I pulled out of the Newport-Bermuda Race last week.  It was a hard decision, but certainly the right one.  The Newport-Bermuda Ocean Race is definitely full contact sailing.   I think my back could handle it, but being on the foredeck for 3-6 days depending on wind probably isn’t the best plan.  The races starts off Newport, RI on June 15th so maybe I’ll go watch the start.  And I’m already signed up for the 2014 race so my day will come.

Here are some shots of the race.

Instead, it’s time to put Pressure in the water with Buck’s help!  There isn’t all that much work to do to her so I’m psyched.

Cheers, w

I am sooo pumped.  I spend all of last week in NYC with a group of therapists and am overjoyed with how my body is currently functioning!!  It’s not ready for racing, but it’s finally working.  Now I have a dream team between IPA in NYC, Perfect Postures in Newton, and Diamond Chiropractor in Boston.  I am meeting up with Perfect Postures and Diamond today to keep hammering this thing home.

Last week right now, I was in a bit of a panic.  My psoas still wasn’t properly firing and from my last post you can see just how pathetically small my left leg was and is.  Not idea. 

Over the last week in NYC Greg Johnson, Dean Hazama, and Brad Gilden  got my psoas muscle firing properly.

This is the psoas, and in my opinion, the most important skeletal muscle in the human body.  It is where everything comes from.  Without this guy you can’t use your leg, at all.  And when I was in NYC we got it working again, hallelujah.  I’m sooo pumped.  So this is what we worked on in NYC:

Tuesday with Gregg and Brad:

• pelvic girdlel, coccyx, sacrum, and pelvic bone
• mobilizing psoas – getting it to initiate contractions

Wednesday with Gregg and Dean:

• Breaking down ski positions (lateral positions)
• dissecting alignment in both positions (right and left footed turns) working from feet up
• correcting foot ankle position by soft tissue and some manipulation
• working on fibular head and soft tissues surrounding (old injury from 2007)

Thursday with Dean and Brad:

• Integrating all of those movement to get muscle firing sequence
• Soft tissue of Tailas, ankles and calfs
• lower back manipulation and soft tissue work working on a more natural walk

Friday with Dean:

• Worked psoas and proper pelvis movements.  Also freed up left shoulder
• Went over exercises to do without them around (I have been doing 3-4 minute psoas firing every two hours while I’m awake and it’s still firing nicely!!!)

Time to get ready for the sesaon!!!

w

I just saw this video and totally loved it.

It’s Ace Mackay-Smith winning as a ski in 1992.

Cheers from San Diego, w

I’m off to Boston in an hour to go to Perfect Postures and do a workout with them.  My back has been struggling the last couple days so I’m fired up to see those guys.  I did something to it yesterday that got it pretty inflamed, which is not all that sweet, especially since I don’t know what did it.   I kinda feel like my late grandfather right now.  Backing up in a car, I’m just using mirrors – never a good plan.  Not awesome haha.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Aaron has to say.  It held up pretty well thru JOI considering.  That was an amazing event.  I have a post to come from JOI and my four days in Zermatt, Switzerland before it.

After my workout at Perfect Postures, I’m off to the YES! (Youth Enrichment Services) event meeting with kids and then going to the YES! Gala sponsored by T2, my biggest sponsor.  It should be super fun.  We had a great time last year hanging out with younger inner city athletes that have the same skiing fever we do.   Check out their website for more info on YES!   YES! is a non-profit started in 1968 to give youth a chance by taking city kids off the street corners and let them ski down a mountain.

Cheers, w

Newton, MA – When I left Vail, CO, I made a shift in my rehab plan.  For the first couple months of my injury, I was at Howard Head focusing on strengthening my inner core muscles surrounding my spine, getting my left leg, psoas, glute max, and piriformis firing properly while keeping a high level of fitness so I could bounce back and salvage my season.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t rebounding as quickly as I hoped.

Upon realization of my futile effort to get back in the gate ASAP, I was referred to Aaron Brooks of Perfect Posture in Newton, MA – thanks to Tyler Gannon for the introduction -  to try to get my body straight again.  When I arrived my hips were twisted from left to right making me look 10 degrees that direction if I closed my eyes and let my body relax.  Rather than focusing on strengthening my left leg and core, I have completely gone back to the basics.  For the past two months, I have religiously been doing two workouts a day that average 30 minutes each session.

Unfortunately, we don’t have images from the first day I arrived at Perfect Postures, but these are from last week.  As you can see my back is sagging to the left so I have been doing these corrective exercises.  I am significantly straighter now than when I arrived so I’m totally fired up about how it’s going.

This injury has given me a chance to make a big difference in my alignment.   I have always had problems at the top of my left footed turn because my hip mobility wasn’t letting my body line up properly on my left footers, which made me lean in a little as my hips weren’t switching from side to side very well.  This has been an issue that I really haven’t been able to tackle until now.   Once I’m lined up, I will start hamming harder workouts and strengthening my left leg as it’s still comparatively very weak.

Here are some exercises, I have been hammering out.

Doing some upper spinal twists.  I love this one!

Doing some kneeling wall exercises that are far more challenging than they look.

And a little door squat action!

Thanks to Perfect Postures and Aaron for committing to my alignment.  This is us chilling after a posture session.

Cheers. w

Santa Monica, CA – Movember known for “Changing the Face of Men’s Health” and putting nasty – or really ridiculously awesome – mustaches on men around the world for the month of November is an impressive cause.  Originating in Australia, these guys have raised $174 million since 2003.

They nearly have exponential growth functions demonstrated in these graphs – insane.

