Nyom

I have not been eating well.

Correction: this week I have made a belated stab at eating well.  It’s proving... taxing...

I have started monitoring exercise, fluid intake, sleep, and fruit/ veg intake again.  Among other things, having an objective measurement is super-useful.

And it turns out that I’m about hitting exercise and sleep targets, scraping by on fluids, and frankly failing at fruit and veg.  And, frankly, even those dismal fluid and fruit/ veg intake figures are only because I’m trying harder so that I can have something to put in the log.  Less Heisenberg, more Hawthorne.

Balls.  I remember that, last time, I was doing really well - easily getting 7/8 fruit and veg a day, and usually drinking about 2½ litres of water (apart from Saturdays - I rarely do well on Saturdays as they tend to be my sofa day - lots of sleep, not so much on the food, drink, or social activity).

Over the last couple of months I appear to have systematically broken all my good habits, possibly in a fit of pique over my neck being sore and it being more difficult for me to exercise.  (At some point soon I need to address this thanatopic, adolescent tendency; it’s really starting to get in my way.)  I cut down on exercise, social time, water intake, fresh/ any fruit and veg, and I did it with a grim sense of achievement. It was weird. I only see how weird it was now, writing about it and looking back.

I’ve started baking again (creative endeavour, sense of achievement, nom), which means more biscuits. I have to take them out of the house and ply them at colleagues, friends, randoms on the street (this is not actually an exaggeration - I gave home-made flapjack to a homeless guy because I didn’t have any cash on me, and I don’t smoke).

I feel like I’m coming at this health thing again from not even a standing so much as a lying-down start.  This is going to be tougher than I’d anticipated...

Any hints and tips would be gratefully received on how to make this stick.  In the meantime, I’m going to keep on with the spreadsheet and keep reminding myself how much better I feel well-hydrated and with a less-challenged digestive tract.

(I wish I understood the weight thing - this entire time I’ve continue to remain in the lower half of the ideal BMI range, and - according to the possibly incredibly faulty fat analysis machine - I have a really (like scarily) low fat composition...)

Changing Relationships

So, I’ve blogged before about pain. About what “stop comes before ow” really means and how you can be guided by, but also ignore pain if needs be.

As I get more into the old exercise regime, the more pain I’m experiencing.  Some of it is “good” pain - e.g. the stiffening and burning of artfully-shredded muscle fibres that are on their first steps to growing back thicker.  Some of it is “bad” pain - e.g. the twanging of a shoulder joint that’s experienced injury due to superfluous effort in a less-advisable position.

Now, I’m prone - like probably every enthusiastic bendy - to overdoing things, breaking myself, and having to take a break from exercise as a result.  This has been well-documented in me, even as recently as last year’s big fitness push, and I find myself there again, having gone too hard on the old press-ups last week and now having unilateral neck pain, and pins-and-needles in my left arm due to a twanged shoulder. (Yes, it’s The Particularly Borked Shoulder.)

But something occurred to me last week, as I was going up the stairs and thinking: “yep, this is an injury, not just a post-exercise burn” - it’s not a disaster.

Let’s say that again: It’s Not A Disaster.

In the past, the pattern has been: start exercise regime, forget sensible approach after a couple of goes (at most) and overdo things so that an established weak point is compromised, curse a lot, rest for ages, start again only after I’m really fed-up of being unfit.

And I’ve managed to manage that somewhat - I’ve been building more slowly (last week notwithstanding), being more alert to potential injury, stopping sooner, and giving myself space to recover before getting back into things without leaving it so long that I’m actually more prone to injury if I try coming back in at the same level.

But in the past it’s been all: oh! ow! and then beating myself up for a muppet. Catastrophising the pain and popping myself in the victim box all over again. The pain is punishment! The pain is validation! The pain is a full-stop!

Waaaiit... rewind - the pain is validation?  Hmm, sounds like some kind of brain weasel talk to me. And it’s a problem that, the more I think about it, the further it goes back for me.

