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Aug. 8th, 2002 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI went for a bracing half-hour walk this evening. I brought my headphones and my Young Dubliners CD, figuring it would be good bouncy walking music. What I didn't figure was that it would pick my walking pace up considerably. I think I went a good two miles, or more. By the time I came home, my heart was pounding enjoyably and I was in the throes of a mild adrenaline rush. So much for my earlier blahs.
No pain, no weakness on the walk - in contrast to last Thursday, when I tried to do more or less the same course at a slower pace and shorter distance, and found myself working through pain and fatiguing early. It turns out that, although walking every day really is increasing my ability and endurance, I can't skip days. At all - I regress frighteningly fast. No wonder I never figured out before just how far I could stretch my fitness level - I was never trying to exercise daily. Three times a week is a perfectly reasonable introductory exercise frequency for someone who isn't me, but it never un-stiffened my joints enough for me to make progress.
The rules for how my body operates have changed since my hip replacement. It's not just a matter of having less pain, or more ability - the signals mean different things. Before, the more efficient I was at avoiding movement, the better I felt. It was important for me to rest and conserve my strength - being active would usually lead to increased pain and decreased mobility for a couple of days afterward. I had the most mobility and the least pain at the beginning of an activity, and increasing pain as I went along signalled that I was doing damage and needed to stop.
Now, too much rest makes me stiff and sore. I sometimes feel some muscle pain in my hip towards the beginning of an activity, but I can almost always walk that pain off. (Not when it's bone pain instead of muscle pain, but that's rare these days.) And, as I'm discovering now, it's very important now that I not conserve my strength - I need to exercise as close to daily as possible, or the stiffness takes over. Being active leads to less pain and increased mobility afterward.
It's a completely different way of understanding my body and taking care of its needs. It's taking a long time to rid myself of the habits that got me through my day with the absolute minimum of physical activity. That's not what I need anymore - but if I don't tell myself that consciously, I'm not going to remember. The new habits aren't ingrained yet.
No pain, no weakness on the walk - in contrast to last Thursday, when I tried to do more or less the same course at a slower pace and shorter distance, and found myself working through pain and fatiguing early. It turns out that, although walking every day really is increasing my ability and endurance, I can't skip days. At all - I regress frighteningly fast. No wonder I never figured out before just how far I could stretch my fitness level - I was never trying to exercise daily. Three times a week is a perfectly reasonable introductory exercise frequency for someone who isn't me, but it never un-stiffened my joints enough for me to make progress.
The rules for how my body operates have changed since my hip replacement. It's not just a matter of having less pain, or more ability - the signals mean different things. Before, the more efficient I was at avoiding movement, the better I felt. It was important for me to rest and conserve my strength - being active would usually lead to increased pain and decreased mobility for a couple of days afterward. I had the most mobility and the least pain at the beginning of an activity, and increasing pain as I went along signalled that I was doing damage and needed to stop.
Now, too much rest makes me stiff and sore. I sometimes feel some muscle pain in my hip towards the beginning of an activity, but I can almost always walk that pain off. (Not when it's bone pain instead of muscle pain, but that's rare these days.) And, as I'm discovering now, it's very important now that I not conserve my strength - I need to exercise as close to daily as possible, or the stiffness takes over. Being active leads to less pain and increased mobility afterward.
It's a completely different way of understanding my body and taking care of its needs. It's taking a long time to rid myself of the habits that got me through my day with the absolute minimum of physical activity. That's not what I need anymore - but if I don't tell myself that consciously, I'm not going to remember. The new habits aren't ingrained yet.
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no subject
Date: 2002-08-09 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-09 12:21 pm (UTC)And the gym has a pool heated to 80 or 85 degrees, which will mean that I'll still be able to exercise even when my hip is hurting. That's another good thing. Even with my actual hip joint gone, I still get achy when the barometer falls sharply, or when it's been damp and chilly for days - I'm guessing it's all the more-or-less healed breaks in the bones, ghosts of surgeries past.
I'm excited about this gym. My physical therapist practices out of there, and she's promised to give the personal trainer (you get a certain number of sessions with membership) recommendations on what I can and can't do. And they have a pool, and water aerobics classes, and a big hot tub, and they never seem to be terribly crowded, and their clientele don't seem to be heavily weighted towards the Beautiful and Superior. I hope it's as good a thing as it seems like it will be.
no subject
Date: 2002-08-09 05:47 am (UTC)Important safety tip I learned just recently, Do
Not Get Sick and Lay Off for a Week. I really felt
it at the gym on Monday after my recent Unpleasant
Encounter with a Stinging Thing kept me from going
to the gym for a week. Bleah.
Streches are Good. Stretches are your friends,
especially the after workout ones when your muscles
are all warmed up and happy.
Barbara (thinking, omigawd, I am exercise-geeking)