What is Movember really about?
Not only is it about having an epic mustache, it is a month long fundraiser that is designed to raise funds for the awareness of men’s health issues by supporting prostate cancer programs and other cancers affected by men worldwide.  It’s about people feeling good and obviously looking good for a cause.

United States Movember Headquarters:

The U.S. Headquarters – in Santa Monica, California – is about as low key as you can get.  It doesn’t even look like an office from outside.  The way the wood paneling on the 7 foot fence is set up you can barely tell there is a door.  The only thing that gives it away is a 3 inch by 1/2 an inch Movember sticker on a door bell/intercom looking system that is partially pealed off.  This is a pic of the same sticker:

Once inside the 12 member staff was small and all about efficiency which is exactly what I expect from any well run non-profit.  Here are few shots from inside.  In my opinion, any extra overhead costs are taking dollars away from the cause so it was great to see such a sweet group of men and women working with no more space than they need.

Here is a look at part of the office.  I wish I took a picture of the other side where people were working in tighter quarters.

JJ Owen with the best skateboard ever!

Why the axe?  Because it’s sweet!!  I’m pretty bummed I got sick of my beard and mustache two days earlier.

The Mustache station with part of the crew!

Pretty psyched about the sweet Mo goodie bag they gave us.  My favorite part is the iphone case and the Mo shoes. Sick.

I have to give a shout out to Mike Janyk and the Canadian Men’s Ski Team for showing me how Movember works three years ago.  Here is a shot of their team looking dapper as ever after 21 days!  The way it works is you shaver your entire face on November 1st and just let the magic commence.

All I know is that I’m already fired up for next Movember!!!

Thanks to Adam, JJ, and Ellie for making it such a sweet day in L.A.

South Boston, MA – When I flew into Boston this morning, I knew Charles had left my father’s truck at the intersection of E Street and First a couple days ago after using it for nearly a month.   E Street is my favorite place to leave a car because it’s free and there aren’t any street cleaning closures, ever.  It’s perfect to dump it there for weeks and even months on end.  I took the Silver Line since I didn’t have any skis and walked nearly a mile with my two roller bags getting more and more nervous each step as there was construction at the intersection of E and 1st.

When I could finally see the truck was still there; I was overjoyed.  I just hated the idea of walking any further with my roller bags as I was overly pumped about only spending 2 dollars to make it all the way there.

And yes, this is what the sign said in front of it.   Charles, you’ll be happy to know that I was nervous for the first time after letting you borrow it.  I’m just happy it wasn’t towed.  I wonder if that was there when you parked it haha!

Whistler, British Columbia, Canada – In 2010, Dane Spencer and I raced almost the entire Europa Cup Circuit under the name Dreamin the Life (DTL).  We certainly weren’t living the dream; we were taking extra food at breakfast and traveled with a food box filled with coffees, olive oil, pepper, cheese, cookies, crackers, and anything else we either won or found on the road to save money.  But last week, I definitely was on the other side: living the dream.  I flew up to Whistler for the Director’s Cup (DISC), which is a super fun event with a lot of business men and women that come together for great food, great times, and some ski racing pro style.  Upon arrival it was dumping so we skied Whistler for a day in blizzard conditions, then went heli skiing for two days, before the DISC commenced with time trials and some racing on a flat, straight, 20 second very open paneled slalom course.  The whole thing was epic.  For me it was great to get on snow in a very easy, simple racing environment and be able to get some confidence racing again. My back ached a bit, but I think it was really good for it.  Here are some shots from day one of Heli skiing (my first time, btw):

It was 8:00 AM and time to get dialed in!!

We had a sick group.  Manny, Tim, Chris, and I were just having way too much fun.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Santa Claus even showed up for lunch after sending it off a little jump and packing it in.

What a crew.  Thanks Julie for the sick shots!

Kelly, Chris, Andrew, Annabelle, Julie, me, Manny, and Tim had a perfect blue bird day.  Thanks for making it all happen Tim.

After we got back, Tim asked Manny and I if we wanted to go again since some of the group was fired up for more heli action.  Tim, a director of DISC, had a bunch of stuff to do so he couldn’t make it.  We both said, “No, thanks.  That’s OK. We have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow as well.”  Then we looked at each other and thought, “what the f%$# are we thinking.  Heck yeah I wanna go again!”  We just had the best day ever rolling in a B3 A-Star with two groups of 4 and lapped for 13 runs skiing some where around 26,000 feet of vertical.   It was the best day of skiing in my entire life so I certainly wanted to go do that again.  Day 2 wasn’t blue bird, but it was still the second best day of skiing I’ve ever experienced!   There is nothing quite like Heli skiing – that’s all I can say.  Here are some shots of day 2 thanks to super camera women Kelly VanderBeek:

Steep and Deep!

Nick ripping on his new hip

Manny Osborne-Paradis loving the pow!!  He also has a back injury that is sidelining him.  We had a great group of injured skiers haha.

There’s no doubt Annabelle is loving the powder!!

Christian catching some unexpected air off a small tree.

Andrew’s true passion is powder skiing.  Every time I saw him all week he had just come off the mountain.  On his 50th birthday, in that 24 hours, he had 101 heli drop offs in Alaska.

Kelly VanderBeek ripping some fresh pow!!

Kelly explained how the only way she could ski right now – coming back from a knee injury – is on untracked perfect powder.  Everything else irritates her knee.  Skiing on that snow was magical.

Our ride home.

The crew.

Some serious Glory!!!  Thanks so much to everyone that made the week just soo sick!!  Since this post was so long I’m going to do another one later about flying private.

Cheers.  w