Getting it back together again

Tuesday was a light row. 5,000 meters at roughly 2:30 pace. No heart rate info

Wednesday I saw a physical therapist. I didn’t learn of any ailments of imbalances or anything that I wasn’t aware of. The short version of his diagnosis it that I have tight muscles and need to put a stretching program in place. I have to admit that stretching is one of those things that we all hear we are supposed to do but I don’t and I don’t think most folks do. The reason is fairly simple, most of the stretches we were taught to do as kids are totally ineffective and we know it. What’s more, no one seems to give any really solid info on what to stretch, how and when. It’s possibly worse than the information we get regarding nutrition.

The PT gave me about 5 stretches. I pressed him for details on when to stretch, at first he was pretty reticent. Falling back to the usual, the best time to stretch is whenever you will do it. I finally got him to say that it would be best if I did them early in the day if I don’t train and to try and do them early and late if I do train. So, for now, I’m trying to do it twice a day. It takes about fifteen minutes per session. I got up fifteen minutes early this morning and did my stretches and I’ll do them again tonight. As I add to my repertoire I will probably only do the full set at night or I’ll even have one set for the morning and one for the evening. I don’t think I could reasonably manage more than two 30 minute sessions, if it comes to that.

Beyond that, he checked general mobility stuff. Moved my limbs around to make sure they work, watched me walk, the usual. I think he had trouble understanding exactly what I do in the gym or what I am going for. Oddly, he seems to not like the idea of overhead lifting. I’m sure we’ll get more into that in later sessions. I’m interested to learn more there, however, I don’t think overhead lifting will be going away in the near future.

He wants me to come once a week for a month to get up to speed then it should settle into a more mellow rate. Next session, I think he is gonna teach me how to use a foam roller properly. I’m really looking forward to that. He says I have to get a full length one rather than the half roller I have, which is fine. He is also talking about actually watching me on a few lifts and trying to make my technique more appropriate, from a body mechanics perspective. I’m all for that, although looking around the facilities, a field trip may be required.

Tonight, I intend to row although I can’t say exactly what I intend to do with it. I’m thinking I’ll still keep it fairly moderate.