One thing I've enjoyed doing at the pool is invent movements that mimic my real life pastimes.
In the deep end, I do, "Leap Frog, Running on the Moon and scissors glide." In the shallow end I jump like I've seen kids do at the track, and skip. Today I invented the, "Slalom Jump" which is a jump but going side to side as if I were hotdogging down the slopes.
But boy, am I sore tonight. Advil, please kick in soon!
Oh, no, I've never run on the moon. It was as if I were because of the slow motion effect.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Free Play
It's been a while since I bla bla blogged, but here is the latest on living with chronic back/leg pain.
Gary gave Mark the name Pete Egoscue. Mark went to Half Price Books and by some divine intervention happened to find the spiral bound copy of his, "Pain Free." He gave it to me, and now I am also reading his, "Pain Free for Women."
His idea is that we lose proper use of muscles when we are not moving enough. Our main muscles stop doing their job, abdicating to the secondary muscles, which when over used are going to cause pain. We stopped using our major muscles properly about the time of the invention of the car? Wheel? Something like that.
When we used to forage and hunt for food, we were active, thus engaging the muscloskeletal system fully, as intended. When the industrial revolution began, we became less and less active and began to walk, sit, stand improperly, not using the assigned muscles.
Ok, ok, let's get down to the business at hand. He says the less we move, the more we invite chronic pain. Until all of a sudden our major muscles begin to atrophy and demand major overhaul to correct themselves.
He has e-cises to disengage the secondary muscles and begin to strengthen those atrophied main muscles. For someone like me, who has been battling this crippling condition for three + years, it will take a minimum of six months to get on the right path, to feel a difference and have more energy and desire to move, move, move.
Egoscue purports that we will end up in surgery if we don't correct this improper use of muscles. Surgery doesn't really work, either, because we will still have to retrain our muscles to to their assigned jobs. We will only have to have more surgery if we don't address the root cause of our pain.
Someone begins to feel pain. They feel better when they don't move. But they know they need to work through the pain. Someone is injured in a sports snafoo, a car accident, a twist of the ankle, a fall. They know they have to, "Work through the pain." They run to rehab and then the gym. They start a regime of repetitious motions until they are again feeling that same pain, but more fiercely. The problem persists, because they are not using the right muscles. They have not disengaged the secondary muscles and begun to use the main muscles intended to pull off that job. Repetitive exercises at the gym only exacerbates the problem.
What that someone needs is Egoscue's E-cises! The results will not come quickly, but only with patient, persistent repetitions. Then they need to become, "Little boys and girls" and engage in free play like they used to when playing in their back yards after school. You know, back in the day, when leap frog, freeze tag, kick ball and statue were all the rage. This spontaneous movement will bring free and full range of motion to help them do what they were designed to do.
This free play, when accomplished, will also bring the metabolism up to full function and in turn bring about further desire to move, move, move!
Of course, good nutrition will help this regeneration of full musculosketal usage. Mark has me taking Univera products, which is greatly helping in various ways. The depression of living in chronic pain has all but disappeared. There are times when it tries to creep back into my soul. But the X-tra really does serve as not only an anti-depressant but an anti-aging stimulus. There are capsules and what we call, "The pink" drink that helps the cartilage and tendons, like glucosamine, and the sleep aid, all natural, that helps me stay asleep (and really works, once I get to sleep.)
Egoscue says when one is not moving enough, often when it's time for sleep, one is not actually sleepy and has trouble sleeping. For me, this may be true, but the pain is what keeps me awake. Every time I turn over, I completely wake up and often can't get back to sleep. In come the myriads of thoughts about the kids, the house that needs fixing, and my aging parents, etc., which further prevent my dozing back into the comfortable land of nod. I have the Bible on tape, and I often turn on Christian radio, whose sermons can actually generate zzzz's in abundance.
It's one thing to do all this talk. It's another to be true to the desire to bring it about. Lord, I'm willing to move. I'm wanting to move. I'm waiting to move. So, now I'm off to the pool. I go by you, through you and with you. It is truly up to you... amen.
Gary gave Mark the name Pete Egoscue. Mark went to Half Price Books and by some divine intervention happened to find the spiral bound copy of his, "Pain Free." He gave it to me, and now I am also reading his, "Pain Free for Women."
His idea is that we lose proper use of muscles when we are not moving enough. Our main muscles stop doing their job, abdicating to the secondary muscles, which when over used are going to cause pain. We stopped using our major muscles properly about the time of the invention of the car? Wheel? Something like that.
When we used to forage and hunt for food, we were active, thus engaging the muscloskeletal system fully, as intended. When the industrial revolution began, we became less and less active and began to walk, sit, stand improperly, not using the assigned muscles.
Ok, ok, let's get down to the business at hand. He says the less we move, the more we invite chronic pain. Until all of a sudden our major muscles begin to atrophy and demand major overhaul to correct themselves.
He has e-cises to disengage the secondary muscles and begin to strengthen those atrophied main muscles. For someone like me, who has been battling this crippling condition for three + years, it will take a minimum of six months to get on the right path, to feel a difference and have more energy and desire to move, move, move.
Egoscue purports that we will end up in surgery if we don't correct this improper use of muscles. Surgery doesn't really work, either, because we will still have to retrain our muscles to to their assigned jobs. We will only have to have more surgery if we don't address the root cause of our pain.
Someone begins to feel pain. They feel better when they don't move. But they know they need to work through the pain. Someone is injured in a sports snafoo, a car accident, a twist of the ankle, a fall. They know they have to, "Work through the pain." They run to rehab and then the gym. They start a regime of repetitious motions until they are again feeling that same pain, but more fiercely. The problem persists, because they are not using the right muscles. They have not disengaged the secondary muscles and begun to use the main muscles intended to pull off that job. Repetitive exercises at the gym only exacerbates the problem.
What that someone needs is Egoscue's E-cises! The results will not come quickly, but only with patient, persistent repetitions. Then they need to become, "Little boys and girls" and engage in free play like they used to when playing in their back yards after school. You know, back in the day, when leap frog, freeze tag, kick ball and statue were all the rage. This spontaneous movement will bring free and full range of motion to help them do what they were designed to do.
This free play, when accomplished, will also bring the metabolism up to full function and in turn bring about further desire to move, move, move!
Of course, good nutrition will help this regeneration of full musculosketal usage. Mark has me taking Univera products, which is greatly helping in various ways. The depression of living in chronic pain has all but disappeared. There are times when it tries to creep back into my soul. But the X-tra really does serve as not only an anti-depressant but an anti-aging stimulus. There are capsules and what we call, "The pink" drink that helps the cartilage and tendons, like glucosamine, and the sleep aid, all natural, that helps me stay asleep (and really works, once I get to sleep.)
Egoscue says when one is not moving enough, often when it's time for sleep, one is not actually sleepy and has trouble sleeping. For me, this may be true, but the pain is what keeps me awake. Every time I turn over, I completely wake up and often can't get back to sleep. In come the myriads of thoughts about the kids, the house that needs fixing, and my aging parents, etc., which further prevent my dozing back into the comfortable land of nod. I have the Bible on tape, and I often turn on Christian radio, whose sermons can actually generate zzzz's in abundance.
It's one thing to do all this talk. It's another to be true to the desire to bring it about. Lord, I'm willing to move. I'm wanting to move. I'm waiting to move. So, now I'm off to the pool. I go by you, through you and with you. It is truly up to you... amen.
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