Back On The Roller Plus A Great Review Of Our Plantar Fasciitis Product, Which Says It Like It Is!

From the Lean Startup

From The Lean Startup, a great book, which taught me to constantly experiment and measure as I work to build my business. FitOldDog.

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hi folks, welcome!

FitOldDog is pissed finishing the Eagleman 2014 Half Ironman because he was forced to walk in the run.

FitOldDog is pissed – he’s mad because a tight calf messed up his run, and his race time. Photo from FinisherPix (yep, I paid; didn’t want to wait for the download to be processed).

The lean startup taught us to build an initial product and test it in the market, before attempting to make it perfect.

This is equally important when making changes to your exercise routine or fixing a sports injury!

Rebecca and I are working on making our treatment for plantar fasciitis product perfect, right now, as the experiment was a success. Just read the review below that recently arrived on Amazon, and which pretty well sums up our approach to fixing persistent cases of plantar fasciitis.

“By Warren Casey

This review is from:

FitOldDog’s Plantar Fasciitis Treatment: This System Is Based On An Understanding Of The Dynamic Nature Of Fascia (Kindle Edition)

For those of you seeking a fast, easy answer – don’t bother with this book, there is no magic bullet. In this book Dr Morgan helps you understand the underlying cause of your pain, and then offers options to help remedy the problem and the pain. But it is hard work and you have to be dedicated. I have suffered with plantar fasciitis for two years and after a month of stretching and rolling exercises recommended in the book I can say that my condition is at least 90% better. Still some minor pain in the mornings, but none after I run or later in the day. Follow the advice in this book and you have a very good chance of getting rid of your pain.

FitOldDog's plantar fasciitis landing page.

Landing page for FitOldDog’s plantar fasciitis treatment product, including (1) e-book, (2) videos, and (3) if needed, personal consultation.

As an older athlete, I have to work at keeping my body going, and recently I’ve been struggling with a tight calf muscle, which can mess up my run. I learned, at the Cleveland Clinic a few days ago, that this is unlikely to be due to claudication (impaired blood flow). This was good news, as it permits me to let go of that potential cause and focus on working on the issue with self-applied myofascial massage with my TriggerPoint Performance roller.

In the Eagleman Half Ironman last weekend, a chronically tight calf led to impaired gait, which resulted in ileo-tibial band syndrome in the opposite leg, and I was forced to walk the second half of the run. As you can see in the photo above, I proceeded to sulk like a baby.

Now I have a choice, pivot (give up Ironman) or fix it?

I say, “Fix it FitOldDog.”

I wouldn’t even put on my finisher medal, until persuaded to do so by some faithful followers on Facebook. What a baby I can be, sometimes!

Life is good!

Cheers,

Kevin aka FitOldBaby

 

Comments

  1. Glenn Jones says

    Hi Kevin,

    Over the years I have learned that part of being a top-class athlete is learning to manage expectations. I have been an Australian powerlifting champion (while completely clean) and have held national records in my heyday – which was a long time ago. I won’t bore you with the details as they are well and truly in the past, and while I am proud of what I achieved, those achievements certainly don’t define who I am today – which is an older athlete trying negotiate my way through the problems associated with a cardiac stent.

    My procedures have been minor compared with yours, yet I seem to cut myself way more slack when it comes to coping with the side-effects than you do in coping with your much greater side-effects. This led me to wonder why and to ask myself what I know about Kevin Morgan, the man and the athlete.

    I sent you several emails around the start time of the Eagleman. They were intended to convey my best wishes and to remind you that you had already achieved so much just making it to the start line. What I sensed, however, in reading your blog just prior to the start was that you are a very competitive person. Indeed, dare I suggest that, mentally (and emotionally) you are a top-class athlete locked in the body of a 70 year old suffering from the after-effects of an aortic aneurysm.

    This brings me around to the reason for my opening paragraph. Top class athletes have to manage expectations. They train hard, follow their program to the letter, taper carefully, and turn up on the day to put in a big performance, only to sometimes have things go ‘pear-shaped’. As Robbie Burns once wrote –

    But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
    In proving foresight may be vain:
    The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
    Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
    For promis’d joy”.

    In my usual long-winded way, I suppose I am reminding you to be more gentle with yourself. Rudyard Kipling once wrote:

    If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;

    You had several triumphs and a minor setback at Eagleman (no, not even a disaster!). You got to the start and you finished – two very important triumphs. Your calf seized up – a minor setback that did not get in the way of your second triumph of finishing, so it hardly meets the definition of a “disaster”. But the calf problem was not unexpected and you foreshadowed it in training. It was always going to present a potential issue and yet you still managed to finish. Then you decided to turn a triathlon into a one-man quad-athlon by ‘beating’ yourself up and reverting to your childhood.

