Every year this happens. I spend the winter and spring snowbound, shackled to my desk trying to keep up with classes, and then May arrives. Classes are over! The snow has melted! I leap up to bolt into the field, and…<SPROOOIING>. My body falls apart. If it’s not my knees, it’s my back. I have to curl up into a little ball of pain until the muscles and tendons readjust, and then move out gingerly, hoping none of the cables snap when I exert myself to, for instance, walk up some stairs.
So this morning, it’s off to the doctor, who I’m hoping will send me off to do some physical therapy, where I will finally learn how to avoid treating this pathetic body stupidly. It’s really wrecking my plans for the summer, too — I have a fair bit of fieldwork planned, but now I’m rethinking and developing some projects I can do sitting down in the lab, just in case.
Oh, sorry about that! It’s too bad, now the weather’s nice.
The good thing is that, as you say, physical therapy usually unwinds it and you’ll also learn stuff that are preventative to do too, so it won’t be as bad another year.
Best wishes!
What if, and I know this sounds crazy, but what if you took an 8 to 12 week yoga class each winter/spring term to transition out of your winter sedentariness? Like, what if every Christmas Mary gave you a gift certificate to use the UMMorris gym or something? Sure it might be expensive, but it might also make is so that when the good weather comes around you’re able to take advantage right away.
That sucks.
I started doing Classical Stretch recently, and I can’t recommend it more. I had a recurring back injury which has now almost completely disappeared, and I feel great after the workouts. I think Twin Cities PBS carries it, if you’re interested and get that channel.
No.
Whatever it costs, it is very cheap.
You downsize your pain that limits your activity levels and also increase your probable lifespan.
One victim of the pandemic was my gym time, twice a week.
It was doing me a huge amount of good and then had to stop.
@Crip Dyke Exactly! Now, you can quote me on this, but give proper recognition, “An ounce of prevention….”
Ouch! .
The last three years, I have slipped on ice and got a fracture on two occasions. I am definitely more fragile than in my youth.
Get well, PZ.
Slippery slipping, I broke my ankle in January.
That’s a long ways from my last broken bone in 1959.
I have my grandads cane, reclaimed from my mother.
It’s a pretty solid cane with a flexible steel core.
The hospital guard let me in with my cane but not my pocket knife.
He said it was a weapon.
I didn’t say it was a tool, but I whapped his desk with the cane. Just a little.
He knew what I meant, we didn’t have to talk about it, I limped in.
Queen says: wheels:
I don’t believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I wanna do is
Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle,
races are coming your way