of my tibia until it fractured the cartilage meant to protect that impact. So many links built along the chain of protection, and so many links broken. My quads, without my permission or knowledge, became the dominant force of my upper legs. They overfired. They pushed and pulled my knee this way and that. They tried to do too much, to carry the whole load. They failed. They couldn’t do it anymore. They had to stop. They were a steam engine burnt out, smoke fogging up the tracks. It was compensation that ended Chris Solinsky’s career.