September 2023

Physical therapy day.

On these days, I typically avoid doing much in the way of activities because I want to go in as refreshed as possible. So, I did the full morning routine and walks, and that was about it.

The prescription going in was:

1. 3 sets of 10 single-leg hip rotations 3 times a week (I have been doing them daily).
2. 3 sets of 15 split-leg calf raises daily.
3. 3 sets of 10 toe abductions daily.
4. 3 sets of 5 distal quad stretches daily (I only did 1 on each side; my bad).
5. 10 wall breaths daily.
6. 3 sets of pectoral corner stretches for 10 breaths daily.
7. 3 sets of 5 hand-down wall presses daily (I have been doing 10).

I started by talking about what had changed since the last time we spoke:

1. 1-mile walks increased to 4 miles daily.
2. The 4-mile grocery walk increased to 5 miles per week.
3. MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1 warm-up and emphasis (when the knee concerns started) increased to the full routine twice a week.
4. Playing with time under tension for some of the movements.
5. Adding micro-bends to my knees to help with being in a more stacked posture instead of leaning forward all the time.
6. Able to get but-to-heel on the left leg during the distal quad stretch.

This was the first time we did what I’ll refer to as a retest of baselines.

“Bend forward and touch your toes,” she said, adding, “Let’s see how far you can get this time.”

“Oh, I think I’ll do it this time,” and started moving.

“Really?” she asked with a hint of doubt in her voice.

My fingers hit the floor with a bend, and I stood back up; I still don’t trust myself to stay there, but I can get there pretty regularly.

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “Okay. Okay. That’s different.”

I smiled at her and gave her a high-five.

We continued with bending back. I could go a little bit farther, but my abdominal muscles weren’t fighting the experience like the first time. Side-to-side was also pretty good. Rotationally I could have my looking backward while my foot pointed forward.

“Not bad,” she said.

I was like, “Not bad? I’m staring at this back wall.”

We laughed.

She had me moving my arms into various positions, trying to figure out the shoulder situation. She was impressed with the range of motion I had.

I got on the table, and we started doing the “push against me” tests. A lot of progress in all of those.

We spent a lot of time together talking about all the things, and I was given the new prescription:

1. 3 sets of 10 single-leg hip rotations 3 times a week.
2. 3 sets of 15 split-leg calf raises daily.
3. 3 sets of 10 toe abductions daily.
4. 3 sets of 5 distal quad stretches daily.
5. 3 sets of 10 Powell raises twice a week.
6. 1 set of 25 reverse step-ups 4 times weekly (no more than every other day).
7. During the walks
   • Walk backward for 10 minutes once per day.
8. MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1
   • Replace the deep squat with the deep knee bend.
   • Replace foot-hand crawl with a bear crawl (shorter steps), and introduce lateral movement; each step is a breath. Repeat 10 times. Not sure what that means, but I’m going to presume it’s one step forward on both sides, one step back on both sides, one step left, and one step right.

Not much to report here except for Wednesday. I did the full set of movements and, according to the WHOOP, didn’t break into the high-strain range.

I can consistently get my but to my left heel during the distal (couch) quad stretch. I no longer use the wall to stabilize the single-leg hip rotations.

This indicates that I’ve adapted to the current prescription and extras, with one caveat. My knees and shoulders experience some discomfort bordering on pain after performing certain movements.

It’s good that I scheduled an appointment with the physical therapist for Thursday.

Pretty uneventful weekend.

Something I decided to change was during the morning routine. As of this writing, I do 10 slow single-leg hip rotations; “slow” means a 6 count up and a 6 count down to increase time under tension. I follow this up with 20 hip lifts.

The hip rotations are there mainly for the mind-body connection of engaging the glute muscles. I did them slowly to help activate as many of the muscle fibers as I could. By about the fifth repetition, the stabilizer along my left calf becomes pretty “lit up,” and by about the seventh repetition, the glutes finally start kicking in as well.

The hip lifts target a different part of the glute muscles; the glute medius. It’s a rare event if they become “lit up.”

What I decided to start doing is going straight from the hip rotation to the hip lift for the same side. So, if I do 10 repetitions of the single-leg hip rotations for the left side, I’ll immediately go into the hip lift for the left side. In theory, my brain is already primed to activate the pelvic muscles, and they haven’t had time to fully relax as I hit them again.

This is a change from what I was doing before, which was to do the single-leg hip rotations for one side, then get that side to release the tension before starting the other side. While doing the other side gives the first side time to chill out a bit.

80 percent recovery.

All major health markers are in the green.

Full shower routine. All three rounds of physical therapy. Both of the 2-mile walks. MovNat Week 1, Day 1 sequence. And the extras that were hanging over from Wednesday.

This means I only did one full MovNat Week 1, Day 1 sequence this week.

70 percent recovery, again.

Did the shower routine. The 4 miles. And three rounds of physical therapy exercises.

I am still not fully caught up with what was missed due to not feeling well, but progressing back to normal.

70 percent recovery. Most of the sleep I had was in the low-stress range.

I did the entire shower routine but skipped the morning walk, as I still had random bouts of coughing and nose-blowing.

It didn’t go full-on sinus infection, but I’m starting to think it’s just something around the Ohio River.

We’re considering moving, so one more year of testing, and we should know.

