September progress report

Wooo good update this month.  🙂 🙂

What’s Going On?

Recovery continues to kick major ass.   I still have to watch what I do (or, more accurately, how much of it I do), but my activity level is now at a “really lazy person” level instead of “90 year old woman” level.

What I Can Do:

I’m still at the point where I can do activities about every third day (i.e. 2 days of rest after any activity).  I feel tantalizingly close to upping that to every other day.  Maybe next month!

Exercise:

• Doing Couch to 5K, on average once a week.  This makes for slow progress (you’re “supposed” to do three runs a week) but it’s still progress!
• I’m doing 20-second planks every night.  When I first started, about two weeks ago, I had a really hard time.  I would shake so badly after about 15 seconds that I could barely hold myself up.   Now I can do the whole 20 seconds with marginal discomfort.  I’m thinking of upping my time to 30 seconds this week.
• Personal trainer!! I’ve started with Melinda, a personal trainer who works at the Apple Fitness Center.  We’re going to meet for an hour once per week and work on strengthening my back muscles (and just shake the rust off of my body in general).   Our first session was last Thursday and it went really well.  I was a little sore afterwards, but no big flare-ups! We’re doing bodyweight stuff only: mostly dynamic stretches like walking lunges with some light push/pull/squat work added in.

Still no public skating this month.  Like last month, this was due to scheduling difficulties more than my ability or lack thereof.  Right now my plan is to focus on the motorcycle until it starts raining; I’ll switch my focus to skating over the winter.

I rode the red Ninja for 24 miles over the weekend (as mentioned in my previous blog post).  I really didn’t have any trouble with it; my back got a little sore in one hilly residential area that was slow and twisty, but that’s just re-training the muscles.

What I Can’t Do:

I’m still trying not to carry much.  I carried cats one at a time from the car into the vet’s for their annual checkups, which made me a little sore, but no flare-up.  That’s definitely the limit of what I can carry.

No hockey.

No added weights while working out (i.e. bodyweight only).

What I’m Doing About It:

All the stuff under “exercise” listed above — as my back muscles strengthen, a lot of my remaining issues should hopefully lessen/go away.

I get massage therapy at least every two weeks.  People seem jealous about this.  These aren’t spa massages!  I usually cry at least once per session.  It hurts like crazy….but it really helps loosen up the fascia and knots in the muscles.

Warm baths with epsom salts help sometimes.  About a half of a glass of wine almost always helps.

I do a lot of self-massage with tennis balls, trying to break up the trigger points that have formed in my back.

Still sitting a lot in the Relax The Back zero gravity recliner.  I’m starting to sit too much in my desk chair at home, which makes my back sore.  Must sit in lazy person recliner more.