#posturalrestoration

I like to start my New Year’s resolutions on my birthday, mostly because that December-January transition is pretty hectic, and I am rarely home so I feel I have too little control over my environment. Also, the gym crowd has died off by March.

So here we are. It’s March 1st.

I thought I’d be ready to start running by now. I thought I’d be ready to start writing about it by now. I thought I’d be set to resume my long swims and chronically my journey to my first Ironman. But my shoulder, while better, is still iffy. And that ischial tuberosity? It’s still a pain in the ischial.

So do I continue to rest my body? Or do I forge ahead with a strengthening regime? Or shall I give my alignment PT a serious go and stop making excuses?

I know option C is the best choice. But here— first, let me present my excuses:

Frankly, these PT exercises are not your usual PT exercises. I’m good at the usual PT exercises — the squats, the clams, the rows, the presses. Give me bands, weights, balls, whatever. Those, I love. Those, I’ll do all day long and then again after supper.

But these... These are boring. They are static. They are subtle. And they are hard. Not just physically, but mentally. I have to think about half a dozen things as I try to breath deeply to get my muscles to play nice again, to restore my posture.

Postural restoration. I have to restore my posture or things will keep getting hurt.

In the past 3 years, I’ve strained my right glute, right hip flexors, right hams, left calves, and left shin. My right navicular is perpetually unhappy. My left navicular occasionally joins the pity party. I’ve had plantar fasciitis in both feet, been alarmed by a huge bulge to the right of my left Achilles, and then blew out both posterior tibials with tendinitis. I keep having a pinched nerve down my right arm, extending from my C2, and my left clavicle has been an intermittent source of grief and heartbreak.

And now its this weird issue around my left ischial tuberosity that started as an upper hamstring problem, then migrated medially until it felt like it was the perineum itself that had been strained. “Bursitis,” my DO/MD/ND says. But he also said that about my left shoulder, and I’m beginning to wonder if he just really enjoys giving shots.

“You should stop running” is what I never want to hear. But I have taken lots of time off. I do the PT squats/clams/lunges. I heal. I start running...and the demon appears in new places. But its the same demon. I know it is. It’s the same problem taking on a new form

So I’m hunting for Ground Zero. I gotta get to the root of the problem.

And running itself is not the problem. I ran for years without problems. I started walking again, after 11 years on a cane (but mostly in bed) in 2008. I went for my first walk/run in 2010. And there were no problems. I mean, I sprained my ankle once in 2011, but after a few months, I resumed running And everything was fine.

Then in November of 2016, I fell. Hard. I was running up a leaf-covered hill and Tripped on broken sidewalk, slamming down on my left knee and right hand. I tore my glove and my pants. I sat down on the cold sidewalk and cried. I hoped a car would stop and ask if I was okay. I hoped someone would peak out of their window and invite me into their home. I considered all the people I could call to come pick me up, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling any of them.

So I started to walk the 5 or so miles back to my car. But then I started feeling better, and the walking was taking so long, so... I ran.

Later, when I called my ER doctor sister and told her what had happened, she says, “yeah, I got a diagnosis for you: you are an idiot.”

And she is right, of course. Because when I called her, it was two days later, and I had thought I would try a quick, easy run on the treadmill. It seemed to go okay until I was done and tried to get off the treadmill aaaaand my left hip flexor decided to go on strike. This eventually led to a total-hip brown out over the next few years, with my glutes leaving the team completely, forcing my TFLs to take over and the adductors falling into a stupor while everything around and below fell apart.

So now the whole Hip & Co. is undergoing a comprehensive restructuring, and no one is happy about it.

This is all background to say that starting tomorrow — the day after my 48th birthday — I will start being really disciplined about my postural restoration physical therapy. No more excuses. No more whining. I don’t care how boring it is or how how cold I get lying on the mat trying to remember which muscles I’m supposed to be recruiting where. I’m gonna do it.

Also, we are adding planks.

Let’s see how this changes the game.