Following on from my last post, I suffered a nasty spell of sciatic and femoral nerve pain, which both my Physio and PT believe was brought on by over training. It meant I was unable to do any training for a few weeks. My PT focussed on helping me stretch out my piriformis muscles as well as my hip flexors and glutes. My Physio helped with those too, but also worked on releasing the tension in my back. Thankfully all the nerve pains have gone now, but I still need to work on stretching the muscles. Other health issues meant I had to take the focus away from weight loss for a while, so we have been working on strengthening my glutes and back. Now I am under Doctor's orders to refrain from strenuous exercise, and running for the next 4-6 weeks (this is to do with other health issues and a small operation which are not, in any way exercise related). After 6 weeks, hopefully I will be "back in the game" as they say. I will need to be, because guess what is next?
I am going to start a training course to become a Personal Trainer! It's something I've thought about doing for quite some time and it feels like the time is right now. The nerve and back pains have been a wake up call that sitting in a car all day is not good for me. I want to improve my knowledge about the body and training for my own benefit, but I'd also like to use that knowledge to help others in similar situations to me. I will be specialising in helping clients with obesity and diabetes. I really want to help those who, for whatever reason, don't believe they can do it. I want to be more than the Personal Trainer who turns up once a week to make you sweat a bit. I want to be a constant support and mentor. I'll be looking at ways to be on hand via social media, Skype, FaceTime etc. to help with the day to day challenges of getting and staying healthy.
Of course, I need to get my body into good shape, so that I can be a positive role model for my clients, but I want them to know that this has been a long and hard journey for me too. I hope that they will appreciate and be inspired by my successes. I don't care if I never have a 6 pack, but I will be fit and healthy and have a body which allows me to do the things I want to do to be happy. That's what I want for my clients too. Personal Trainers are not just for people who want to look like The Rock or The Kardashians, I'm here for the people who just want to be able to get up a flight of stairs without being out of breath, who want to play with the kids in the garden, without having to sit down for a rest.
So I've signed up for the course and I start in a few weeks. I have received some of the training books in the post and My God I've got a lot of reading to do! It's funny because I considered going into the fitness industry when I was at school but I was scared of having to learn all about the body and muscles and stuff. Now here I am 25 years later, doing what I should have done in the first place! Maybe the journey was for a reason? Maybe I've built up a history of personal experience which will help me better empathise with my clients? I think so.
Tuesday 5 September 2017
Wednesday 14 June 2017
New phase: rebuilding the body!
Ok I've reached critical point!
I'm somewhere around half way between my lightest weight and my heaviest. I don't want to get any bigger! My pains are getting worse again and I have a lot of pain in my hip. I've been to the doctors about my hip and they referred me to physio. In the mean time, I have found a good sports therapist who has also been giving me physio. He does therapy, massage, stretching and acupuncture. He's also a personal trainer although he doesn't train me as he only does it in the city. I've given him the full low down on all my pains and asked him to help me bring my body back into alignment, as I'm sure many of the problems are synergistic. He has helped a bit and has given me some acupuncture , which I've never tried before. I have not been doing much exercise or stretching between visits though.
The NHS physio, tried a couple of exercises and put an insert in my shoe as he said I was pronating on one side. After three visits, he said he was all out of ideas and didn't understand what the root cause of the pain was. He said he couldn't really help me and that I should just carry on with exercises and stretching. (He didn't know I was seeing a private physio).
I have now decided to get a personal trainer on board. I was hoping the physio would be able to do that too, but as I said he does physio in Brentwood, but only does PT in London. I did a little bit of research and found someone who specifically has good knowledge/qualifications in biomechanics. That's the study of how the body moves and how one part affects others etc. All PT's claim to be able to help you with imbalances, but I'm looking for more detail than that. The guy I have found, got into his profession due to his own pains and trying to resolve his own issues, so I feel he's walked a similar path of discovery to me. He is also in to using foods rich in anti-inflammatory properties, which is something I was hot on in the past. He is looking forward to the challenge of trying to "fix" me. He has sat and done a very comprehensive questionnaire with me and I've had to send him photos of everything I've eaten this week (food diary). The next step is that he will do a full body survey, checking movement and range of motion through a series of tests and exercises. He will then give me a nutrition plan and an exercise plan. I'll see him once a week.