There’s an awkward balance to be struck when your body is limited in a particular way.  You have to own it in order to manage it.  But sometimes that very self-definition can take you deeper into NOT managing it.  Speaking for my own situation, it’s useful for me to say: “Because of underlying weakness and historical issues, I stand a much greater chance of injury if I lift things above shoulder height, so I’ll avoid doing that.” It’s less useful to say: “I’m limited, so I can’t lift things, so I won’t.”  It’s useful to acknowledge where pain stops being a good guide and is just distressing/ distracting/ a sleep-killer.  It’s less useful to shy away from all pain and hold myself in a kind of twitching huddle in a corner, hemmed in by painkillers and fear, outraged because I’m not pain-free.

Because I’m never going to be pain-free.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I know I’m always experiencing pain somewhere at any given time. There are some Usual Suspects, but sometimes they all kick off, and sometimes it’s a new place, and  most times it’s only one or two of them.

But if I define myself purely by my pain, and use that as an excuse not to do things: I Am A Limited Person, Here Is My Badge Of Pain, that’s, well, frankly a bit rubbish.  Pain as validation as a lesser being is a weird circular argument that does no-one any good. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to be able to get away with that, so why me?

And pain is clearly not a full-stop. That was the conclusion on the stairs - if I see the muscle burn of good exercise as a landmark on the way to becoming more awesome, I need to start treating the Usual Suspect Injury Pains as landmarks as well, somehow. Whether as a learning point of how far not to push things, or some kind of psychological step on the route to better self-acceptance, or better ability to ignore unfixable pain, there must be some use in it, and seeing it as a full-stop disaster where I swoon in a bower and wait for some bugger to come rescue me is helping no-one.

Not entirely sure where I’m going with this yet, but this feels like a positive realisation, and a potentially very useful mental tool.

Grindstone, meet Shoulder

So, as I’ve just posted, it looks rather like I’m back in the old exercise saddle.

I have bust through the notorious two week point (don’t know about anyone else, but if I can make it through two weeks of good exercise habit, the pattern is generally set until injury) and so far appear to be injury-free (you know, above my usual baseline of "various bits of me are a bit wrong").

So, what have I been up to?

1. Cycling
2. Large Muscle Physio Exercises
3. Small Muscle Physio Exercises
4. Butch Core Mat Exercises
5. Dancing

1. Cycling

I’ve been doing my best to cycle everywhere I can.  This is by no means every day (sometimes I’ve got massive stuff to carry; sometimes I’m not even leaving the house; today I couldn’t find my cycling helmet until after I’d given up and ordered a taxi), but most days, and I’m generally clocking (when the app bloody works) between 3-7 miles every day that I do cycle.

Advantages include cheapness and smugness alongside muscle strength; non-weight-bearing cardiovascular challenge; and the sensation of my lungs "opening up" again; forces me not to carry too much stuff with me.

Disadvantages include smelling bad (or feeling like I smell bad); dangerously ignorant cars; annoying cyclists; headwind; forces me not to carry too much stuff with me ({pout}).

Improvements to be made include being more systematic about where I put my gear, and getting better into a regime for the mornings in order to get to work more on time.

2. Large Muscle Physio Exercises

I’ve only missed one morning physio session in about 8 months, and that was when I was too ill from The Cough to go into work, so I sat on my arse and watched Netflix.  Other than that, I’ve been doing my usual:

leg-lifts (supine, sideways, on my belly)

crunches (normal, side, and slightly twisted)

kicks and crosses

All of these from the floor, and apparently - according to various friends - quite similar to a lot of Pilates moves. Most of them are designed for either 20/ 10 reps. As advised by physio.

Advantages include simplicity; portability; being part of a good morning habit; excellent for core strength; great for a range of leg muscle strength and stability; really good, demonstrably effective way of ameliorating and preventing pain, damage, injury etc. from long-term standing.

Disadvantages include finding enough room to lay flat, arms and legs full stretch in all directions, on a surface that won’t hurt to exercise on; needing to do it before breakfast otherwise indigestion; them doing pretty much nothing for upper body strength/ stability, which I badly need, considering the frequency with which my shoulders/ neck get injured/ go out of alignment/ both; they’re really only any good for maintenance rather than development.

Improvements to be made include getting them done earlier in the morning; finding something maintenancey to add to them for arms, shoulders, etc.

