New year, same heel injury from last month.
The last week of December was intended for recovery from that injury.
But the real recovery week was the first one of January. The one before it was extremely packed with moving my stuff from one apartment to another and with New Year's Eve preparations.
Of course, the first week in a new apartment is not a chill one. Maybe compared to the last week of December - it was better, but it was still super busy. New job, always checking bus routes to place, buying the blanket I mistakenly threw out a couple of days before (yea...).
This is written in April, 4th. So the thoughts written here are not super fresh. Why am I so late? You can read about it here.
This post will contain both January and February - because they were kind of similar.
The only thing that went on and changed as time passed (outside of training) was that I got more and more used to my daily routine. I stopped searching for bus routes each time I needed to go somewhere. I bought a blanket and some stuff for the apartment and I grew accustomed to living in that new apartment.
On one hand, falling into a routine is good for sports. On the other hand, if that routine is very hard - it's just a matter of time until you break down. My clock started ticking on Nov, 1st when I started living on my own in Ramat-Gan.
Did I break down? Hell yeah. In mid February. That's why I feel like writing one post for these two months. Because if I would separate February from January, someone reading only February blog will have no context and may not understand why February became such a turning point.
Setting up my new life
There are lot of things you need to do when coming to a new place. Some are obvious, like buying furniture or learning the new routes to job and training. Some are less obvious - like where should you buy a gym partnership when there are dozen of gyms near you. Which one is the best?
You spend a lot of time experiencing and trying things. Like for example that gym thing, you go to multiple gyms and try them out. Buses - you try multiple lines, track riding time. With your job, you try to understand how much time certain tasks take, or how you balance that job with training and life. When do you buy groceries? What even should you buy looking a week forward? How do you make sure you are sleeping well? When should you come to work? (My work is measured by output and not hours)
All of that experiencing comes with a price.
It's not optimal for sports.
Because you are losing a lot of time, you're losing sleep. You sometimes don't eat super healthy or don't eat at all.
When doing sports - the only "figuring out" you should do is sports-related. The moment you figure out one, two, ten other things - you focus is split. Then it becomes hard to recover, fix injuries or remember your technique cues. The priority list becomes packed.
So as a background, you must understand that for both of these months - that's how my life looked. Always searching for stores, gyms, things. Always measuring everything, time, money, roommate and job dynamics. Training was always in my mind. But with it there was - setting up pension and other funds, thinking about job, learning to make certain food, etc.
All of that time I tried to give my all to training. This is not a cliche. I really tried to optimize that area of my life.
1st week of 2026 -> recovery week
Didn't run at all.
Did bike or eliptical, mobility, physio. Tried to find exercises that I felt like they improved my heel situation.
I did the classic calf stretches, classic loop band strengthening. It didn't help.
The only thing that eventually helped me was to stretch the upper part of my foot. So, the one that you don't step on. Every training, I sat on my legs, with my feet pointing upwards (touching my butt). Maybe there was a flexability imbalance between the front and back muscles connecting to my feet. Maybe, because I walked for years with high boots - my upper feet muscles were shortened. Whatever that cause for the injury was - I think that stretch is what got me out of that injury.
2nd week of Jan. -> transition from recovery to regular training
I started running on grass.
Warmup and light accelerations.
I got back to technical sprint drills like A/B/C, running with hands on wall and a loop band between legs.
I did mobility, light gym, etc.
End of Jan.
Started sprinting with resistance. Was back to jumping. Gym got heavier, more hurdle rhythm work. I got back to running and training almost normally.
A turning point?
In the end of January I got back to jumping after almost a month!
When you don't do something for a long time, you start forgetting some nuances. Sometimes, these are good cues that are a real shame to forget. That's why consistency is so important. On the other hand, sometimes you forget bad technique patterns.
In this video, something of the "forgetting bad technique patterns" started forging. I started moving my body differently. I "disconnected" the left leg from the right one and moved each one independently. Another way to explain this is - I ran from my iliopsoas. I focused on raising my hips fast rather than slamming them down fast.
I hope it makes sense.
That thought didn't enter my mind fully yet, but it was something.
Hamstring Note: Since October when I started working on my hamstring injury, I always put extra effort into my left hamstring.
The first time it appeared - I did 6 physio sessions (which I wrote more about in October and November), usually containing strong stretches, strengthening exercises and acupuncture at the end. I think the best exercises back then were Nordics and one leg deadlifts.
