Stretch and Strengthen your Lower Body

Here's 3rd post on my stretching and strengthening exercises and these focus on the lower extremities but primarily the foot and ankle.

Pages 2 and 3 of my notebook, but we'll be looking more closely at page 3

Nothing special to note with this one.

With this one you want to be sure you...wait for it...don't arch your back. AND you want to be sure you don't cock your hip out to the side. Keep a nice straight line.

If you're feeling exceptional, close your eyes. Who knows, this could help you in the event you need to pass a field sobriety test?  (I do *not* condone driving under the influence of alcohol, just under the influence of children- which is probably more dangerous.)

Check yer back

As with all squats, you want to be sure your knee does not go beyond your toe

I don't have foam so I stand on a phone book. And you can do this one with your eyes closed too. You can; I can't. I fall over every time which is always good for a laugh.

So there you have it. All the exercises I do over the span of a day. My PT gave me about half of these just last Thursday so I have only done all three sets a few times. I haven't been able to do them all in one shot yet, though if I dragged my caboose out of bed earlier I probably could.

The box on the lower right corner of page 3 is for me to keep track of my bike miles. I don't always remember to go on Daily Mile every day to log them in, and if I don't write it down....I will forget.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and have no formal training (of any kind, not just medical). What I have posted should not be considered medical advice. If you are injured please visit your dr. I am simply relaying information that was given to me for my particular injury and rehabilitation.

Stretch and Strengthen your Trunk and Pelvis

This is installment 2 of my stretch and strengthen exercises for my hip and IT band. These are all for your trunk or core and your pelvis.  I said it just a couple of times in my first post so you might have missed it, but you want to be careful to *not* arch your back in these.

Pages 2 and 3. We're going to be looking more closely at page 2 though

Watch your lower back with this one.

These next two are mentioned as core strengthening exercises in Chi Running, pages 74-75

Author Danny Dreyer describes this one as an advanced version of the exercise above. If you become proficient at this one, he suggests having someone sit on your stomach while doing it. Yea, that'll be me. ha!

For this one, I stand in front of the mirror so that I can practice standing with my pelvis in the neutral position during the relax phase. I didn't realize just how much I arch my lower back until I looked at myself sideways in the mirror while trying to stand with my pelvis neutral.

For this one, you want to keep your lower back flat. Engage your core while keeping your glutes relaxed

After completing these, I alternate planks and push ups until I've done 5 planks and 50 pushups.  Before I became an injured slug, I was able to hold a plank for 1:30-45. Not great but not completely horrible. After almost 2 months of only sporadic core work, I'm lucky to hold it for a minute. As I get stronger, I'll increase the planks in number and duration.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and have no formal training (of any kind, not just medical). What I have posted should not be considered medical advice. If you are injured please visit your dr. I am simply relaying information that was given to me for my particular injury and rehabilitation.

Stretch and Strengthen your Hips

Some of you asked me to share the stretches and exercises my PT prescribed for me for my hip. I started out with a pile of papers - from my ortho, my gait analysis and my PT.

I'm worse than forgetful and need to have things in neat little lists or I'll forget to do them. So I cut out the pictures and put them in a notebook according to body part - hip/knee, trunk/pelvis, and lower body.

I'll do three separate posts so your eyes don't glaze over.

Page 1

This one feels really good once I've done it. The important thing to remember is that you don't want your knee to go over your toe, this goes for squats too...words to live by. And don't arch your back. I'll say that just a couple of more times in this post.

You can also put your foot flat on a chair to do this one - all the points I noted above still apply.

With this one, you don't want to lift your opposite hip or arch your back in order for your leg to go down. It's also a controlled lowering of your leg; you don't just flop it over to the side.

You want to be sure you don't arch your back. You can lie flat if you want, but don't arch your back then either.

Nothing special to note with this one.

You want to be sure you stand straight and don't lean. You can also use a thera-band around both ankles and side step. When you do that, you can slightly bend your knees and at the waist (like an 'athletic stance').

I am so inflexible that it's almost ridiculous, and this stretch is really hard for me. I'm also very uncoordinated and almost fell of the bed doing it. Again, you want to be sure you aren't arching your back while holding your foot. If you can't hold your foot - like me - you can use a dog leash. Put the handle around your foot/ankle and use the leash to gently pull your foot up.

So that completes our knee and hip stretching and strengthening exercises. I have yet to be able to complete them all in one sitting without (kid) interruption so I don't know how long it should take you to complete them all.