3. Small Muscle Physio Exercises

Instead of waving whole limbs around, these focus on tiny, tight-to-the-bone muscle groups, ostensibly to improve stability. Instead of lifting against gravity, you’re squeezing or pulling against yourself - these are for arms (and therefore shoulders and wrists), and can be done either sitting down or standing up:

pushing palms/ fists against each other

hooking fingers and pulling hands/ arms against each other

palm-against-back, one hand pushes towards the body, the other pushes away (then swap)

All of these forms are done in front of the torso, above the head, and behind the torso, holding the push/ pull for at least ten seconds before moving onto the next form. As advised by physio.

Advantages include them being for shoulder stability, which I badly need; massively portable (I can - and usually do - do them at my desk at work); hard to see how you can injure yourself only pushing against your own strength.

Disadvantages include that they’re super-boring, so it’s difficult to remember to do them unless I’m already injured and thinking about that kind of thing; it’s difficult to discern any difference even after doing them for a while.

Improvements to be made include setting up a thrice-daily reminder to do them, like I have the once-daily to do physio, twice daily for nasty medication, etc.; do some research into how they function and how to spot the difference between doing and not doing them; add more neck ones (which I’m currently not doing because they’re more fiddly and look "weirder" than the arm ones in work!).

4. Butch Core Mat Exercises

A long time ago I went out with someone who was a Navy officer and who taught me how to do a press-up. In fact, taught me that I could do press-ups. He taught me a routine of three types of press-up ("normal", wide-arm, and wacky ones with hands close together to challenge the triceps), and three types of sit-up ("normal", twisted, and crunch). I vaguely remember that I was supposed to switch up between these and do lunges or squats or some other damned thing that I can’t do these days because knees. He also showed me free weights.

A more recent partner taught me about planks and tricep dips, rest days, and doing crazy things like press-ups or planks with your feet elevated (I don’t think I’ve yet done these). Another showed me Russian twists, deadlifts, and how to improve my full-leg-lifts (i.e. both at the same time) in order to make them more challenging. The internet (and Wii-fit) showed me flying press-ups and some crazy versions of crunches.

This, I suspect, is why I used to have a six-pack - I used to do a bunch of this EVERY DAMNED DAY, along with punchball exercises and free weights every other time.

Instead of doing the usual thing that I do which is flail wildly into DOING ALL THE EXERCISES ’TIL I BREAK then advanced pouting for six weeks, I’m moving slowly back into Butch Exercises by doing increased reps and increased sets of only four forms to start off with, including lying the hell down between sets:

a) "Normal" press-ups. Generally up to 20-25, except for at the end of the event, when the sets are more like 10.

b) Planks. I’m now up to minimum 1 minute, even at the end of the event (although a lot of swearing is currently involved when I come out of the form on the fourth go-round), and up to 1:40 max. I know this isn’t much, considering that the world record is in hours, but it’s my best, dagnabbit...

c) Double leg-lifts. I’ve injured myself with being over-enthusiastic with these, so - even if I’m feeling full of vim and strength, I tend to only go to 16 max, even at the beginning of the event.

d) Wide-arm press-ups. Only for the latter half of the event once I’ve warmed up, and - again because of former injury - I keep the set reps to ≤ 10

Advantages include fast speed of discernible differences; really feeling core tightening; butch satisfaction of "proper" aches the following day; done right the press-ups lead to good shoulder strength and - I think - stability; measurable progress (more reps before exhaustion, longer holds on planks); some cardiovascular challenge; have to do them from the feet.

Disadvantages include how easy it is to get carried away and bugger my shoulders, especially the Especially Borked One (left), leading to aforementioned six week pouting; not entirely convinced I’m doing the forms properly (could I be preventing injury with better form?); if I forget to stretch properly afterwards, I’m screwed; not very aerobic; have to do them from the feet.

Improvements to be made include setting limits on sets/ reps and - instead - adding new forms at lower reps; getting some advice about forms.

5. Dancing

Only just got back into this on Saturday just gone. I have no discipline beyond the beat, and making sure I wear vaguely suitable shoes (canvas trainers with ankle support) rather than The Boots. I stamp, pogo, flail, mosh, gurn, wiggle, grin, pirouette, and do fancy-ish footwork with lots of crossing-over of feet, kicking, and double-kicking.

I’m a bloody maniac.

