Sunday, July 8, 2012

Speaking of tomorrow...

... I didn't realize the week wasn't over yet.

Let's delve a little more into this low back pain (LBP) I've been feeling recently. Probably no interest to you if you've not felt the like, but I'd like to have a record for when I feel it again. It happens several times a year, and it might be helpful for me to remember what did and didn't work.

One thing I mentioned yesterday is that it hurts with transitions: sitting to standing, running to walking, and that sort of thing. The sensation is a bit like a muscle spasm with a side order of stabbing knife. I don't actually collapse from it, though I might've if I hadn't found something handy to grab.

Today, what I discovered when I was coming up to an intersection and needed to stop was this: If I focus my concentration on relaxing the muscles that go into spasm, the pain goes from almost dumping me on the ground to a mild stabbing knife feeling. Though I've never been stabbed by a knife, I did step on a piece of glass once, and the pain in my back is remarkably similar. Without the relaxing, the pain is worse. With relaxing, it's significantly better.

Like with most things, relaxing is a key to doing it right. Important lesson I keep needing to relearn...

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Week in exercise: fail

I blame swimming.

When I go into open water without nose and ear plugs, I get sick. It might be one of above don't have functioning defense mechanisms, or it's psychosomatic, or whatever, but it happens. So for the past few days, I've been trying to throw off a fairly mild infection.

I'm also having some moderate low back pain. It always follows the same pattern: the muscles along the spine are tied in knots. After a few days they loosen up a bit and I can get the vertebrae to crack, and that helps feel better too. After a while I only feel pain when I go from sitting to standing, or standing to walking, or walking to running. It's the transitions that hurt.

Then, hopefully, everything resolves and I can go back to my normal healthy life.


Between the illness, the back pain, the heat and the deer flies, it's been a pretty cruddy week for exercise, and even worse for studying. But tomorrow's another day...

M: 20 minute swim
T: nothing
W: nothing
Th: nothing
F: 10 mile bike
S: 15 mile bike, 2 mile run