My abdominal muscles feel like I’ve done thousands of sit-ups, crunches, and knee raises. My lower back is also hurting a bit. Even my neck muscles feel sore. As of today, my throat isn’t raw or anything. But, man, the last couple of days have sucked.

My meeting schedule today at work is a bit bonkers, and I’m still determining if I can get all the exercises I hope to do in. They are stacking up because I haven’t done any over the last few days.

I’ll watch the strain gauge and not go too far over optimal strain for the day.

34 percent recovery. I did the morning stretches, and that was it.

I did manage to get into a low-stress state while sleeping that night, but it only happened 3 or 4 hours before waking up.

No fever.

I took a second COVID test, and it came back negative.

The whole day was spiking and dropping. I did sign in to work today. Around noon, the spikes went from the highest it can go to low medium and started falling into the low territory and not hitting the highest of highs.

I asked Becca to bring stew. So, you know it wasn’t good.

19 percent recovery. While asleep, the strain gauge never dropped to low territory, where it usually is the entire time.

No fever. I only did stretches in the shower. No walks. Nothing.

I even took the day off.

My strain for the day still topped out at 14.5.

At no point during the day did I go into a low-stress state despite doing nothing more than lying in bed the entire time. You’d think I had been running an ultramarathon most of the day.

I took a COVID test, and it came back negative.

52 percent recovery. I did the morning shower routine and the morning 2 miles because I had forgotten to pick some stuff up during the grocery run. It turned out to be 3 miles.

I was not feeling well and decided to take a nap. 3 hours later, I wasn’t feeling much better.

WHOOP had me high on the recovery scale, so I did the morning shower routine as usual and went grocery shopping.

I wasn’t feeling great, but not horrible either.

Becca and I were heading out of town to a show in Lexington. Before heading out the door, I went through as many physical therapy exercises as possible.

Quick historical aside here.

I lived in Ohio for 16 years. For the last 10 years of that time, I’d get sinus infections twice a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall. They just kept getting worse. It was so much worse that I took a week off from work for my last couple of infections. I started joking that I was allergic to Ohio. Or, at least, I thought it was a joke.

Then I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and stopped getting sinus infections for the 3 or 4 years I was there. I moved to the Virginia-Maryland area for 6 years and never had a sinus infection. At least not that I recall. I moved to Seattle, Washington, for a year and had no sinus infections. I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, with no sinus infections.

I live in Louisville, Kentucky now. Louisville is right on the Ohio River and about 90 minutes from Cincinnati, Ohio. Last year, I had 2 bad sinus days in spring and autumn. Coughing, sneezing, not feeling well. It passed within a couple of days. This year, during the spring transition, a similar thing happened.

On our way to Lexington, Kentucky, for the show, my nose started feeling funny. But, according to the WHOOP, I was still good to go. So, when we arrived, I finished my last round of physical therapy exercises and did my 2-mile walk.

We ate dinner and headed to the show. It was fun. We stayed out very late.

Becca and I were planning to head out of town Friday, so I decided to do the MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1 sequence today. It went well despite some discomfort bordering on pain in the right ankle and knees.

Tuesday was a light day and good stuff.

I did some MovNat stuff on Wednesday, including the warm-up and emphasis from the MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1 sequence.

This is my first time doing the MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1 sequence on Monday. I was able to get through it without too much energy.

Of course, we won’t know how well I’m adapting until a couple of days later to see how the extra strain compounds over time if it does at all.

I increased to 3 sets of 15 split calf raises. I also increased to 3 sets of 10 single-leg hip rotations. They both went well.

The walks and shower routine also went well.

So, not a lot to report.

Active recovery days.

Saturday I increased my grocery walk to 5 miles instead of 4 by adding one loop around the 1-mile block I use in the morning.

While walking to the convenience store I witnessed a car accident. It was enough to spin an SUV around and bend the rear tire in and release the side airbags. I checked on everyone, and they said they were okay, which wasn’t true given what I saw. Some joggers paused and called emergency services. While they were doing that I walked back up the road a ways to start waving people over, because the driver of the car responsible for the accident didn’t want to move it.

When the officer arrived their lights helped signal people to get over, so I wasn’t needed there anymore. The officer asked the drivers of the offending car to get it off the main road. I have the officer and the drivers space to chat. Then the officer looked at me and asked, “And your part in all of this?”

“Nothing,” I answered. “Just a witness. I was over there,” and pointed to the piece of sidewalk I was on when accident happened.

“Well, they’re both telling me the same story, so, you’re not really needed.”

I said, “Thank you,” and waved to everyone as I continued on my merry way.

The plan going into this week I’m looking at thee following changes:

1. Increase all split calf raise sets to 15 repetitions.
2. Add a third set of single leg hip rotations at 5 repetitions to each day.
3. Complete the full MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1 to Monday and Friday.
4. Consider something different for Wednesday compared to the MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1 warm-up movements I’ve been doing. There’s a helper video that works on different aspects of the deep squat, which is a problem area for me, mainly because of ankle dorsiflexion.

Good day.

The morning routine went well. Both 2-mile walks went well. Physical therapy rounds went well.

Here is a funny story on that score, yesterday. I thought I could increase the split calf raises to 15, but I remained humble. I had to do the same thing today.

I completed the MovNat Fundamentals Week 1, Day 1 session for the second time.

I chatted with a friend on the rotation.

Becca and I had a movie date with pizza.