August 23: I Feel Fantastic!
I really am blown away by how great I feel today! The Workout that Sam sent me and a few days of yoga really turned me around, and I have zero back pain this morning. I’m going to take it easy again today and do that same core work out again and some more yoga- I know better than to go full rocket the first day of feeling truly better after an injury.
Even just laying on the floor on my back, I worked on tilting my pelvis so my low back was flat to the ground, it felt foreign to me at first, but after a few minutes all traces of ache were gone and I felt like… like this is how my spine is supposed to be. I felt all the muscles in my lower back and across the back of my hips relax, for what seemed like probably the first time in a decade or more. I’m not even sure if I can say that pregnancy was the main cause of my pelvic tilt- did it start sooner? As a teenager? Young Adult? Trying to fit the ideal shape in a pair of jeans, did I start tilting my pelvis like that on purpose? I have so many questions for my body all of the sudden. I’m not sure when the tilt happened or why, but it’s made me think more about how I’m carrying myself; the way I walk, the way I’m standing, how do I shift my weight around, how does it affect my overall posture?
I took some time yesterday after some late night yoga to assess myself. Check my posture. I stood up out of Forward Fold and checked my alignment. Correct the feet, the weight balanced between my heels and the balls of my feet. My knees, under my hips, my hips, pulled forward to correct the tilt and my abdomen engaged. Ribs pulled back over the hips, Shoulders rolled back and upright, neck straight, head up. HOLY COW! When did I start slouching so much?!
My goal for today, post workout and clean up, is to double check my posture throughout the day and do my best to ensure that I’m “stacked properly.” That my joints are aligned, and my posture is correct for my body. There’s a concept called Rolfing, where the idea is that, like stacked stones, when part of the body is misaligned, another part of the body must compensate. So if my hips are misaligned, then so must be my ribcage to compensate for the bad line up, and then so are my shoulders, and my neck. Like stacking bricks- if you stagger them improperly, they will fall apart. If you stack them square, you can build a tower, but the balance must be there.
Rolfing also includes a type of massage therapy that helps to alleviate stress and injury to the connective tissues between the muscle, or Fascia. As we grow older, our fascia becomes less pliable, less functional, due to injury and lack of movement. So becoming active, is kind of like waking all of that tissue up and urging it to work properly again- sometimes it takes more time in places of the body than others. I’m hoping that with consistent warm ups and working on my inner core muscles, I can correct my hips and thus the rest of my posture and prevent further injury during my training. Though admittedly, I’m also hoping I can con my husband into some massages to help me.
Today’s Workout:
Yoga Flow: a pretty standard Sun Salutation, making sure my breath is in time with each pose and flowing through them. Making sure though that I’m not just flowing, but also pausing to hold and breathe, and get that energetic breath moving through me.
Core Work. Five Moves to complete and total soreness. I used the block for almost all of them, but I got a great deep core workout. Toe taps here to save my diastasis recti. Hip Bridges to build my core and booty at the same time. Bicycles to make me hate my life a little bit. More knee floaty down dogs to make me sweat harder. There's another one that I can't remember the name of, but it hurt just like the rest.
I'm sore. Laughing hurts.
Now, time for tea.
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