Mobility, Mobility, Mobility

I’ve spent the last three days painting … trim, edging, doors … plus all the prep - I’m a taper, I don’t have a steady enough hand to risk not taping.  

My body is sore … I ache in places I didn’t know you could ache … my ankles, knees, hips - oh my god, my joints are screaming at me. On the upside, the last three nights I’ve been so physically exhausted - my brain hasn’t wanted to shut down, but my body basically told my brain to fly a kite and overrode all over thinking or mental shutdown processes.  Waking up has been somewhat problematic.  I’ve been so exhausted that a solid 7 hours of sleep hasn’t quite felt like enough.  I was able to drag myself out of bed and get myself to the gym yesterday … moving felt good, but the sole rationale - the sauna … oh my god … twenty minutes of relaxing, meditative heat - or pure bliss. Tomorrow - I am finishing up painting, cleaning up, running errands and hopefully relaxing for an hour or two - weekend goals!  Then back to the gym - back to the sauna.  

My muscles shouldn’t hurt this much.  I thought I was doing or including mobility training in my routines … I’m starting to think I’m not doing enough.  So will need to look into that - I would have already, but I have been too tired - it enters my brain as a need more information on this but, as I said, my body has been overriding all things. 

I should be able to do low squats, push up to standing and back to a low squat without the current flood of aches.  Maybe not for eight hours, multiple days in a row, but then again, I feel like that’s not unreasonable.  

Typical strength workouts don’t prepare you - or your body - for everyday movement … painting and the movement I have been doing feels like day to day movement stuff, maybe not my typical day to day - but day to day nonetheless. What is odd - my body, while still sore, stiff and a little achy, isn’t nearly as bad today as it was yesterday or the day before.  I will totally take it.  I keep telling myself - my body is healing - repeatedly telling myself this.  

Not that I want others to feel bad … but my sister - who has been helping me - mentioned how much her muscles were aching today … somehow I felt less like a failure, or less like my body was failing me … ours are failing us together.

Mobility is such a strange thing.  It’s something you take for granted, until you can’t.  Whether you are active or not, ensuring your body and your joints can keep up with daily life, for the duration of your life isn’t something you typically think about - until you do.  

And here’s our rabbit hole - years ago I fell snowboarding and fractured my wrist.  It was never as strong as the other one.  I had to learn how to strengthen the joint and work at stretching it in ways that gave me back my range of motion and increased flexibility and endurance.  Days like these past few - I feel it.  The stretching helps. 

Taking that same approach with my knees and ankles - is probably a sound strategy.  I read somewhere that weak ankles can be the source of problems with your knees and hips … I can’t recall where I read that - so take that with a grain of salt. 

As I sit here and write this - I do mean write, I’m old school and still take pen to paper before transferring onto my laptop, it’s my creative process … but I digress … As I sit here, I’m doing heel raises - wow, can I feel those in my ankles, the front of my calves, the side of my knee.  Groans … it’s good though.  I need to find some stairs so I can balance it out with the heel down or toe up so I’m working the full range of motion. 

I saw a documentary on blue zones - I think that’s the colour - it’s areas of the world where people live to be over 100 and are in good mental and physical health.  Mobility was a key ingredient in some of those regions if memory serves.  

The rain, dampness and cooler temperatures aren’t helping the aches … I’m looking forward to curling up in a warm bed and getting a good night's sleep … I have a theory that sleep is a healing agent.  That and water. 

I still have a lot to do, but this project is almost over and a new one begins … different challenges, different movements … then I get a break - I’m travelling for work.  So, I’ll be busy but will have more downtime - theoretically, probably not … but there will be fun built in. 

Baby steps.  I’m getting there and I’m seeing the wins as I go. 

Tomorrow I will be able to step back and see how far I’ve come … see the difference the last few days of hard work has made and take a moment to appreciate the work I did … the work my sister, a friend and a brother-in-law have done.  

One step closer.  That’s worth the temporary exhaustion and aching muscles.  I’ll call it intense mobility training and investigate how to keep that going - well, less the intensity!