Tuesday 6 October 2015

third time's the charm

As part of #life_sortout_2015, I've also been having some Physiotherapy. This is the third time I've done it (to tackle pretty much the same issues) but each time the therapist has had a completely different approach.

Firstly the focus was combating foot drop and my draggy left foot. The next time we focused on increasing strength in (and control of) my left leg. This time the focus has been on increasing core strength.

I've mentioned previously that most adults (well, me at least) just tend to sleepwalk through the amazing machine which is the human body. I know I'm guilty of taking it for granted (see: third round of Physio).

But I'm starting to see how it all links together. If I can continue to work on my core then everything else should improve.

(I must admit that talking about "my core" just feels a bit weird but bear with me while I try to sound vaguely knowledgeable...)

At my last session on Friday, we were talking about how it all ties in and I realised that we were working on Fundamentals of movement, and my Physio said this was exactly right. I think it's these things that people can get lazy about and take for granted.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I began typing this on my phone while sat twisted round in a chair with my legs crossed...

I tend to have my sessions first thing in the morning. In that way I can avoid having to take too much extra time off work for appointments - as is probably apparent, I've had a lot over the last few months. This is a good way to wake up but can be pretty knackering.

I now just need to focus on trying to fit in doing some regular work on my own at home. I've tried to involve Little Miss Domino but she says my exercises [mostly breathing slowly, tensing muscles in my guts - FOUR levels! - and trying to control steady movements of my legs] are "boring".

And I guess they are for her (FYI her suggested Yoga poses mostly involve leaping around doing combative actions and/or breakdance freezes). But my next session should be the final one of this round so I need to make sure I keep working on it, boring or not.

Use it or lose it! YOLO!* and so on and so on and so on.

* I can't believe I used Y*L* on here - I'm so very sorry.

2 comments:

  1. I've just realised that I write a lot of Y*L* post without actually using the acronym. I'm not proud of it, but there we are.

    I tend to stop doing physio exercises the minute I've stopped having physio, but one I have kept up is ankle dips off the edge of the stairs. I do this whilst using my electric toothbrush every night: 30 seconds pushing both heels down; 30 seconds dipping up and down on my left (weaker) side; 30 seconds dipping up and down on the right side; 30 seconds pushing both heels down. The idea is to both ease out the cramps I get in my calves and to flex my ankles to combat a loss of dorsiflexion. FWIW it seems to work and doing it in time to the four sections on my Oral B toothbrush means it seems to have stuck too.

    Keep it up!

    ST

    ReplyDelete
  2. your comment reminded me that i intended to mention something else in this post. like you, i'm plagued/blessed with EARWORMS and i love Stevie Wonder, especially his extraordinary run of albums from the early 70s. but one song which is in heavy rotation on my internal iPod is a song of his from the mid 80s, "Part Time Lovers".

    "Sir Duke", "Superstition", "Higher Ground", this is NOT. it isn't even a song which i own but despite not having heard it for years it's never far from the front of my mind.

    guess what was playing on the radio during my last physio session?

    cheers for the motivation, Swiss! i'll keep on it if you do!

    ReplyDelete