Status Report, January 2018

Long time, no update.

I'm very slowly gaining strength.  I can now balance on one leg for 30 seconds without holding onto the wall.

I tried an online yoga class that runs for this month, but the sessions were too long for my current fitness level, and trying too many new exercises in one day was bound to frequently find exercises that tweak my hip.  I am trying to use this class showing up in my feed as a trigger to do other exercises.

I did find this "pelvic reset" exercise that seems useful.  The first time I did it there was a significant klunk and improvement.  It's not a reliable fix, but it is strength building and doesn't tweak anything, so I'm including it regularly.



If I rotate that soccer ball a little bit so that my bad leg is lower than the good leg, I can find a weak muscle that doesn't tweak anything to work on.  The push/pull part can hurt pretty badly when pushing down on the bad leg, but it doesn't seem to have negative lingering after effects, so we can categorize it as the kind of pain that is chasing out weakness.

The same trainer had some good insights on exercise for the hypermobile:


(TL;DW: motor control and massage is good, range of motion and stretching is bad.)

An important discovery is that I can work on adduction as long as I don't move internal of the neutral position.  The isometric work with the soccer ball between the knees is one example.  I can also fasten a stretch band to the leg of the bed, side step away, and work on moving the leg from external to neutral position.  When I've had a bit of consistent sucess with my current routine, I may try something similar with internal rotation, rotating from an external to neutral position.

My daily checklist which I've been sloppy about following for awhile now, includes ankle rotations, one leg balancing, and calf raises.  Working hard on my ankles gives more general stability to my system, so the hip doesn't have to work as hard.  The hip does do some work in balancing during these exercises, but isn't the main focus.  Working primarily on the ankles means I'm not likely to tweak the hip with PT.  The newer stuff referenced above addresses the hip more directly.

On the ergonomics front, I'm about to start a new job.  I'm a little nervous about going back to full time, but I think I'll be fine if I get my desk and my bench in on day one.  I have done plenty of long days on part time work, and even the occasional 40 hour week.