Since January when I finally went to the doc about my knee, I've phased in and out of exercise routines. The two things I've found that had the most staying power were yoga and walking.
Initially walking pretty much sucked with my knee the way it was. The track at our closest Y is up three flights of stairs, and the elevator only goes up two of them. The walking wasn't too bad, but climbing and descending the stairs at the start and end was pretty bad.
After I saw the doc, she sent me to PT, where they diagnosed me with a bad gait. My feet and knees weren't tracking correctly, putting uneven pressure on my knee joint, and causing it to creak, and to hurt.
I started trying to walk better with the help of the PT folks, and things improved.
The one exercise that has had the biggest impact overall is Yoga. I love yoga at this point. Every week I find time to get to a yoga session or a few, things improve. The gentle, but fluid and active movements in yoga seem perfect to help strengthen the muscles in my body, and especially those in my leg. Ankle, calf, knee, thigh and hip. It's also helped put some much needed flexibility back into my system. Since I can remember, I have never been able to touch my toes. Today, I can just about touch my toes with a straight leg. For me, that's a huge deal.
Yoga has helped me in other ways too; it's meditative movement and breathing has taught me how to relax and how to identify which parts of my body are tense. I'm not mindful enough yet, but here and there I catch myself with tense raised shoulder, and I take a moment to drop them back down again.
No comments:
Post a Comment