Next up will be trunk and pelvis work.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and have no formal training (of any kind, not just medical). What I have posted should not be considered medical advice. If you are injured please visit your dr. I am simply relaying information that was given to me for my particular injury and rehabilitation.

Field Trip to Physical Therapy

Ella and Shane have the galloping crud so they're quarantined until further notice. I hate to leave Jake with all 3 little ones if I can help it so I took Hank with me to PT yesterday. To keep him entertained I let him take pictures using Jake's camera (with Jake's permission of course).

It's always interesting to see what captures the eye of an 8 year old and I ended up deleting a lot of pictures of butts. He wasn't supposed to take pictures of other people...that bothersome HIPPA and confidentiality... so I would have deleted them anyway, but it cracked me up.

Waiting our turn

We did some different things which was fun. I side stepped with a thera-band on my ankles for what felt like forever... I hoped thought my glutes were going to fall off. And then I got to march in place on the mini tramp.

Doing my part to embarrass my kids daily

Then he let me hop on the treadmill. Walk for 1 minute, jog (12 m/m) for 1 minute and then walk again for another minute. While jogging I had to support my weight on the arm rails. I somehow missed the memo that I wasn't supposed to be running at home. whoopsie!


Not that I'm logging killer mileage at high speeds because I'm not - 4.75 miles last week and 2.75 this week. And I didn't even run all of that. I walked .25 and jogged .5 (12 m/m). It didn't hurt a lot while I ran and only ached afterwards (no sharp pain) so I'm going with the 'no blood, no foul' rule here. Though I won't run again until I get the green light.

Stretching my very UNstretchy hamstrings

Did lots and lots and lots of stretches. You'd think I could touch my toes by now but no.


Then he had me balance on my right foot, tap back onto my left and then quickly back on to my right foot. The idea was for me to land on my whole right foot at once and not just on the ball - which is where I landed almost every time. Then he had me do the same thing except I tapped onto my left foot sideways instead of backwards. For whatever reason it was easier to land on my whole foot this way. And it further confirmed that my balance stinks. I think the other patients must have enjoyed watching the weird lady with the funny little skirt wobbling like a Weeble while the 8 y/o laughed hysterically taking pictures (all of which were really blurry otherwise I would have shared them. promise)

Fun with a thera-band

We did some leaning starts - I don't know what else to call them. Stand with a neutral pelvis and lean your entire body (still straight) forward until you have to run to keep from falling. I pretty much stunk at this and would lean and then stomp my foot out to catch me instead of just falling into a run. Since that move is a basic of Chi running I guess I should practice it.

Something about the way I did this made him wonder aloud if my core is as squishy as it looks. So he had me sit on the very edge of the table, hold onto the edge and lean back a little. Then I slowly brought my knees up and down. After about a 1,000 of these (ok, maybe not that many) he decided my core was actually pretty strong.

So I did some more stretches; he printed more homework exercises for me and we were on our way.  I actually worked up a sweat which felt really good. One step closer to being stronger and ready to really run!

Physical Therapy

Yesterday was a busy day. I had my gait analysis in the morning in Shepherdstown and that afternoon I had a physical therapy appointment.  The therapist was running behind schedule and then spent almost an hour with me so I ended up being there almost 2 hours. Needless to say I was pretty fried by the time I got home.

So what did we do at therapy? I did the same two "how inflexible and weak are my hips" exercises, and failed them both again. I like being consistent even if I'm consistently bad. 

And I did a handful of other isometric type exercises to see if my hips are equally weak. Thankfully (I think?), my left hip seems pretty strong. I lay on one side and pushed my leg up against his hand (he had some sort of doohicky that measured my pushing against it in pounds). So anyway, lying on my right side I lifted my left leg and my 'score' was 29 pounds. On my left side, raising my right leg, I managed a paltry 19 pounds of pressure - and that was with every ounce of oomph I had.

He talked a lot and moved my legs this way and that, and before I knew it he was printing out a list of exercises for me to do at home.  He wants me to go twice a week, but I have to pay the co-pay each time which adds up quickly so once a week it is.  I'll just have to work extra hard on my own.

Happily, many of the exercises he gave me to do are the same as the ones James gave me at my gait analysis yesterday. So it seems like they're on the same page for hip strengthening and stretching. Cool beans.

