muscles in training

Dec 21, 2013

I have been working on growing new muscles and boy, howdy, it is hard stuff! At my physical therapy appointment right before Thanksgiving, I was given some balancing and bridging exercises to start doing at home. Even though they were no big deal and only about 5 minutes worth of work, they wore me right out. Now, just a few weeks later, I am up to 15 minutes of abdominal, hip flexor, and pelvic stability work.

AND MY BODY IS SO STINKIN’ SORE!

But it is a good sore, a sore that makes my heart do happy dances all day long because I can feel the muscles trying so hard to wake up and do their jobs.

My hip flexors are so incredibly weak that they don’t fire. They have shut themselves off after all the injury and bedrest nonsense they have been put through. And now it is time to wake them up. They need to be retrained how to fire and when to fire and that, my friends, is no walk in the park. We are reprogramming my brain to send the right messages to the right muscles so my feet will stop doing the work of my hip flexors. My teensy tiny foot muscles are compensating for the weakness in my pelvic region and they ache every single day. They especially ache when I do my exercises because they are doing the job of big muscles. Sometimes I wish I could get my foot muscles to stop trying to be such superheroes, but then I would probably fall over a whole lot more than I already do (which is quite a bit!)

Anyway, all of this is very, very exciting. I can feel progress being made! The daily dedication needed to drink sufficient water, eat at regular times, do my exercises, and my energy work is almost beyond me…I am not a dedicated to anything on a daily basis kind of girl. I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. But I must find the gumption – the every single day gumption – to do the hard work of staying focused on healing.