About a month ago I took a walk.
I was feeling a little stressed and cabin-feverish, and I was recovering from the dreaded plague of the 2020s, COVID. Basically, I needed to get out of the house, get some air and get my sorry, wrinkly carcass moving. So, a walk I took.
It was a relatively brisk walk, and I got my heart and breathing rates nicely elevated. Burned a little fat, cleared my head and did so without pushing my body to the point where DOMS could set in and put me down for a couple of days.
Then, the next day, I did it again.
For various reasons, I had a day off, but for the next few days, I got out every day, putting a couple of kms on the odometer and in doing so, I noticed a couple of things.
First off, I was feeling better. Physically and mentally. My head was screwed on a little better, my body was feeling better, I was getting better sleep, my resting heart rate was dropping back to normal in the low 60s. Things were just…better.
Second, I realized I was finally free of my couch lock, and actually regularly exercising again. Not the hard exercise I have touted in other places on this little blog, but still, regular exercise.
Third, Somewhere around the 10th day, I realized I had a streak going. One of the great things about a streak is that maintaining the streak itself becomes a motivation for doing whatever it is you’ve got going in the streak. Here I was, getting in daily exercise, accruing all the benefits, and if those benefits weren’t enough on their own, bragging rights for the streak were at stake.
So I continued.
I’m up past 4 weeks now, and in the third week I noticed my back was starting to act up. So I added my daily back/posture maintenance yoga routine to my daily exercise.
After a week of that, with my back already feeling better, and two streaks to maintain, I decided it was time to add in my core strength yoga routine. Daily yoga, alternating between back/posture maintenance and core strength/stability routines.
And all was happy in StandUpRight.ca land.
Until I got a little, umm, adventurous with my back/posture yoga. Wherein I wrenched/twisted/pulled something in the muscles supporting my T-Spine.
Whoops.
For the last three days I’ve had random pains from just inside the tip of my right shoulder blade shooting up into my head. It’s unpleasant.
Fortunately, I know exactly what I need to to to combat these problems, while still maintaining both my walking streak, and my yoga streak.
So, what is it you don’t want to do when you’re getting back in shape?
Don’t over estimate yourself. If you’ve been on the shelf as long as I have, your body is simply not capable of doing what you remember it being able to do. And if you’ve been on the shelf as long as I have, it’s going to take time to get those capabilities back.
So, go easy on yourself.
Yes, push yourself. If you don’t push, you simply won’t get it back. But you have to keep in mind that the longer your layoff, the longer your road to recovery.
It took a long time to break it, it’s going to take a long time to fix it.
So, go easy on yourself.
