Slightly out of commission

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,Had to take the day off from the PowerFIT rotation today! Yesterday I injured my back doing - of all things - vacuuming! I hate when that happens. I was actually vacuuming and reaching for a marker that rolled under the table simultaneously. I'm not sure if injuries bother me more when they happen during a workout or during something stupid like housework. For good or bad, I've been through this before and I know it will heal up over time. It certainly isn't the worst back injury I experienced (one of the very worst was doing the ab work in Core Fusion Pilates Plus - I will never do barre-style ab work again!) and I'm pretty able to move around, but I didn't want to stress it out too much by doing anything too crazy, so today I spent 20 minutes on the recumbent bike and 25 (or so) minutes on the treadmill. I did 2 miles on the

treadmill, I was going to stop at the 20 minute mark ( has me well trained with 20 minutes! ) but decided I'd go until I hit 2 miles instead - since I was pretty close to that at 20 minutes. I added on a long Pilates workout - Pilates for Weight Loss with Suzanne Deason. This one is very good for Pilates newbies or those dealing with an injury or limitation. The workout is not rushed - and three levels of modification are shown from beginner to more advanced. So, you have idea on how to modify something if it isn't agreeable with your body at the moment. The DVD starts with a warm-up/awareness section in which Suzanne helps you put your body in proper alignment for the work to come. The main body of the workout is traditional mat work - but done at a slower pace with a lot of set up time in between the exercises. It worked well

for me. I was able to do everything to some extent following each of the modifiers depending on the exercise. The movements that most bothered my back were the "bird-dog" (on all fours - extend opposite arm and leg), the back arching exercises (I couldn't do "swimming" just had to arch and lower gently and slowly) and the bridges. I was able to do them, following the level 1 or 2 modifiier, but my back definately felt the work. Anyway, I hope to be back to normal soon! To make matters worse, my regular chiropractor is on vacation (he never takes time off, and, go figure, he is out now! GRR!) I can see his sub, but his sub had a different style that isn't as effective for my body. My chiro is back on Wed - but my back will probably be better by then.Tomorrow is my regular active recovery/stretch day - so for now the plan is to do Classical Stretch Back Pain Relief. I don't know if I'll be back on the rotation on Sunday or not - I'll just

play it by ear. In the meantime I'll keep my back-friendly workouts in the forefront of my mind - so bike, treadmill, , Pilates, gentle yoga, classical stretch and for strength training I will pull out my Margaret 's DVDs since those tend to work well for me when my back is not feeling its best. Hey, I'm glad I caved on her sale as I will have two new ones headed my way to try (Beauty to the Bone and Strong and Limber!)

Oh - as a side observation - as mentioned, a very busy time of year is school-year end. In looking back, whenever I experience an acute injury to my back (I consider the aches and pains I have to be more of a chronic thing that I just deal with) it has always been at either year end (December) or fiscal-school year end (May/June). I think a large part of it is stress and muscle tension resulting from stress. Yesterday, I had way overbooked myself and I was rushing around and tense and I think that played a large part in my back going bonkers. My chiro and I were actually talking about that they other day and we discussed meditation and hyno-therapy. I have a very hard time w/ meditiation b/c I can't quiet my mind - I'm always thinking about *somethihng*! He suggested maybe trying hypno-therapy as a way to find a "trigger" that would allow my mind to quiet itself down. I may look

into that. Or, I suppose I can do more of my Kundalini yoga DVDs as those do tend to help me to relax - but in an energized way - if that makes sense? Anyway, just something I thought of!Hope everyone has a good day!Donna