I am actually feeling a little more hopeful... like I have a viable plan of attack to be on the road again. Can't wait!

Gait Analysis

Today was the big day. I woke up before the chickens so I could make the 30 minute drive to the quaint little town of Shepherdstown, WV for my gait analysis appointment with James at Two Rivers Treads. I took Hank along with me just because I thought it might be fun for him (hey, we're homeschoolers so everything is an opportunity to learn something new or have fun).

I think the idea of the clinic is that they run it for whoever shows up. So if 10 people are there, they do it for 10 people. Which would mean that each person would have less individual time because the clinic is only 2 hours.  This morning was just Hank and I, and we ended up being there for over 2 1/2 hours. Wowza!

We got off to a great start because I'm not a heel striker, not even close. If anything I figure I strike too far forward. Since he didn't have to go through all the 'why heel striking is bad for you' info, we were able to get right into proper alignment which I thought would be a big issue for me.

Tidbit: In a 9 year period I was in 4 car accidents (crazy, I know). Twice I was broadsided by a car going 45-55 mph on my side. Rearended at about 40mph (guy never applied the brakes) and then the only one that was my fault, I rearended a car while trying really hard to stop. My lower back hurts almost all the time to varying degrees, I get random muscle spasms in my neck and my left hip and shoulder are a little lower than my right hip and shoulder. So I was all set to hear that my alignment stunk and I was going to limp like Igor while I ran not matter what I did.

While we were talking about my hip problem the store owner, Dr Mark Cucuzilla came in.  He suggested we see just how inflexible and weak my hips are by doing a couple of stretches. They whipped out a massage table and I lay on my back at the very edge so my hiney was almost off the table, held one knee to my chest while the good dr. tried to see how far down towards the floor my other leg would go. Ha! Let's just say I'm not flexible and neither leg went very far.

The next test was also very simple...and I failed it too.  I stood with both feet on the floor, properly aligned and lifted one foot to just above mid-calf level. A strong hip would support me and I wouldn't have to cock my hip out or bend my knee. My hips are not strong and I had to shift my hip about 3 inches outward to keep my balance.

Next it was time to videotape me while running. Very, very, very thankfully it was almost 40 degrees when we went outside to run - as opposed to yesterday which was like 20 or something equally horrible.

We headed down to a relatively level patch of sidewalk and he taped me making two passes by with shoes and then once without shoes and we headed back to the store to videotape me on the treadmill....and I almost fell of the treadmill. Not once but twice!! So embarrassing!

He downloaded the video onto his laptop and we watched me run in slowmo... I was doing the sound effects to the 6 Million Dollar Man in my head. 

What we found:
* My head - I hold it pretty straight so no change needed there
* My shoulders - Relaxed so no change
* My candence - Around 84/85 with shoes and 88 without. 90 is the desired cadence so I need to work on that a little but not a huge deal.
* My overall stature - With shoes there was just a slight bend forward at the waist. Without shoes almost no bend at all. My foot is striking under my hips which are in line with my shoulders which are in line with my ear lobe. Cool stuff.
* Arms/Elbows - Bent at about 90 degrees and holding them about the right height (no T-Rex arms). I do bring them a smidge too far forward which is causing a little wonkiness in my stride. I also cross them a bit and my elbows are out, away from my body a little. He said the latter stuff is not really crucial but improving them will improve efficiency over the long haul.

**Footstrike - Fore to midfoot strike and he said that part looked really good.  However, I am not kicking off or lifting my foot when is directly under my hips. Instead I'm leaving my foot on the ground a little longer which is causing me to propel myself upward and forward using mostly my toes. This is from me bringing my arm a little too far forward. Whodathunk?

This causes really tight calves AND it causes my hips to dip a few inches with each stride.

I need to lift my heel towards my glute instead of pushing off and keep my pelvis neutral.

In a nutshell - my gait is not too bad and not anything that would cause or exacerbate a hip injury so I can focus on stretching and strengthening to get my growing behind back on the road.

James did suggest that before each run I take a 20 +/- yard jog barefoot on the road, then put my shoes on and run; I have to say it was pretty fun to run barefoot. I felt a little like a kid again and I can see me doing more of it when the weather warms up.

He also heavily suggested I switch to Newtons which I'm completely open to. However, our city-government-salary-with-4-furlough-days-in-the-first-quarter is not open to it. So I'll have to wait to win the lottery or cross my fingers for birthday cash.

