I haven't done any cardio since mid-late October in lieu of strengthening, stretching, and foam rolling like crazy, and to curb any irritation and inflammation I may have been causing. I had the go ahead to try out the elliptical this week so I decided to play it safe with 20 minutes. If no problems, I can step it up from there. Hopefully the knee will still be feeling good tomorrow and I'll give it another go.
In the meantime, I've also been making a weekly visit to a PT. Some people find it funny that I'm a PT intern and still go to someone else when I have an injury. But let's be honest, how many people really have the self-control to stop themselves from running and working out when they want to and shouldn't? I need that other person telling me what I can and can not be doing.
Even more importantly, a good PT is going to get their hands on you. I've now had my hips stretched in ways I never even knew existed, and it's the most awesome painful wonderful thing. He actually prefaced these stretches with "You haven't seen this in your books and I'm sure you didn't learn it in school." I'm tempted to teach the hubs so I can just be manually stretched every day!
Speaking of stretching: I thought I was being really creative coming up with a novel way to stretch my hip flexors when the conventional ways just weren't cutting it. Turns out that my novel idea is actually a yoga pose. Pigeon, and it feels so good!
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| credit to womenshealthmag.com |
Questions of the Day: What is your favorite muscle or group to stretch? Favorite way to stretch it?
I like to do a stretch similar to that yoga pose (though i'm sure i don't look that good doing it), where you put that front right heel under your left hip, knee down in front of you, and then you lay down forward (gently) onto your knee. Sounds/looks/feels weird, but you can get a good stretch in the front of the hip or your butt/back hippish, depending on if you push flat down or slightly to the side
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