    I sense that visualisation is very important to your performance. Anyone who can ride an spin bike indoors while looking at a wall must be able to go somewhere else in his head. You need to learn to visualise not only how you will run triumphantly across the finish line, but how you will deal with predictable and unpredictable setbacks. Top class athletes need to do this in their prime. We more mature types need to be experts in it. It is all part of that old adage that, “Prior planning prevents pi** poor performance.” And by “performance” I don’t restrict myself to athletic performance.

    Anyway, feel free to take whatever you want from the above. You have retained my admiration, while proving that you are, like the rest of us, still human.:) So what is your next ‘finish line’?

    Very best regards,

    Glenn Jones

  2. Hi Glenn!

    Writing to you was on my jobs list for today, as I hadn’t heard from you in a while, but I see no sign of those e-mails. I’ll look again. I was starting to worry about you, in fact – isn’t that strange, when we’ve never met, but in many ways we have.

    Your quotes from ‘Ti A Mouse’ and ‘If’ are à propos, as I know each well.

    I was elected to read To a Mouse, in the original dialect, at the local Penicuik Toast Master’s Society annual Hogmanay bash, in Scotland, back in the late 1970s. It was extremely difficult. This was followed by a recitation of Tam o’Shanter by a local Scot – remarkable.

    The poem, If, provides a standard for living well, to which I aspire but cannot reach. It does present a wonderful guidebook, however. For all my meditation on living in the Now, I still falter, which I did during that race. I got so mad, which may in small part have been due to not eating (why eat if your just walking? To avoid hypoglycemia, naturally, a known trigger for anger), and in large part due to disappointment and frustration.

    I have always loved one sport or another, from water polo in my teens, through martial arts in my 40s, to triathlons later in life, but I was never ‘world class.’ I just live each sport for the joy of it. I suspect that my suffering from mild rickets as a kid was a life-time setback for performance, or I didn’t meet the right mentor, but now I have one in you. Thanks for setting me back on the right emotional road.

    I love the theme of your message, which I think may work my next book title:

    “Learn to manage expectations for successful aging.” or some such pithy phrase.

    In fact, I think that I will blog about that today (or tomorrow, training permitting).

    When I finished, Greg, the neophyte and essentially ‘the karate kid to my Mr. Miyagi,’ but in his 40s, was so delighted with his performance that my mood became worse, especially as he insisted on our having a photo together. When my mood plummets like that, which is rare, I undertake an internal struggle as I know the mood will pass, but it is hard to shake off in the heat of the moment.

    Within an hour or two I was fine, settled my bet with Greg, in the form of a delightful crab dinner with Greg and Tara (both friends), and by the next morning I was chipper again.

    Aging is tough, but I suspect that you and I have one thing in common, we don’t plan ‘to go gently into that dark night,’ living our lives to the full to the end. Hell no! Life is to be lived, not wasted.

    Thanks so much for your support.

    My next race is Mont-Tremblant Ironman, August 17th (the clock is ticking down under the ‘Training Diary’ tab at the top of this blog), and I suspect that now I know that claudication is not the underlying cause of my calf issue, from my recent visit to the Cleveland Clinic, I can fix it with appropriately aggressive and carefully applied myofascial massage.

    Let’s see how I handle my race and my mood in August, and if I handle it well,

    The Earth and everything that’s in it, will be mine,
    And—which is more—I’ll be a Man, my friend!

    Kindest regards,

    Kevin

    PS Oh! Yes! We have another thing in common. We can both be long-winded, but there is more to expressing oneself well than a tweet. Then again, one of my favorite quotes, by a mathematician, is this letter, it being the entire letter, “If I’d had more time, I’d have written a shorter letter.”

  3. Deb wants to know where you live in Australia, being that she is Australian to the core, because you wants us to get a beer together next time we’re in the Antipodes. Just thought I should pass that along. Thanks so much for caring. -k

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Disclaimer: As a veterinarian, I do not provide medical advice for human animals. If you undertake or modify an exercise program, consult your medical advisors before doing so. Undertaking activities pursued by the author does not mean that he endorses your undertaking such activities, which is clearly your decision and responsibility. Be careful and sensible, please.