I felt good for at least 2 months before this injury came back. Maybe I started sitting too much and my back started hurting which impacted my hamstring. Maybe the imbalance shifted to another place in the hamstrings. I don't know. Anyways, those exercises stopped helping me. I found a good one in March but until then, I was just trying hamstring exercise variations over and over.
February
A competition was just around the corner, in Feb. 9th.
Unfortunately, that was the last competition, meaning I got to compete twice in the winter season.
1st week of Feb. -> Fast sprints, approach runs
At this point, gym was fully back. Two times a week. Just like before.
I did sprints, with and without sleds. IN and OUTs, approach runs (LJ)
I had an absolutely terrible run-up practice the weekend before the competition.
2nd week of Feb -> 2nd winter competition.
The winter season in Israel lasted about a month and a half. Which means that when I got injured, I missed about all of it.
Anyways, that competition was a disaster. I got stuck in a traffic jam, had to take a bicycle and cycled a few miles to the stadium.
I started the warmup 20 minutes late and 40 minutes before we started competing. But all of that had nothing to do with the outcome of the competition. Because I felt alright.
The run-up was just terrible. I was slow. I was blocking myself on the board.
I fouled all the jumps.
Broke down
I absolutely broke down after that competition.
Why am I working so hard if I'm so bad?
I combine full-time job, living on my own, training, everything, to just... foul all of my jumps?
I started questioning whether all of that is worth it. Should I just make my life easier and focus on my job (which I love and think I can be amazing at)?
I wrote more about that inner debate here.
These were very hard days.
Changes.
After the fall, it was time to get up again.
There is a saying that says - don't go fishing when hungry, because you might pick up the wrong, poisonous fish.
What that really means is - don't make decisions when sad, because you are not seeing things clearly.
I waited this period out. Talked with a lot of friends. Then, when I finally calmed down, I decided I need to do some big, immediate changes.
I started working more from home. I started riding less to the stadium I trained in (which was at least 1 hour bus ride each way).
Also - I watched a lot of videos from November, where it felt like I jumped there way better. I decided to try to get back to that previous running technique.
- I stopped focusing on my penultimate step so much. Thanks to that, my hip stopped falling and I was way faster on the board.
- I started separating my left leg from right leg and "running from my iliopsoas", focusing on knee lift instead of other things.
- So in my head I was "lift right leg, lift left leg, lift right leg, ... Put your hips forward...".
And I think a major change started happening since then. First, I started running better, which means the hamstring ached less. I was more effecient, I was faster.
Also - I PB'd in the clean. Finally a 100kg clean. This happened at 9:12 pm. (Terrible but work ended at 6pm. What can you do?)
To sum up, After those "40 days in the desert" from Jan 1st to Feb 9th, things started turning for the better. I may be hallucinating, because nothing of that is worth anything if I won't jump far in competition. But, it seems the right direction.
I heard someone saying that the differentiating factor between being good and being elite is the speed in which you bounce back. The speed of which you get up. You lost a game at 10pm? You better be back in the gym at 6am. I took that to heart. I try to recover as fast as possible. Looking back at February, with fresh April eyes - I did recover fast. Took me one week to come to myself but then - clean pb, new technique, talked with my job manager, coach...
By the way - if you find yourself stuck in life. If you feel like you're caged or boxed-in. What got me out is not being afraid to ask. Not being afraid to ask to work from home from my manager. Not being afraid to ask to be less in my coach's stadium and more in a one closer to my apartment. Not being afraid to fight for what I think is right.
An even bigger change came in March.
If I would need to summarize Jan and Feb:
I would say that I got into a super hard routine, which created injuries and greatly impacted my mental health. It went on and got worse and worse as time went by until everything blew up in my face on February 9th. I started re-shaping everything. One of the things that were changed was my running technique, both in long jump and in sprints. It was a very good change, and it might be the reason I'll succeed in the summer.
Also - I started working more from home. A.k.a less travelling.
Though these are big changes, they were contained. They were "to the best of my circumstances".
They were accustomed to my new reality that forged in January/February.
But in Israel, reality can completely turn upside down on an average Tuesday. Or in this case, Saturday.
On Feb 28th, US and Israel attacked Iran. And that just turned the tables completely.