All in all it was a very productive morning! Next stop - physical therapy.

So can I run yet?

Very sadly, that would be a NO. The ortho told me last week that I could run as long as I don't have "sharp" pain. So being the diligent patient that I am, I wrote out a little training plan for myself with a gradual run/walk progression that would have me run/walking a whopping 7 miles total this week. And I've been doing the stretches my dr gave me in addition to some light core and upper body work.

Monday I walked 2 minutes and ran (12 m/m pace) 5 minutes for 1 mile.
Tuesday I biked 7 miles (6m/m)
Wednesday I walked/ran (2:5) for 2 miles (again 12 m/m pace)

and Thursday my leg hurt like crazy and I was limping like a peg-legged pirate again.

On both of my runs, my leg hurt - and I say leg because I have pain in my hip flexor, my thigh and my buttular region now - but not what I would call a sharp pain. After a couple of minutes it seemed to calm down a bit and the pain was there but definitely bearable.

I've been chatting online with a licensed massage therapist and he pegged my problem as my TFL and one of my glutes. When I told him my ortho diagnosed me with ITBS, he said that makes sense since the IT band is anchored by the TFL and the gluteus medius. I guess I'm comforted by the fact that I'm not a medical oddity and my pain makes sense.

So now what??? I'm glad you asked. 

~ I have reserved a book on Chi Running from the library and am waiting for it to come in. I just finished Born to Run and while I'm not completely ready to toss my shoes in the trash, I'm definitely open to considering barefoot/minimalist running....because really, I just wanna run and if I needed to be naked to be pain free then so be it - though the neighbors might complain.

~ I am calling my ortho today to get physical therapy pre-approved on my insurance so I can get that started. Since I have a trio of issues, I need/want a professional to walk me through the stretching and strengthening I need to do. ***> PT appt scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. happiness

~ This shoe store has gait analysis and injury clinics twice a week. I was hoping to go last night but we got home a little late from our field trip. So I'll go next week. ***> They aren't having their Thurs night clinic so they can prepare for their Friday night seminar so I'm going to the Tuesday morning clinic. more happiness

~ Additionally, the same store is sponsoring a natural running seminar next Friday, and I'll try not to be too geeky by arriving several hours early to score a front row seat, but I will be there with pencil and paper!

I have to remind myself - so I apologize if you're tired of hearing it - that my objective is to be a crusty 80 year old woman jogging her happy butt down the road each morning so 'pushing through the pain' isn't the wise thing to do. I obviously have some biomechanical issues that need to be sorted out and I'd rather do it now than end up a former runner due to injury.

I'm so not technical, and it took me a ridiculous amount of time to create this sad little photo so enjoy and laugh!

And that's what's happening on the not running front here. I hope you're enjoying a much more productive week than I! And I hope I have better news to share sooner rather than later.

Not to end on a total downer, I'm so very grateful that I have a trainer for my bike because I can't imagine riding in the insanely cold and windy weather we've been having. :-D

My IT Band??

I just got home from the ortho and in a nutshell, he thinks the problem is my IT band. He got paged to the ER and had to leave so I didn't get to ask him very many questions.

I'm not convinced it is my IT. I haven't had any knee pain at all. The issue has been in my hip flexor area mainly but my outer hip does hurt as well.  I can raise my leg forward and backward with no pain now, but initially that caused a lot of pain.

The issue right now is that my hip flexor(s) feel, I don't know, tired and achey, if I walk very much. Carrying my 40+ pound 4 y/o exacerbates it, and if I don't rest it I end up limping. Not with sharp pain but dull pain and a weak feeling muscle. Does that make sense?

I also can't move it laterally very well. I can lift it about 45 degrees before it hurts in my hip joint and my gluteus minimus.

Anyhoo, he gave me some stretches and exercises for my IT band.  He also wants me to use a TENS machine for e-stim. I have to wait for insurance authorization for that which can take a few days to a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I can start biking now and run next week as long as it doesn't cause sharp pain. I don't see myself being ready for the Lewis Memorial 10 miler in 2 1/2 weeks, but that's ok.

I'm trying to keep the big picture in mind. My long term objective is to enjoy running for many years to come so if that means taking a month off here and there, so be it. If nothing else, these last 3 weeks have given me the opportunity to re-evaluate my diet and institute some changes (more on that another time).

If you have IT problems I'd love to hear what has or hasn't worked for you.