This week, my hip pain has got really bad and turned into severe back pains. The pains were so bad on Saturday that I was almost in tears and nearly throwing up with the pain. My physio thinks it might be Piriformis syndrome and having looked it up on the internet, it seems to fit. So at the moment, I'm just trying to get the inflammation down and sort that out.
I'm supposed to be doing Race For Life Muddy this weekend, but at the moment it is looking highly unlikely.
I'm really looking forward to starting my new plan with my PT. I feel like I'm really ready to knuckle down and do it right again. The pain I've been in this week has also served as a timely reminder of what happens when I don't look after myself.
Watch this space!
Onwards and upwards. Keep on keeping on. #FasterHigherStronger
I'm somewhere around half way between my lightest weight and my heaviest. I don't want to get any bigger! My pains are getting worse again and I have a lot of pain in my hip. I've been to the doctors about my hip and they referred me to physio. In the mean time, I have found a good sports therapist who has also been giving me physio. He does therapy, massage, stretching and acupuncture. He's also a personal trainer although he doesn't train me as he only does it in the city. I've given him the full low down on all my pains and asked him to help me bring my body back into alignment, as I'm sure many of the problems are synergistic. He has helped a bit and has given me some acupuncture , which I've never tried before. I have not been doing much exercise or stretching between visits though.
The NHS physio, tried a couple of exercises and put an insert in my shoe as he said I was pronating on one side. After three visits, he said he was all out of ideas and didn't understand what the root cause of the pain was. He said he couldn't really help me and that I should just carry on with exercises and stretching. (He didn't know I was seeing a private physio).
I have now decided to get a personal trainer on board. I was hoping the physio would be able to do that too, but as I said he does physio in Brentwood, but only does PT in London. I did a little bit of research and found someone who specifically has good knowledge/qualifications in biomechanics. That's the study of how the body moves and how one part affects others etc. All PT's claim to be able to help you with imbalances, but I'm looking for more detail than that. The guy I have found, got into his profession due to his own pains and trying to resolve his own issues, so I feel he's walked a similar path of discovery to me. He is also in to using foods rich in anti-inflammatory properties, which is something I was hot on in the past. He is looking forward to the challenge of trying to "fix" me. He has sat and done a very comprehensive questionnaire with me and I've had to send him photos of everything I've eaten this week (food diary). The next step is that he will do a full body survey, checking movement and range of motion through a series of tests and exercises. He will then give me a nutrition plan and an exercise plan. I'll see him once a week.
This week, my hip pain has got really bad and turned into severe back pains. The pains were so bad on Saturday that I was almost in tears and nearly throwing up with the pain. My physio thinks it might be Piriformis syndrome and having looked it up on the internet, it seems to fit. So at the moment, I'm just trying to get the inflammation down and sort that out.
I'm supposed to be doing Race For Life Muddy this weekend, but at the moment it is looking highly unlikely.
I'm really looking forward to starting my new plan with my PT. I feel like I'm really ready to knuckle down and do it right again. The pain I've been in this week has also served as a timely reminder of what happens when I don't look after myself.
Watch this space!
Onwards and upwards. Keep on keeping on. #FasterHigherStronger
Sunday 15 January 2017
New year, new me?
Well, as you can tell, I've been neglecting my blog for quite some time. As we entered into 2017 I did a bit of self assessment, as I'm sure many of us do. I logged on here to see what I'd been up to last time we spoke. As it turned out, my last post was around this time exactly a year ago and reading through it, I was struck immediately by how similar it was to what I was planning to write this year. In fact I'd go so far as to say it was almost word for word what I was going to write! Had I not moved forward at all in the last twelve months? I certainly had some note worthy achievements, as always, there were plenty of races and I did really well with my cycling, increasing my mileage from around 15/20 miles up to 30 miles. All that aside though, I did not improve my running times significantly, I did not improve my upper body strength and I most definitely did not lose any weight! For all of that, I cant help but be disappointed with myself.
Where did it go wrong and what am I going to do different then? I did a few sessions with a personal trainer but its a paradoxical situation; either work is so busy that I'm not able to fit sessions in or work is quiet and so I cant afford the luxury of personal training. Looking forward, money will be tight as we need to save for a mortgage, so personal training is off the menu for a while. I have everything I need at home anyway, I just need to keep myself motivated. Last year I tended to skip the weights sessions in favour of running or cycling, so this year I must make sure I'm not taking the easy option every time.
