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October 4, 2006
The great stretching challenge
As I have gotten older, I've gotten tighter--I mean, my muscles have. My faithful blog readers know I have lots of aches and pains even when I'm not injured, and most of it, especially the groin stuff I dealt with this winter, is most likely due to ongoing muscle tightness. I always do a little bit of stretching before I get on the elliptical or go out for a run (or even get in the pool) but Barb reminded me today that since I am prone to such tightness, I should really be stretching for 20 minutes or so a day. Now, that's a lot of time, but she showed me just a couple of hip and groin stretches that helped loosen up some stuff, so I know I owe it to myself to get in a good stretch most days after I work out. I will make it a priority for the next few weeks and see how I feel.
Today was a running/biking day. I ran 3x8 minutes with about 2-minute walking breaks. Aside from feeling horribly out of shape and like all my running muscle memory has been erased, I also felt very tight (see above) especially in my hips and groin. My hip was hurting when I came back, although not in an injured way, just in a sore way (I know the difference). Biking seemed to be okay, although I didn't do it for that long.
When I saw Barb, she checked out my hip and said everything looked okay and the tightness was probably in my inner hamstring and glute. BOY was she right--it was quite uncomfortable for her to work on me there. And then she moved on to my (?)TFL, which is very close to where I think of as my IT band. Whatever it was, it was so tight and tender that I kicked Barb's massage cream out of her hand (accidentally) when she started to work on it. Needless to say, she didn't get very far, but we will work on it next week and now I know where to put the foam roller (although that won't do half as much.)
The rest of my day was uneventful and my hip felt better right after leaving Barb's. I swam tonight for a little while just to mix things up, and it went by really quickly for a change. It was quite warm out today so I wished I could have been swimming outside. Hopefully the fall weather will return soon!
Posted by becky at October 4, 2006 8:23 PM