Two weeks ago my post was about initial training in an attempt to return to fitness after having become unfit. However that is not really the beginning of this journey. The beginning was the end of the tyranny of a chronic injury.
It started with a injection to relieve the pain of a pinched nerve I’d been struggling with for years without knowing its cause. Prior to that I felt like I was on a diving board of unyielding rock, only one leg reliably working, and surrounded by fall lines that led to sudden death and not in control of when I would be told to jump. Then came physical therapy. My physical therapist was Dan Ziebel. He did four things:
- He started where I was, no matter how little I could do. He wouldn’t let me do things that were harmful to the nerve, no matter that that they were common exercises for other people.
- He focused on form for a long time. He managed to catch things I was doing wrong every week — to the point of frustration — that I had no clue I was doing wrong.
- He watched. No matter what I said in words he knew much more by watching.
- He said some things were off limits forever. Specifically jumping — on bike or off. Bummer. But helpful nonetheless. He explained a bunch of other things that normal people do that I have to be careful about, and how to be careful.
I’m not sure most physical therapists would have done what he did — he seemed to be trained both in his field and in the field of sports, and to have learned to interpret people’s movements carefully over a lifetime. It was his sight that got me able to exercise without exacerbating injury, a fundamental to returning to full health and fitness. Nerves take an incredibly long time to heal. In my case it has been two years to get to the point where I can ride with any speed without causing more problems.
This week I got up to roughly where I started when I started training for serious cycling objectives as a younger person. That is sort of like reaching a starting line of a training program. There is far to go and I could still run into one of those point 4 above situations that bring it crashing down…but maybe not. There is only one way to find out and that is to aim high and expect success while continuing to listen.
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