Advantages include the weird fact that I can keep up sustained fast movement to music far longer (HOURS) than, e.g. running on a treadmill, which makes me want to die in a tiny ball of fail; excellent aerobic and cardiovascular exercise; needs no special equipment (except aforementioned change of footwear); by far the most social of my exercise activities; cheap (for me - I go to an indie club 3 miles from my house that costs £4 to get in, with free parking, and £1/ bottle of water); the way I dance means that it’s a full-body workout (sustained rhythmical flailing is surprisingly hard on the arms).

Disadvantages include the fact that the clubbing-dancing I’m doing leads to very-late-to-bed, and further sleep disturbance; not very portable (needs friends, and I’ve only found one club in Cambridge so far that plays my kind of music); it’s all too easy to forget to stretch out afterwards and e.g. have very tight calves hobbled by All The Pogoing (rather like I’m feeling today...); all the attendant issues of clubbing in dodgy little places (unsprung floor which stands fair to bugger joints with impact; no mop-up for perilously-spilled drinks on the dancefloor) and any vaguely mainstream venue (no, mate - just coz I smiled at you while jumping up-and-down to Song Two does not mean I want special cuddles with you); moshing is seriously bad for your neck, dear heavens; badly-coordinated people with interpersonal space issues leading to bruising, and/ or, in this instance, a blistered toe from a poorly-managed stiletto.

Improvements to be made include getting a regular night to go out on, co-ordinating friends; some research into other clubs that might play my kind of dancing music (indie, indie-rock, trance, techno (or whatever the youth call it these days), almost anything from 90s except hard or cock-rock); look at finding ceilidhs/ folk-dancing groups locally, because nothing gets you properly out of breath like a good twmpath.


And that’s your lot for the moment. :D I plan to be updating on the progress on these (including any injuries - my left shoulder’s been feeling a wee bit gimpy as I’ve been typing this...) over the next few weeks/ months

Catching Up…

Well, I appear to be back. Which is an interesting place to be.  Let's review where I went:

In December I'd already been cycling to and from work, and in January had started sessions with an exercise trainer who'd done lots of reading up on HMS/ EDS (and seemed to know more than me) and was feeling quite chipper about my physical health.  My lungs had started to "open up" again, and I was feeling a lot of the benefits of being more physically active.

Then in mid-late-February I injured my neck badly. (Please don't ask how: from experience, we'll both regret it.) Now, I'm used to injuring my neck - it's a bit par for the course with the way my hypermobility works. So I left it alone, doing all the usual right things (reduce burden, immobilise, sleep a certain way) that usually sorts it out within 48 hours.

Then I got back on the bike.  And it became clear really quickly that this wasn't going away, even though it waxed and waned, and I'd have to stop doing an exercise that relied on me being able to look over my shoulder as I no longer could.  I went to my usual physio, who assessed me (yes, I was right: I'd injured something in a different part of my neck from usual, and it was a generally unusual place to boot), gave me some exercises, and asked me to come back.  In the meantime, I was back in taxis and buses, spending a bunch of money on that and physio.  Which, it turned out, didn't work - my neck was busted badly.  She suggested I get X-rayed, and a desperately frustrating cycle of annoyance and admin kicked off.

Short version:

5 second X-ray from one angle - nothing to see, reported by SMS. Wow.
10 minute examination by rheumatoid specialist - you don't have EDS. Er, okay, but why...? Go to a physio. Yeah, er, thanks...
30 minute back-and-neck massage from 19-year-old at a spa in Cardiff - regained at least 50% range of mobility. WOW! {tears of joy}

By this point, it was mid-May. Once the range was back enough for me to at least vaguely look over my right shoulder, I got back on the bike, and back into the mat exercises.

One small problem - a persistent cough that started with a bad cold on 1st May. This is buggering my sleep, which means that I spent a while sleeping on the sofa to avoid disturbing everyone in the house, which means the kind of discomfort you'd imagine. Also: a ridiculous amount of nosebleeds. Joyous.

This, however, has not noticeably stopped me from becoming more active again.  For a start, it's not in my lungs, as far as I can tell, so my breathing itself is okay. And once I get past a certain point in any exercise event, all the nice neurochemicals kick in and open up my respiratory tract, reducing inflammation and phlegm, and I have this wonderful phase for a brief period afterwards where I just don't cough. :)

The next post will deal with what I've been doing, exercise-wise. :)