Let’s Get Physical
Per today’s visit to Physical Therapy I am now the proud owner of a 6×36″ Foam Roller. You may recognize this object, the hated tool of the physical “therapist”, the Room 101 of stretching. A while back I used one to stretch my Iliotibial Band in the interest of less painful cycling. Stretching the IT Band kills … it’s best to do it at home because you are likely to start crying at the gym.
My physical therapist assured me that the four foam roller exercises she is prescribing for me are not painful like the IT Band stretch. She says I have really bad posture and that is leading to this painful Shoulder Impingement, possibly catalyzed by hitting the riverbed when goofing of and diving in the Kings River. I do have horrible posture, no suprise there. Putting my back and shoulders into a supposedly “normal” anatomical position requires a lot of effort and is not a fun resting state. I have a super-stiff neck and upper back too, owing to my hunchback computer lifestyle. Hopefully these exercises will help.
Just like every physical therapist and ergonomics specialist I have ever met, she expressed shock upon learning that I spend 14-16 hours a day in front of a computer.
“Wow, that’s really a lot”
I don’t get it … that level of computer time is an industry standard all across silicon valley. Why isn’t the PT industry in tune with that? I can see now why so many co-workers are triathletes. It’s not just about exercise … training at that level makes you pay attention to your body and keeps you in touch with sports medicine physicians that can be a valuable resource for this type of thing.
Then again there are the chain-smoking, hard-drinking mexican web developers that I work with. I think I’m going to just get a cortisone shot and eat some candy.
Link to AMF Should Impingement page
Filed under: cycling, gadgets, old timers · 3 Comments
My one Alexander Technique lesson with Nick taught me a New Way To Sit, which really helps my bad posture and significantly reduces RSI pain I get while typing. When people used to tell me to ’sit up straight’, I would use the muscles in my back/shoulders to straighten my upper body, which did not help. But I learned that simply ‘rolling forward on my sit-bones’ changes *everything*. It’s hard to describe, but really simple and I can’t believe I didn’t know about this all my life. I will show you next time I see you, but this might just be a rajbox thing, since I am oddly-proportioned..
14-16 hours straight is a lot. i don’t think our bodies have evolved to sit for that long. i was doing that a couple weeks ago and now my lower back is totally killing me.
i think training for some type of event helps me too because it makes me pay closer attention to my body and also more disciplined about doing things that aren’t so exciting (like stretching to avoid injury). plus i can also secretly pretend that i’m training to become an elite-kick-ass-ninja-fighter! (another childhood fantasy that comes from watching waaaay too many martial arts movies :-)