In Between Seasons

So it is May.  That's the time which marks the end of the 2012 season.  The clubs finished their open championships and they are just about to hold their club championships.  I wrapped up the league with two late but close wins.  My overall league match record is around 50%.  I'm content with the result, mostly.  I feel a pang of something not exactly regret.  I can't decide whether it is better to express it or train myself to ignore it and go on.   I am extremely happy with the training results that I put into it.  The knees feel the best in a decade.  The lower back feels loose and stable.  The neck feels likewise.  I can squad, lung, and even do a controlled split.  All of this come from the copious time I've put into core strength exercises and dedicated stretching before and after play.  The only complaints that remain are in my ankles, wrists, elbow, and shoulder.  The elbow developed a tendon misalignment of some sort as the hyper extension I had began to heal up.  I started a regiment around doing tricep and bicep curls and extensions to stabilize it.  It seems to help.

The training started out strong and perhaps too rigorously.  I got into match shape quickly.  I felt strong enough to jump on the court to play right away without warmup sets on the machines, but I felt some discomforts in the knees the day after.  I felt the effects of burnout, and recovery seems to take longer.  I decreased the reps and sets.  Now I am feeling a little more vitality on court.  The aerobic conditioning also helped in the beginning.  I advanced from during 15 minutes of intervals on the bike to 60 minutes.  Again that lasted only a month before I felt the effects of burnout.  Now I'm in the process of restarting the conditioning routine. 

Soon I will start taking some lessons and preparing a full diet and rest regiment for next season.  I have discovered that caffeine and sleep have been a great affect on my ability to focus and watch the player and the ball.  Keeping this together will be crucial going forward.