I've decided not to enter a half marathon in 2018, so March 2017 will be the last one for a while at least. I've come to this decision because training for it takes up so much time and effort that I cant do the other things I want, like the weights workouts. Its difficult to schedule a heavy legs session when you need to be fresh for a 10 mile run a few days later! It also hurts my joints quite a lot, which is no fun. Therefore I have decided to focus on 5 and 10km runs for the next year at least and really work on beating some PB's. On the subject of joint pains, I've been referred to a muscoskeletal clinic with particular reference to my hip, which is giving me so much pain lately.
This year we are doing two Nuclear races (mud obstacle), one in May and one in September. I'm doing two Race For Life's, the 10k and the 5k muddy. I'm also doing the winter run, hopefully the Tough 10k and the Rudolph Run again as well as the Brentwood half marathon of course. Besides all those official events, I'll be challenging myself at cycling again. Last year the goal was to cycle to Southend (30 miles), this year I want to double it, there and back. As a side show for motivation, I am doing a virtual race throughout the year; Lands End to John O Groats. I log my weekly mileage from running and cycling with the race organisers until it totals the distance (605 miles) they post on Facebook and send me postcards from where I would be so far.
Diet wise, its pretty much everything I said I was going to do last year. I'm feeling pretty good about it this time. One of the lifestyle changes I want to make is to not spend as long in the evenings watching telly and drinking cider. There are so many little things on my to do list that I never quite have time for, the silly little things, from tidying the sock drawer to putting up new pics in the gym. I don't have time because I come home from work, eat, then watch telly (even when there's nothing worth watching). So now, if there's nothing worth watching, I'll go and find something to do. Hopefully this will result in me drinking a bit less and make me a bit more active. If nothing else, I'll be ticking off all those little jobs!
Hopefully I'll speak to you a little sooner than last time!
Where did it go wrong and what am I going to do different then? I did a few sessions with a personal trainer but its a paradoxical situation; either work is so busy that I'm not able to fit sessions in or work is quiet and so I cant afford the luxury of personal training. Looking forward, money will be tight as we need to save for a mortgage, so personal training is off the menu for a while. I have everything I need at home anyway, I just need to keep myself motivated. Last year I tended to skip the weights sessions in favour of running or cycling, so this year I must make sure I'm not taking the easy option every time.
I've decided not to enter a half marathon in 2018, so March 2017 will be the last one for a while at least. I've come to this decision because training for it takes up so much time and effort that I cant do the other things I want, like the weights workouts. Its difficult to schedule a heavy legs session when you need to be fresh for a 10 mile run a few days later! It also hurts my joints quite a lot, which is no fun. Therefore I have decided to focus on 5 and 10km runs for the next year at least and really work on beating some PB's. On the subject of joint pains, I've been referred to a muscoskeletal clinic with particular reference to my hip, which is giving me so much pain lately.
This year we are doing two Nuclear races (mud obstacle), one in May and one in September. I'm doing two Race For Life's, the 10k and the 5k muddy. I'm also doing the winter run, hopefully the Tough 10k and the Rudolph Run again as well as the Brentwood half marathon of course. Besides all those official events, I'll be challenging myself at cycling again. Last year the goal was to cycle to Southend (30 miles), this year I want to double it, there and back. As a side show for motivation, I am doing a virtual race throughout the year; Lands End to John O Groats. I log my weekly mileage from running and cycling with the race organisers until it totals the distance (605 miles) they post on Facebook and send me postcards from where I would be so far.
Diet wise, its pretty much everything I said I was going to do last year. I'm feeling pretty good about it this time. One of the lifestyle changes I want to make is to not spend as long in the evenings watching telly and drinking cider. There are so many little things on my to do list that I never quite have time for, the silly little things, from tidying the sock drawer to putting up new pics in the gym. I don't have time because I come home from work, eat, then watch telly (even when there's nothing worth watching). So now, if there's nothing worth watching, I'll go and find something to do. Hopefully this will result in me drinking a bit less and make me a bit more active. If nothing else, I'll be ticking off all those little jobs!
Hopefully I'll speak to you a little sooner than last time!
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