Leetle update

It has been 9 days since my last run and some days it makes me crazy to consider it while other days I've been relieved to not have one more thing on my to-do list.

My heel is feeling pretty good. I was on my feet a lot on Thursday and Friday so it was a little sore Saturday but nothing terrible. Hopefully this break is just what it needed to settle down.

My hip waxes and wanes. Very thankfully, it's not nearly as painful as it was a week ago, but it still hurts inside my hip where it seems the joint is located. The flexor area also hurts to the point of limping if I have to walk very far - meaning more than ~50 yards at a stretch...about the distance I had to walk while dragging Shane to see if there was another adult who could take my place in children's church because he misbehaves something fierce when I am his teacher, and Bill was home with the other kids.

I'm hopeful that I'll be able to run this Saturday at a local, low key New Years Day race, but I may just be cheering for my friends instead. So far I'm ok with that.

My new insurance kicks in next week so I can make a doctor's appointment if I don't continue to improve. I hate going to the doctor so I'm really hoping for some major improvement in the next few days.

I updated my sidebar with my 2011 (twenty-eleven or two thousand eleven???) races.  The January races are more of a wish list at this point.  The races that really matter to me are:

~ Race for the Birds - Hank and I plan to do the 4.9 mile trail run together
~ Frederick Half Marathon - relatively flat and I would love a blazing PR
~ Frederick Women's Sprint Tri - completing a sprint tri is my goal for this year
~ Frederick 10 miler - I volunteered this year and will get $10 off my registration. I'm a cheapskate and don't want that discount to go to waste. :)
Everything else is just icing on the cake.

So there it is.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to an incredible New Year!

Falling Apart

I feel like I'm falling apart from the waist down and it's no fun. Let's rewind to the August/September timeframe. I was training for the Freedom's Run Half marathon and running 15-25 miles per week, feeling good and ready to go.

Then I started feeling a twinge in my left heel. Mostly in the middle of the night when I got up to go pee or first thing in the morning. I'd hobble around for a little while and then be ok.  Then it got worse and my heel felt like I had bruised the inside of it -like I stepped on a rock with my heel, and it hurt if I was sitting for a bit and then got up to walk.

Since it was getting worse, I did what most anyone in my situation would do, I Googled it and diagnosed myself with Plantar Faciaiitis. I also looked up how to tape it and what stretches I should do. Blessedly I found relief with taping and continued on my merry way.

I found that I needed to tape my foot if I was going to be walking or standing alot, and I wear shoes almost continually - huge change for this flip flop lover. I hardly mentioned it even to my husband because taping has worked so well. But I'm wondering now if it was enough to alter my gait.

Fast forward to this past Thursday which was Week 1 of my training for the Lewis Memorial 10 miler (hilly, very hilly) in mid/late January. I ran 3 race pace miles with my friend and felt good when we finished.  That night however, my right hip hurt so bad I could hardly sleep. Every time I moved, rolled over, or stretched my legs I had what felt like a muscle spasm in one of my hip flexors. I'm not sure which one because it seems to be at the confluence of the 3.

I also feel pain INSIDE the hip joint at the ball and socket. This pain comes and goes so my fingers are crossed that it's a result of strained hip flexors.

Hank wanted to go for a run with me Saturday morning so we headed out for a slow, painful 2 mile run. Yes, it's ok to say, "that was really dumb," because it was.

I spent the rest of Saturday limping and popping Motrin. Currently it hurts to walk, to rise from sitting to standing, to lift my leg while sitting including moving my foot from the gas to the brake, to lie on my right side and to roll over - this causes a muscle spasm in my hip. Fortunately (?) these pains lessen once my leg is 'warmed up.'

So I'm benching myself for a few days, icing the front of my hip several times a day and taking Motrin regularly. This has caused me to hold my early 2011 running plans very loosely. As a newer runner I just don't have the fitness base to take a couple of weeks off and expect to be able to crank out a 5 - 10 mile run soon after.

I hope to be able to do some strength training and biking by the end of the week though my husband wants to me to take a complete break until after the New Year. I'll have to play it by ear and see how I'm feeling.

As to the cause, I'm not sure what to think. I haven't had any big increases in mileage. I have been working on core and leg strength. I haven't recently changed shoes. I'm not a big stretcher, but that's not new. I did find a couple of stretches to do after the pain subsides so I'll do those. My husband thinks it's from overuse. I dunno?

I'd love to hear any words of wisdom you may have!