Working out

Yesterday I had my first session with my new PT and coach, Kristine, who is a physiotherapist AND professional football player (how cool is that!!!?) Her first reaction on hearing my health story was... "But you're not normal!"

... eeeh... yes. She's right of course... I'm actually an alien in disguise...

But what she meant was that I had a special story and a great attitude. That was nice :) We talked for a while and made a plan for my rehabilitation, then she examined and gently massaged my back. She said that it seems like some of the muscles in my upper back are inflamed. They're extremely sore. She told me that newer research on inflammation and pain indicates that inflammation over time may change the structure of the muscle and even fuse the nerve fibres to the muscle in some way. I'm not sure I understood, but it sounds very relevant to understanding chronic muscle pain, so I hope I can learn more about it.

Being out of shape but extremely enthusiastic and slightly backbroken, my main challenge while starting to exercise after a long break is to pace myself. I need to build muscle slowly without overexerting myself, so for the first two weeks I'm not allowed to do harder stuff than warm water training, Pilates, and short cardio workouts on the cross trainer. It's hard to set boundaries like that, I love working out and being active, so I tend to just jump in and do as much as I can, and then collapse... really need to work on that whole "patience" thing...

I was back at the gym today to participate in my first class of warm water training - which turned out to be really fun. Lots of people waving their arms and dancing underwater, a cheery instructor showing us how to use all kinds of funny flotation devices while we're pumping our legs and giggling. But it was hard work!!! I'm sore all over, feeling muscles I didn't even know I had... Still my regular pain isn't worse than usual, so it doesn't seem like I've gone too far. Carrying a bag of groceries set off my neck injury again though, so I'm still in pain for the 4th day in a row.

*phew* 

But the sun is shining, and spring is coming... so I think that I'll get through this winter too:)